Posted by Nicky Drayden on Feb 22, 2010 in
Reviews 
Photo by Ctd 2005 Creative Commons
Published by: Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 2009
The Story:
Virginia has trained hard to be the moon’s first long-term resident. She’s prepared for the vast moments of loneliness punctuated by stardom during her weekly transmissions home to Earth. Not that she’s ever felt particularly tied to one city over another, but she’s American through and through. She even entertains the Vice President who hitched a ride on a supply ship, though his visit is cut short when he receives news that the situation with some foreign country is quickly deteriorating.
Then the supply ship stops coming. It’d been blown up, and there’s no money to replace it. Through a static-filled connection, Virginia reassures the Deputy Director that she’ll be fine. The moonbase is supposed to be self-sufficient after all, and she’s better equipped to be alone up there than any astronaut outside of Russia. The Deputy Director doesn’t have the heart to tell Virginia that there’s no longer a Russia. A few weeks later, Virginia can’t get a connection to the Deputy Director at all.
The Craft: Beginnings
SPOILERS
The story opens up with a clever line about how everyone had wrongly predicted that people would quickly get bored of hearing about the mission. This line really hooked me because of the truth underneath it. Space is pretty boring. It’s forgettable, beyond thirty-second news blips. But as it turns out, people are interested in the human face — Virginia prancing around for the cameras, making the moonbase her own with posters and mementos from home. She’d been allowed to bring everything she wanted, thanks to the efficiency of the Valero thermocakes.
As the next few scenes continue, we discover that Virginia’s mission is more of a giant product placement ad than anything, with Harper-Doubleday donating a shelf of books and Benjamin Moore donating buckets of paint for which Virginia has to come up with creative uses. This scenario, as funny as it reads, strikes a chord with me. For a project like this to be economically feasible, you can bet there’d be corporations ready to drop big bucks on this mission. Why be the official sponsor of a sports stadium when you could have your name plastered across an entire moonbase?
Despite the minor inconveniences that distract Virginia from her work, things are going pretty well. The hydroponic garden is blooming, her experiments are producing results, and she’s had no detrimental health effects due to space exposure. Here we get some good grounding details and build up some setting right before all hell breaks loose. In the span of a few sentences, we go from Virginia having the time of her life to a world war. Virginia soon finds herself cut off from Earth. The reader gets a sneak peak into what’s going on through the Deputy Director’s eyes. We know despite his calmness as he speaks to Virginia that his world is about to end. This POV shift was a little awkward for me, but I enjoyed the insight that it brought, and I savored having a bit of knowledge that Virginia didn’t.
This story is high in concept and setting. From the very beginning, the character comes off as secondary, and we get to see why in the second part of this story. Virginia goes mad and her sense of self becomes entangled in the moonbase itself as she paints every surface until she has a fractal of chessboards, her mind too fluid to play just one game at a time. And just when it seems she’s got no mind left to lose, she gets some visitors, one of whom will prove that she does.
Tags: beginnings, F&SF Mag, moon, science fiction
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Feb 21, 2010 in
Reviews 
Photo by Ray Tibbitts
Author Website: http://lostmyths.net/
Published by: Chizine, 2010
The Story
It’s been four years since anyone’s heard from Vittorio, when his gift of fine Veneran chocolates shows up for our narrator’s seventeenth birthday. The box’s contents are quick to ignite unrealized passions and awaken old memories of a kiss shared between the two before Vittorio and his family disappeared without even saying goodbye. Not much is known about the mysterious European city-state of Venera, but our narrator takes it upon himself to find out as much as he can. When he finds a clue — a picture of Vittorio in the coffee table book 1001 Days and Nights in Venera by Petra Maxim — nothing will stop him from reaching this surreal land of decadence and beauty.
The Craft: Beginnings
SPOILERS
This story opens with our nameless narrator receiving a box of fine chocolates from his best friend Vittorio, of whom no one’s heard a word from in the four years since he moved away. A photo accompanies the gift, a picture of Vittorio on a colorful rooftop with the Mediterranean in the background, identified as the fabled island state of Venera. The only note wishes our narrator Happy Birthday, and nothing else. There’s a subtle desperation in the narrator’s voice, without being angsty, which hooks me in quickly. Four years and the only thing your best friend has to say is Happy Birthday? Ouch. I’m also intrigued by this fabled island state of Venera.
The rest of the first scene reveals more about our narrator, and how broken he was by Vittorio’s sudden disappearance. The taste of vermilion in the gifted delicacies is enough to plunge the narrator into a sensual, tactile fantasy — dreams of the could-have-beens if their friendship hadn’t been cut short, leaving only questions and bittersweet memories. It’s hard not to be pulled into this story with the raw emotions and vulnerability of the narrator sharing such an intimate moment.
In the next two scenes, his obsession overruns his life, to the point he gives up thoughts of attending college and his parents threaten to kick him out of the house. Still, his focus stays on finding Vittorio and discovering more about this mysterious Venera. He finally comes across a picture of Vittorio in a coffee table book, and with that clue, he empties his father’s bank accounts and books the first flight to Europe. The stage is set now, a heavily character-oriented piece with a solid motivation.
This story is a bit of a tease, lots of questions and no answers. We never get to experience Venera through the narrator’s eyes, and never find out Vittorio’s fate. Venera pushes him away no matter which way he approaches the city. But the fun of it is watching him squirm, seeing the lengths he’ll go through to find Vittorio, and the long shot plans he implements only for a small chance of reaching the mysterious city. The beginning of this story hooked me into the narrator’s plight effectively, and I was more than willing to go on this meandering journey with him.
Tags: beginnings, Chizine, dark, queer fiction
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Feb 13, 2010 in
Reviews Published by Fantasy Magazine, February 1, 2010
The Story:
The Blue Heart clan prides itself on its hospitality, offering a complete stranger room in their already cramped underground quarters on the eve of the stinging rains. It’d be barbaric to leave a man above ground to be burned alive, so there’s no doubt one of the clan’s nests will make room for him. It’s only a matter of which one.
Roday watches as the families scramble with their last-minute preparations to go underground, helping out when she can. But she’s an old woman with no family of her own, not much use to anyone. Sure the other women smile at her, make polite conversation, but no one will offer her accommodations during the stinging rain. Roday holds onto hope despite herself, hinging her fate on the strength of thinning family lines. But when the stranger comes to her, his accent thick and his words bent sideways to her ear, Roday learns that her life might still be useful to someone after all.
The Craft: Beginnings
SPOILERS
The opening sentence is a mouthful at nearly sixty words, completely glossing over the introduction of the stranger for some interesting details and world building. We quickly learn that family gossip is important to these people, and that they’re living in a polyandrous society, possibly matriarchal. The end of the paragraph sets an urgent tone, women working to beat the oncoming stinging rains that will force the clan below ground. This paragraph works overtime, giving us setting, some characterization, some interesting details, and a looming problem.
In the next few paragraphs, the problem intensifies. We find out that families are arguing about family lines and obligations to take relatives in. The importance of family ties is reinforced here. Resources are slim and space is tight, but there’s no doubt that some family will offer to provide shelter for the stranger, because that is the Blue Heart clan’s way. And yet the reader feels uneasy about Roday’s situation. Her own position has not been secured, and although she has a hard time admitting it to herself, it’s obvious that everyone is avoiding her. And so we come to Roday’s real problem and the premise of the story — what worth is an old woman to anyone?
This story hits at a fear that all readers can relate to. It’s easy to slip into Roday’s point of view, feeling useless, hopeless. Then the stranger enters her life, and despite his odd manners and twisted speech, he reaches out to her in his own way. He knows the importance of life, and is trying to atone for the three lives that he’d taken. He’s hurting, and Roday doesn’t understand why he won’t take the Blue Heart clan’s offer for safety, to live. But for the stranger, living is not enough.
This very effective beginning makes the ending really resonate. The themes of obligation and kinship set up in the first few paragraphs of the story run strongly and effectively through the entire piece. The forces that make Roday an outcast in the beginning are the same ones that deliver her salvation. The solution is a simple one in plot, but huge in characterization. The stranger saves her with a tie of kinship, a priceless gift to Roday, and her very life brings the stranger closer to fixing and unfixable wound in his own heart.
Tags: beginnings, fantasy, Fantasy Mag
