Posted by Nicky Drayden on Jan 30, 2010 in
Reviews Published by: Weird Tales, Fall 2009
The Story:
In this story, a music reviewer named Ed receives mysteriously wonderful lo-fi music by CD every month, entitled Ambient Morgue Music, which is accompanied by a photograph of a dead body and a handful of dirt. After weeks of searching, he’s finally able to track down the artist, who as it turns out, lives just up the road near Phoenix Park. But things start getting weird for Ed when he realizes that he’s never been to this park, Dublin’s largest, even though it’s so close by. Come to think of it, nobody he knows has ever talked about going to the park. Ed puts these qualms aside to investigate so he can find the source of the fantastic tracks he’d been listening to.
Ed arrives at the park, disturbed to see a colossal monument that he’d never noticed before. He’s met by Dessy, a normal-looking guy who takes him into primitive village that is anything but. When Ed gets closer, he notices that although they live in tin shanties and roast deer on a spit, the locals appear to fit squarely into the mid twenty-first century with their clothing and tech gadgets. It’s here that Ed meets Sean, the true composer of the songs Ed has enjoyed.
The Craft:
SPOILERS
Ambient Morgue Music is one of the stranger concepts that I’ve come across in a while. The story turns the purpose of the Olympics on its head — the event that’s supposed to bring people across the world together is tearing families and communities apart. Those displaced from their homes during the construction of the stadium and parking garages have made a new home of Phoenix Park, but apparently the influx of tech devices during the Dublin Olympics caused “some kind of gravity field” that left all but three of their people permanently trapped there for the past twenty years. Yes, there’s a little hand-wavium going on here, but I liked the concept and the characters, so I bit.
Sean shows Ed where he makes his music (the reptile cages at the deserted Dublin Zoo), and more importantly, how he makes his music: by taping the sounds of gas expelled from dead bodies and mixing them into grooving tunes on his computer. Ed is too dumbfounded to have a reaction, but he snags a new demo CD of some experimental dead giraffe beats, so who is he to question anyway? Ed goes home, listens to the music, and writes a piece (this story) about his adventure.
The voice is solid and smooth throughout, definitely an easy read. And I love the idea that there could be a whole-nother city within a city that no one notices. Only thing is, I don’t understand why Ed was able to leave if there was the gravity field. For me, the fact that this key logic bit wasn’t fully addressed kept me from feeling completely satisfied with the story. It could have added a little tension to the latter half of the story, but overall it was enjoyable, gross, and fun.
Tags: weird, Weird Tales
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Jan 19, 2010 in
Reviews Author Website: www.kijjohnson.com
Published by: Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2009
The Story:
Despite the sexually explicit nature of this story, it is more a chronicle of the mind and madness of a woman forced to share a cramped, dank lifeboat with a non-humanoid alien. After an unlikely mid-space collision tears apart her ship and kills her lover Gary, she finds herself in a lifeboat ill-equipped for humans. The ship consists of a tube for feeding and another for refuse, beyond which is only the alien — something like a pungent jello-mold with cilia. The only diversion from their unending days adrift is the act of constantly raping each other.
The Craft:
SPOILERS
Written in a series of twenty compact scenes, some as short as a single sentence, this story quickly immerses the reader in the awfulness of being trapped in a bad situation from which there is no escape. Nothing changes. There is only anger and resentment and vengeful sex with an alien she’s not even sure is sentient or some sort of alien houseplant. It doesn’t attempt to communicate with her, only forces its Outs into her Ins while she does the same to it. And sadly, this sparring is preferable to trying to remember the pleasures that life used to hold.
Structurally, the sentences are short and choppy for the most part, and the tone of the story comes off as mechanical and repetitive, and sort of leaves you feeling seasick, but in a good way. It encompass what life must be like for the character. Her situation degrades, though her mind keeps going back to Gary, shedding a light on the humanity she finds is quickly vanishing. By the time the ship arrives at its destination, she is so lost, not even knowing what she is anymore, and all because of a random and infinitely improbable collision in space.
Tags: Clarkesworld, literary, science fiction
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Jan 13, 2010 in
Reviews Author Website: http://www.crummy.com/
Published by: Strange Horizons, July 13, 2009
The Story:
Racism rears its ugly head early in this piece when Tark, a Red Bull guzzling dinosaur from Mars, is denied the right to bare arms by a bigoted gun shop owner. Sure he’s already got three-inch claws, so what does he need a gun for, right? But that’s not the point. Tark’s got big dreams and is looking to branch out from his current career as a motocross driver — like starring in his own action movie. He’ll be the next Vin Diesel, except with feathers and an appetite for man flesh.
Tark’s pretty sure the Man is out to get him after watching one of his motocross comrades spin out on a three-story tall monster truck that’s obviously been sabotaged. Someone out there means to do dinosaurs in. Maybe those dino-hating birdwatchers, whose organization has split into factions over whether dinosaurs are birds or lizards. Tark’s friend Entippa thinks Tark has gone off the deep end, but just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.
The Craft:
SPOILERS
Dinosaurs. Guns. Motocross. What more could you ask for in a story? Despite being ridiculously hilarious, the story really makes you care about the characters’ plights. We all know what it’s like to be stuck in a dead end job with dreams of reaching for the stars. Tark’s no different from the rest of us. So when he and Entippa are tranquilized and captured and pitted against each other in the death sport of Dino Fights, the reader feels for the gravity of their bad situation.
Fortunately for Tark, his Red Bull habit counteracts the effects of the tranquilizers and he gets to be the action hero he’s always wanted to be. Unfortunately, his decisions land him in court facing charges of murder and (arguably) cannibalism. Hijinks ensue.
This story has more than a few laugh out loud moments, and is a truly enjoyable read. It’s constantly in motion, pleasantly absurd, and yet the plot itself remains solid and connected to the wonderfully weird rules of this world.
Tags: action/adventure, comedic, cross-genre, dinosaurs, Strange Horizons
