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Tag: A to Z

A to Z Reviews: “Auriga’s Streetcar,” by Jean Rabe

A to Z Reviews: “Auriga’s Streetcar,” by Jean Rabe

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A to Z Reviews

Growing up in northern Illinois with an interest in astronomy, I was very familiar with the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The 40-inch refractor telescope, built in 1893, was the largest of its type until the 43 inch Swedish Solar Telescope was completed in 2001, although only 39 inches of that telescope are usable.

In 2004, Jean Rabe published the short story “Auriga’s Streetcar” in Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers’ anthology Space Stations. Rabe’s heroine, Hoshi, has taken a private spacecraft to the abandoned Yerkes-Two space station on the eve of its deorbiting to see what she can salvage, with her focus on the40-inch lenses that had once be used at the Williams Bay Observatory, but which had since but relocated to the space station.

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A to Z Reviews: “The South China Sea,” by zm quỳnh

A to Z Reviews: “The South China Sea,” by zm quỳnh

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A to Z Reviews

In my collection, the letter Q is represented by 12 authors and 28 stories, ranging from Qitongren’s “The Spring of Dongke Temple,” which I discussed last week and ending with zm quỳnh’s “The South China Sea,” which appeared in the anthology Genius Loci, edited by Jaym Gates in 2016. I should note that my story “Well of Tranquility” also appears in Genius Loci.  The only letter represented by fewer authors is X (two authors and four stories).

The title provides the setting for quỳnh’s story, which looks at the plight of refugees fleeing from war in Việt Nam. The narrator’s family owns a boat and uses it to attempt to ferry the refugees from their homeland to a safer place. Unfortunately, the sea is as dangerous and implacable enemy as the militaries fighting over their home countries. The threats of storms and pirates are pervasive and as the story opens, it is clear that over several attempts to ferry people to safety, the family has failed, resulting in the deaths of many refugees and family members, and the ultimate return to Việt Nam.

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A to Z Reviews: “The Spring of Dongke Temple,” by Qitongren

A to Z Reviews: “The Spring of Dongke Temple,” by Qitongren

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A to Z ReviewsQitongren offers a mix of fantasy and fairy tale with “The Spring of Dongke Temple.” Originally published in Chinese in 2007, it was translated by Liu Jue in 2019 for publication in the anthology of Chinese science fiction Ticket to Tomorrow and Other Stories. In 2020, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer selected the story for The Big Book of Modern Fantasy.

“The Spring of Dongke Temple” opens with a cautionary tale of a woodsman who stumbled upon the isolated Buddhist temple in the mountains and after a brief stay there returned to his family refusing to say anything about the temple except to note the proliferation of swallows in the ruins. The brief description gives the temple a feeling that it might not be out of place in the tales of H.P. Lovecraft.

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A to Z Review: “Cronus,” by Marianne Puxley

A to Z Review: “Cronus,” by Marianne Puxley

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A to Z Reviews

Just as Avis Pabel only published one science fiction story, so, too, did Marianne Puxley. Puxley’s only sf short story, “Cronus,” appeared in the May 1989 issue of Interzone.

Rhea and Tyrrell area married and expecting a baby in a rather amorphous future. Tyrrell sees Rhea’s pregnancy as a chance to move into a Community called Cronus, which he sees as a beneficial place to live, safe from the “baneful Greenwomen” who are presented as some sort of bogeyman living outside the safe communities. Rhea isn’t sure it is the right choice, but eventually agrees.

Life for Rhea in the Community is anything but idyllic. She dislikes the regimentation and finds that being a woman means she is a second class citizen, expected to be a housekeeper and to take care of her husband who does useful work for the Community. Most of the women belong to the Wives’ Federation, but Rhea refuses to join, seeing it as a step toward giving permission to have her individuality taken from her.

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A to Z Review: “Basic Agreement,” by Avis Pabel

A to Z Review: “Basic Agreement,” by Avis Pabel

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A to Z Reviews

“Basic Agreement,”  by Avis Pabel appeared in the September 1958 issue of Astounding and was reprinted in the December UK issue of  the magazine. It is the only story by Pabel that appears in the Internet Science Fiction Database, although she wrote articles under the name Avis Brick that appeared in the magazine Persuasion, which was published by the Nathaniel Branden Institute, part of the Objectivist movement championing Ayn Rand.

“Basic Agreement” is an odd little story of Marjorie, who insists she sees something out of the  corner of her eye in her bedroom each night after her parents put her to bed. Her father has little patience with her shenanigans. The fact that Marjorie is unable to describe what she saws just serves to make him less willing to offer her sympathy. Instead, he compares Marjorie to her older sister Jill, who has apparently died and was either a perfect child or whose death has sanctified her in her parents’ memories.

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A to Z Review: “The Pagan Rabbi,” By Cynthia Ozick

A to Z Review: “The Pagan Rabbi,” By Cynthia Ozick

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A to Z Reviews

Over the past several years, I’ve embarked on a series of year-long review cycles at Black Gate. In 2018, I reviewed a story-a-day to coincide with an author whose birthday it was. In 2022, I selected stories completely at random from my collection to review. In both of those cases, the projects served to find forgotten and minor works of science fiction that spanned a range of years. They also served to make me read stories and authors who I haven’t read before, even if they were in my collection.

For this year’s project, I’ve compiled a list of all the stories and novels in my collection. I then identified the first and last works for each letter of the alphabet and over the next twelve months, I’ll be looking at those works of fiction, starting with Vance Aandahl’s “Bad Luck” and ending with David Lee Zweifler’s “Wasted Potential.” Looking at the 52 works (two for each letter), I find that I’ve only reviewed one of the works previously. Interestingly, given the random nature of the works, only three novels made the list, while four anthologies have multiple stories on the list. The works range in publication date from 1911’s “The Hump,” by Fernan Caballero to Zweifler’s story from last year.

The letter O provides another one of those nice coincidences in stories. Last week, I reviewed Jack Oakley’s “Fiat Silva” which explored a young boy’s commune with nature. This week, Cynthia Ozick writes of a rabbi who similarly communes with nature, although with a darker outcome.

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A to Z Reviews: “Fiat Silva” by Jack Oakley

A to Z Reviews: “Fiat Silva” by Jack Oakley

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A to Z Reviews

Jack Oakley published two science fiction short stories in the mid 90s. His debut, “The Tragedy of KL,” appeared in Weird Tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg. His second story, “Fiat Silva,” was bought by the same editorial team and appeared in Enchanted Forests the following year.

While on a family camping trip, Adams finds the birds and the trees talking to him. Astounded by the wonder of being able to hear the trees, he learns that they talk to everyone. What sets him apart is that he actually spoke back to the trees. An unapologeticy environmentalist story, the trees describe the process of deforestation to Adam and ask for his help in stopping their plight. Adam, quite reasonably responds that as a young boy, there is little he can do to stop deforestation.

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A to Z Reviews: “Butterflies Like Jewels,” by Eric Nylund

A to Z Reviews: “Butterflies Like Jewels,” by Eric Nylund

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A to Z ReviewsEric Nylund’s “Butterflies Like Jewels” appeared in Elemental, an charity anthology  published to support relief efforts for the 2004  Indian Ocean Tsunami that struck on Boxing Day. The anthology was co-edited by Alethea Kontis and Steven Savile and all the publisher’s and authors’ profits were donated to the Save the Children Tsunami Relief Fund.

Nylund opened his story with a quote from Sir Eustace Carter Van Diem, the leader of a fictitious expedition to search for the Nile in 1841. While Van Diem and his companions were never heard from again, Nylund jumps to the modern era when one of Van Diem’s descendants, Edward Van Diem, is living in the Oceanview senior resident facility. Van Diem has garnered the attention of Dr. Lang because Van Diem is the last known person to talk to Dr. Ambrose before he went missing and Lang and Ambrose’s long and rocky relationship has led the police to believe that Lang may be responsible for Ambrose’s disappearance.

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A to Z Reviews: “Signs and Symbols,” by Vladimir Nabokov

A to Z Reviews: “Signs and Symbols,” by Vladimir Nabokov

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A to Z ReviewsVladimir Nabokov originally published “Signs and Symbols” in the New Yorker on May 15, 1948, although the editor, Katharine White, switched the order of the title to “Symbols and Signs.” Nabakov changed it back for subsequent publication, as well as reverting other changes White had made to the story. In 2020, Ann and Jeff Vandermeer included the story in their massive anthology The Big Book of Modern Fantasy.

A couple is trying to do their parental duty by visiting their son for his birthday. Despite loving their son, the fact that he suffers from referential mania and lives in an asylum makes them vaguely uncomfortable in visiting him as they are never quite sure what to expect, whether he’s having a good or bad day, and how well he will interact with the real world.

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A to Z Reviews: “Know Your Target Audience,” by Dan Mygind

A to Z Reviews: “Know Your Target Audience,” by Dan Mygind

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A to Z Reviews

In 2010, Carl-Eddy Skovgaard selected several examples of Danish science fiction to be translated into English. The stories were published in the anthology Sky City and included Dan Mygind’s “Know Your Target Audience,” which originally appeared in 2007 as “Kend din målgruppe” in Skovgaard’s anthology Lige under overfladen: en dansk sf originalantologi.

Mygind’s story is set in a futuristic world five decades after a dirty bomb exploded in the Copenhagen subway system, leaving the city uninhabitable. Straight Talk is an entertainment and news, or perhaps propaganda, organization that has just had a major success running the World Song Competition. While celebrating, Straight Talk CEO Ole Kraft finds himself cornered by Peter Nielsen, one of the company’s employees who has a tendency toward believing in conspiracy theories.

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