A to Z Reviews: “Side Effects,” by Julian Saari
Julian Saari offers up a fish tale of a bar story in “Side Effects.” This short piece is the only work he has listed on the Internet Science Fiction Database and it appeared in the August 1991 issue of Analog, alongside a Pern story by Anne McCaffrey and the second part of the serialization of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Barrayar, impressive company.
Given the nature of the short story, it is appropriate that Saari sets it in a bar, called Timonescu’s. Even more appropriately, Timonescu’s is part of a fishing lodge, where one would expect the clientele to tell tall tales about the sizes of their catches, or more likely the ones that got away. To this end, the bar’s owner, Ion Timonescu approaches the story he is told be a stranger with a certain amount of skepticism.