Reactor, January 2024 – previously Tor.com.
“Also, the Cat” by Rachel Swirsky
“Liminal Spaces” by Maureen McHugh
“Evan: A Remainder” by Jordan Kurella
Reviewed by Geoff Houghton
Tor.com has undergone a name change to Reactor from 23rd January and the three stories released in January are now on the site: https://reactormag.com/fictions/original-fiction/
The first original piece in the January issue of Reactor is “Also, the Cat” by Rachel Swirsky. This entire novelette-length story takes place in and around a small farmhouse in rural America and the sole human participants are three elderly widowed sisters, with limited, but crucial, support from their cat.
The late, great, Terry Pratchett held the view that death is generally considered to be a major change in even the most pedestrian life and that, accordingly, an individual generally arrives on the other side of that great divide with a vastly different outlook on existence. These three sisters are so deeply invested in their lifestyle of pointless but deeply ingrained bickering that they disagree with him!
Death comes to all three sisters, and the cat, relatively early in the story but once across that mysterious veil they see no need to modify their behaviour towards each other because of that minor inconvenience. However, eternity is a long time, even for sisters who have managed to convert minor disagreements into decades-long grudges and arguments. With eternity to work with and a dead cat as their exemplar might it be possible to break even this deeply rutted circle? The final three-quarters of the novelette answers that question.
The second offering is “Liminal Spaces” by Maureen McHugh. It is set in the present day USA, with one deviation that converts it to SF: The female narrator is a busy engineer whose work schedule regularly takes her through many US and overseas airports. In her frequent journeys, she begins to see service corridors that mysteriously link airports that are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
The author convincingly describes the protagonist’s attempt to reconcile this assault on the supposedly known laws of physics with some well-planned and practical, if rather bold, experiments, during which she discovers that she is not alone. There are other travellers who can also see and utilise these shortcuts and our intrepid engineer learns more of the arcane rules of these mysterious bypasses from her own experiments and from some of that small community.
Potential readers are warned that the author has set up a fascinating premise, but they need not expect more. Here was a potential new understanding of space-time that might enable FTL travel. There could have been futuristic aliens operating in secret. Subspace vampires could have lured a tithe of travellers to their doom. Even that old US favourite, the wicked rulers of the deep state could have been available for unmasking. What we get is an interesting concept and a well-written, mainly harmless, story that creates a way to buy marginally cheaper burgers at a satellite airport!
Lastly, Reactor offers an unusual contemporary fantasy with “Evan: A Remainder” by Jordan Kurella. The first person narrator is Evan, an overtly gay male in the present day urban USA. In the progress of his rather self-absorbed life, our protagonist undergoes several deeply fantastical experiences which may or may not be allegorical, even within the story world.
The writing style is deliberately complex with alternate paragraphs following different timelines. The reader is strongly encouraged to pay particular attention to the paragraph headings, where evidence of date sequencing is available, and the more timid reader may even prefer to physically number or reorder the paragraphs. Reactor appears to continue in Tor.com’s tradition of publishing challenging works, but this story is not for everybody. This is modernistic prose, complex to read and with clear references to blatant and sexually aggressive behaviour, although it is all between adults and is clearly consensual.
Geoff Houghton lives the life of a retired old fogey in a leafy village in rural England and may be declared by Tangent readers to be entirely out of touch with the modern world without taking offense.