InterGalactic Medicine Show #40, July/August 2014
Reviewed by Harlen Bayha
Alex Shvartsman’s “The Golem of Deneb Seven” mashes together war, the Jewish faith, and the practicalities of living on the frontier of human expansion into the galaxy. Rivkah, the 11-year-old daughter of a Jewish family, tells the story of her family’s flight from Earth to the outer colonies to avoid interplanetary conflict. When Deneb Seven eventually gets invaded by foot-soldiers supported by armored mechs, her family leaves home to seek shelter far from civilized areas.
Without food or weapons, and caring for three small children, tensions rise within the family between Rivkah’s father, grandfather, and mother as they attempt to find safety. After discovering an armored mech, the conflict within the family climaxes, as they now have the opportunity to engage in the conflict or to turn away from their neighbors who are also under threat. Recommended for its complex story incorporating elements of war, sacrifice, and pacifism, and its unusual commentary on the marketing of heroism.
“Aubrey Comes to Yellow High” by James Van Pelt combines two overlapping settings, a high school and the American Old West in the mind of a young girl named Aubrey. Not knowing her level of sanity made the story difficult to picture and understand at first, because some of the characters and effects from each world cross between the different realities. Aubrey seems to be the only contemporary person aware of the effect, and she has lived with the overlap for so long that she takes it as a dreary fact of life. Aubrey observes deadly showdowns throughout her school day, and yet the biggest challenge in her life is whether she can become a student class representative. The juxtaposition of the two makes for an odd commentary on what it means to be American today and what it meant 200 years ago.
In “The Sound of Distant Thunder” by Mike Barretta, Diallo, a young man from Africa, discovers a machine called the Tutor. It instructs him during his early years, encouraging his mental and physical development. When the Tutor has completed his schooling, Diallo decides to become an astronaut, and the Tutor provides him with a mysterious address. All Diallo has to do to get there is smuggle himself across the Atlantic, past local war criminals, and befriend a deadly chess-enthusiast robot. The story questions whether first-world citizens have what it takes to become hardened explorers willing to venture out to the stars, and what those same citizens might do if they wanted someone else to go first.
“Fantasiestück in A Major” by Bud Webster poses three allegorical situations, and a fourth which seems to be a self-referencing commentary on his previous stories. The first three allegories involve a man who has a whale of a dream, a dragon slayer, and a person who feels compelled to tell the truth. The story characters play second fiddle to the needs of the allegories, but the layers of meaning embedded in the piece convey a complex critique of the state of the world, or maybe on the state of fantasy and science fiction writing. Recommended for readers who enjoy exploratory literature and social commentary.
M.K. Hutchins introduces us to a world just barely restrained by gods, amidst a wild whorl of possibilities in “Golden Chaos.” Each pantheon or god imbues a region of the habitable world with different characteristics, and physical laws change as you cross the borders between these lands. The order imposed is fortunate, because the undefined Chaos in areas unclaimed by gods takes on the shapes of a person’s fears and tends to kill them within minutes.
Trygve has to enter the Chaos because he cannot fulfill a marriage contract. He blames his untrustworthy and possibly autistic brother for this failure, and has to figure a way to survive his predicament. While the ending wraps up quite elegantly, unfortunately, the setup seemed a bit too convenient.
“Roundabout” by Nathaniel Lee wraps up this issue by hitchhiking to the end of the road, literally. The narrator searches for her lost brother who she cannot remember, for reasons she barely understands, while facing off against powers she cannot possibly overcome. To find her brother, she needs to confront the sentient center of all roads, which has grown to criss-cross the planet since ancient times. If she cannot convince the road to return her brother to her, she hopes to slay it. What side-effects might follow should she actually accomplish her Sisyphean task, she doesn’t really know or care, so long as she finds her brother.
She is doomed, yet she has a compelling complexity. She drives toward the collision with the assuredness of a psychopath, and when she is shown mercy and kindness, she doesn’t recognize either. A standout story with epic characters and themes. Highly recommended.
Harlen Bayha is composed of approximately 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, 3% nitrogen, and a peppering of calcium, phosphorous, and other.