Galaxy SF #263, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2024
“Praxis” by David Gerrold (excerpt, not reviewed)
“You Recognized Her” by Zdravka Evtimova
“Dusk of the Dead” by Gareth L. Powell
“Constant Dawn” by Eliane Boey
“The Barrow King” by Christopher Ruocchio
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Galaxy, published from 1950 to 1980, was one of the most important science fiction magazines of the twentieth century. Its influence on the genre was on the same level as Amazing Stories, Astounding, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Under editor H. L. Gold, it gained a reputation for less emphasis on technology and a greater focus on social change and satire.
Publisher and editor Justin T. O’Conor Sloane resurrects the magazine in a new format. The first issue is available without charge on the publication’s website.
With SFWA Grand Master Robert Silverberg as contributing editor, this reborn magazine promises to pay honor to its past, while looking forward to the future.
The new Galaxy plans to pay eight cents per word for fiction, but writers should be aware that submissions are currently by invitation only. Readers should know that a print version of the magazine is not yet available, nor are subscriptions.
“You Recognized Her” by Zdravka Evtimova takes place on a planet where the topography undergoes sudden changes during certain periods of time. During these occasions, nothing is illegal, and the wealthy pay to murder those they hire. Later, these victims can usually be resurrected at a special place on the planet, although there are some restrictions. The rich also hire people to have body parts dissolved in the world’s ocean. These mutilations cannot be healed.
The narrator works at collecting the bodies of the murdered and taking them to the place of resurrection. The plot deals with his relationship with a woman who has had parts of her body permanently lost to the planet’s ocean, and with the woman who hired her for this purpose.
As can be seen, this is a grim combination of science fiction and horror. Even in what must be an utterly decadent society, it seems extraordinary that the sadistic activities of the wealthy are tolerated, and that there are many people willing to be hired as their victims. The sudden, often violent upheavals of the planet’s landmasses add to the story’s uneasy mood, but are not relevant to the gruesome plot.
Only one page long, “Dusk of the Dead” by Gareth L. Powell features zombies similar to those found in horror movies, but these undead beings are harmless to the living. The narrator speaks to one, and receives a reply concerning its desires.
The point of the story seems to be what the zombie says, but I found its words ambiguous. If nothing else, this variation on an overused theme is a relief from the usual hordes of flesh-eating undead.
The italicized title of “Constant Dawn” by Eliane Boey refers to a derelict spaceship. The narrator and colleagues struggle to retrieve the vessel from a dangerous region of space. Flashbacks deal with the narrator’s relationship with a lover, who chose to remain on a space station rather than accompany the narrator on salvage missions.
The story combines space opera adventure with introspective characterization. The author creates a complex, imaginative future. The plot creates suspense, but the conclusion is sudden and anticlimactic.
“The Barrow King” by Christopher Ruocchio features an adventurer who battles would-be magicians who plan to sacrifice children in order to bring a long dead sorcerer to life. The hero has an enchanted weapon and magical abilities, but faces enemies at least as powerful.
This is an old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery yarn that would not be out of place in the yellowing pages of a 1930’s issue of Weird Tales. We are only given small hints as to the hero’s extraordinary back story, so the present work reads like a sequel. Readers nostalgic for the glory days of pulp fiction may enjoy it, but others will find it overly familiar.
Victoria Silverwolf would like to point out that editor Justin T. O’Conor Sloane is the great-great-grandson of T. O’Conor Sloane, editor of Amazing Stories from 1929 to 1938.