Tor.com, November 2020
“Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law” by Lavie Tidhar
“On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” with Elizabeth Bear
“No Period” by Harry Turtledove
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
There is quite a mix of stories on offer this November from Tor.com. Readers will find what happens when a vampire breaks the laws of their kind, a different take on the frog-like folk of Carcosa, and a thought experiment on changing the past. All in all, it was a very entertaining month.
“Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law” by Lavie Tidhar
Orphaned as a small child due to the destruction of his village, young Jonathan has served Judge Dee, the rather austere vampire who saved him from that horrific event, for some years. Today, they are traveling to Castello d’oro, a vampire stronghold, so that Judge Dee can adjudicate matters between two vampire clans and determine who, if either, have broken the Vampire Council’s laws. They soon find out, however, that it’s not necessarily as cut and dried a case as it may seem.
Even though this is essentially a sleuth tale in which the bulk of the characters are rather monstrous supernatural beings, it’s quite charming. Judge Dee is a wonderful character, and his asceticism juxtaposes well with Johnathan’s more self-indulgent nature. The narrative itself is engaging and holds reader interest—it certainly did mine, at least.
“On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” with Elizabeth Bear
After receiving the results of a home DNA test, tenured physicist Greer Griswold (not her real name, of course) and her geneticist friend, Roberts, are stymied by an unusually high percentage of “undetermined” genetic markers in the report. She convinces him to help her investigate further, leading them to the doorstep of a failed graduate genetics student who was laughed out of university for the wild theories presented in his dissertation. Although he at first turns them away, Greer soon receives a bundle of documents containing his research. Despite the fact that the information inside seems implausible and insane, she’s determined to find out whether he was indeed on to something big.
When I first started reading Bear’s story, I was expecting the usual Lovecraftian tale here (even though Carcosa is from the writings of Ambrose Bierce), but she really upsets the apple cart with this one. This novelette takes the novelty of a home DNA test and the desire to find kindred and ancestral connections to a whole new level. The narrative holds your interest from beginning to end, is well-paced, and Greer is a relatable and likeable character. As far as the material it takes its inspiration from goes, Bear takes a vastly different approach to the Old Gods than most do when it comes to the Cthulhu mythos, one that is refreshing to say the least. It’s very much worth a read.
“No Period” by Harry Turtledove
Jack is a man who can’t stop thinking of his ex and how things could be if only he could change them. But where to start? With the relationship? Or would he need to travel even further back, to change the very moment when things started going wrong with the world at large, leading up to this moment in his life? And even if he could, would it make any difference with his ex?
An interesting story, this one, and difficult to summarize well. Turtledove’s tale is written in the second-person as a stream of consciousness narrative, a single, continuous, never-ending (not really) story without any sign of a period, sentence-closing punctuation, or paragraph return whatsoever. Because of that, the story is a bit of a wild ride—as Jack explores his thoughts on life, cycles, and relationships, the pace of the narrative intensifies. Hint—keep the opening sentence in mind as you reach the end. If you’re like me, you’ll smile at the trick the author employs there. This is really a fun little read, even if it looks a tad visually daunting on the page.