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Interzone

New Science Fiction & Fantasy 2023 BRITISH FANTASY AWARD WINNER

INTERZONE 271

6th Jul, 2017

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New subscribers can get this issue free by using "IZ271 FREE" as their Shopper Reference during checkout.

Cover:

Item image: Interzone 271

417h3r105 v4 by 2017 cover artist Dave Senecal

 

Contents:

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Fiction:

The Rocket Farmer by Julie C. Day
illustrated by Richard Wagner

Item image: The Rocket Farmer

SARNAI

I sit at my kitchen table and watch as my soon-to-be ex-husband, David, assembles cardboard boxes and labels each one in neat block letters. This is David’s third packing weekend and once again our daughter has made herself scarce; Sophie has no problem with late-at-night drunk mom or lonely stoned dad, but watching us sort through the flotsam of our former marriage – it’s too much.

 

Gods in the Blood (of those who rise) by Tim Casson
illustrated by Martin Hanford 

Item image: Gods in the Blood (of those who rise)

For a science teacher Everett held some controversial views. He had to be careful what he said to colleagues and friends, as he didn’t want to be labelled a eugenicist. For that reason, over dinner or drinks, he would slip a milder version of his opinions into the conversation, testing the water, seeking an ally. Everett believed that human evolution was impeded by sentiment. Misplaced sentiment encouraged idiots to flourish and stagnate the gene pool. The example that he always pictured when considering this theory was his former pupil Ched Mullin. Everett thought about the Mullin boy every day, even after ten years. Any crass behaviour reminded him, and right now it was urine on the floor between the toilet cubicles.

 

If Your Powers Fail You in a City Under Tin by Michael Reid
illustrated by Jim Burns

Item image: If Your Powers Fail You in a City Under Tin

The tacked-up roofs of Duolunduo tremble as they are struck again and again from above. Jun watches the strings of fairy lights bounce with each strike. Little cascades of dust fall from the cracks between the tin sheets. He huddles under a reinforced awning, pulls out his phone. He’s trying to find a safe route to the Worm, but he compulsively checks his texts from Riel instead. There’s only the same one he’s been staring at for the last fifty-two hours:

just saved a school from a mortar attack <3 love you <3

 

Chubba Luna by Eliot Fintushel

Item image: Chubba Luna

They were made for each other, were Sheila and Mo. Just like everybody else: bashertes.

 

When I Close My Eyes by Chris Barnham
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

Item image: When I Close My Eyes

The rock fall killed me. I just didn’t know how long it would take to die.

I was face down with something heavy on the back of my legs. My visor display was dark. If the suit had lost power, death was already at my elbow.

“Tak, confirm operational.” A soft insect buzzing. “Repeat, confirm operational.”

“[buzz] – [click] – confirm. But I’ve had better days, dude.”

“You and me both. Run full systems check.”

“Running, dude.” Some joker programmed the suit computer with the voice of Keanu Reeves in Point Break, squinting in the sun and waxing his surfboard. Usually it cheered me up.

I chinned the radio switch. “Willis, this is Dar­lo. Do you read?”

Static.

 

Cryptic Female Choice by Andy Dudak
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

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1

In the dream-state of my polyploidal mixing fever, I see your fathers as they were. I smell and touch them again: Henry, Jinshuo, Hadi, Arkady. each is beautiful in his own way. I meet them and fall for them again, as though for the first time.

And I have sex with them again.

…MAPT gene variant, a charm against neurodegeneration…

…APOE polymorphism, for longevity…

I babble, as if speaking to my future child. I sing as I mix and mold you, but of course you can’t hear me. You’re still just an unpacked ovum, and the genetics I select from sperm stored inside of me.

 

Black Static 59 Out Now:

Item image: Black Static 59

Black Static is published at the same time, and in the same format, as Interzone. Issue 59 contains new dark fiction by seven women writers: Kristi DeMeester, Damien Angelica Walters, YZ Chin, Sarah Read, Rosalie Parker, Kirsten Kaschock, and Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam. Cover art is by Richard Wagner. Features and reviews are supplied by Ralph Robert Moore, Lynda E. Rucker, Gary Couzens (films) and Peter Tennant (books by women writers, plus an in-depth interview with Gwendolyn Kiste). To take out a discounted subscription to Black Static, or Black Static + Interzone combined, please visit this website's shop.

Potential subscribers outside the UK should note that six issues of 12-issue subscriptions have absolutely no postage added: you'll pay exactly the same as a UK subscriber.

New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS59 FREE" as your Shopper's Reference during checkout. The same offer applies to Interzone (use "IZ271 FREE") and a dual subscription to both magazines (use "IZ271 + BS59 FREE").

 

Interface:

Future Interrupted: From Beneath You, It Transforms
Jonathan McCalmont

Like many of science fiction’s most prominent leftists, China Miéville has a tendency to downplay his own politics when going about the business of writing novels. It (almost) goes without saying that leftist imagery abounds in his work and that those of us who are already sympathetic to leftist views are always going to leap at the chance to detect a resonant theme, but it would be nice to read the work of a committed socialist and not wind up feeling as though you’re being asked to squint and fill in the blanks for yourself. Imagine if The City & the City had been less devoutly abstract and Miéville had taken all of that well-oiled metaphorical machinery and applied it directly to an analysis of the real world. Imagine if Iron Council had strayed beyond the merely symbolic and engaged with the real politics of revolutionary struggle. Well… Imagine no longer as despite being a work of non-fiction, Miéville’s latest book gives us an opportunity to discover what he is capable of achieving when he allows his writing to be politically engaged. In truth, October is not just one of the very best things that China Miéville has ever written, it is a book that contains more blue-sky utopian speculative writing than most conventional science fiction novels.

 

Time Pieces: Broken River: The Conversation and The Discourse
Nina Allan

In a blog post supplemental to his Future Interrupted column, Jonathan McCalmont paused to reflect upon my own piece about the mainstreaming of science fiction, and noted how personally divided he felt on this issue: “I must admit to being somewhat torn on this particular issue as I think that, historically at least, science fiction is a literature with its own unique cultural history… I’m torn because while I like the idea of science fiction being its own distinct thing, I’m not actually all that interested by what that thing is currently producing. Gernsbackian fiction may have been radical back in the day but decades of creative stasis make science fiction’s claims to uniqueness feel like nothing more than cultural conservatism. As the Shadow Clarke has moved from personal shortlists to the official shortlist, I am horrified by how much better science fiction seems to become the second it is published by anyone other than a genre publisher.”

 

Ansible Link
David Langford

News, obituaries.

 

Reviews:

Book Zone
Maureen Kincaid Speller, Peter Tennant, Barbara Melville, Stephen Theaker, Duncan Lunan, Jack Deighton, Lawrence Osborn

Item image: IZ271 Book Zone

Books reviewed include THE RIFT by Nina Allan (plus author interview conducted by Maureen Kincaid Speller), THE STARGAZER’S EMBASSY by Eleanor Lerman, THE SWITCH by Justina Robson, EX LIBRIS edited by Paula Guran, THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS by Aliette de Bodard, ORBITAL CLOUD by Taiyo Fujii, SPEAKING TO SKULL KINGS AND OTHER STORIES by Emily B. Cataneo (plus author interview conducted by Peter Tennant)

 

Mutant Popcorn
Nick Lowe

Item image: IZ271 Mutant Popcorn

Films reviewed include WONDER WOMAN, TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT, KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, THE MUMMY, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: SALAZAR’S REVENGE, ALIEN: COVENANT, A DOG’S PURPOSE, THE RED TURTLE, OKJA, COLOSSAL, MARJORIE PRIME

 

How To Buy Interzone:

Interzone is available in good shops in the UK and many other countries around the world, including the USA where it is stocked by Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and elsewhere. If your local store (in any country) doesn't stock the magazine they should easily be able to order it for you so please don't hesitate to ask them. You can also buy the magazine from a variety of online retailers, or a version for e-readers from places like Weightless Books, Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, etc.

The best thing though is to follow any of the Shop/Buy Now/Subscribe links on this website and buy this new issue (scroll down to the bottom of the Shop), or better still take out a subscription (at the top of the Shop), direct with us. You'll receive issues much cheaper and much quicker, and the magazine will receive a much higher percentage of the revenue. Magazines like Interzone cannot survive without subscriptions, so thanks for your support.

Potential subscribers outside the UK should note that six issues of 12-issue subscriptions have absolutely no postage added: you'll pay exactly the same as a UK subscriber.

SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers can get this issue free by using "IZ271 FREE" as their Shopper's Reference during checkout.

 

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