I have to admit that I hadn't picked up a copy of Interzone before I spotted this issue poking out of the news stand, but, as the longest running British SF magazine, it's a read that's long been overdue. I blame the newsagents. Anyway, it turns out that this is the first edition in a new format, so what better place to start?
Let's look first at the cover, which caught my eye on the shelf in Wardour News next to TTA Press' sister mag for horror fiction, Black Static. It's pretty much entirely taken up by (regular Interzone cover artist) Ben Baldwin's 'The Priestess', a digital image of a hollow-eyed female in greeny blue tones plugged into some kind of super machine via an impressive head dress. Her raised palms are lit up like stigmata, emanating circuit-board-style geometric light-lines, perhaps representing her mind on some digital plane of consciousness. It doesn't really stand out from the genre style of psychedelic and digital art, but on the cover of a SF mag it suggested to me the possibility of original fiction and piqued my curiosity as to what lay inside, with stories and features well signposted along the bottom.
The magazine opens with a plain page on which a letter from the editors tells us about the new format, smaller pages, but fatter, leaving more space for stories and reviews. I'm not sure what it used to be like, but, with pages little larger than a hardback, this size felt comfortable to read. The artwork continues with a double index page, each story given it's own especially commissioned illustration by Richard Wagner, Mark Pexton, Martin Hanford, Warwick Fraser-Coombe; a really nice touch.
Next upfront is David Langford's Ansible Link, a well informed and entertaining SF diary-cum-news page (as you might expect from someone who's been doing it in one form or other since 1979). You might question what role a print newsletter has in a digital age, but as a well collated round-up this is an important part of tying the publication into the wider SF community of awards, lives and events.
It's the stories that a magazine of new fiction should ultimately be judged on though. The collection opens with the suburban, Debbie Urbanski's tale of a single parent family in the American Midwest. It's written from the perspective of a child whose mother appears to have left a commune or cult. They're poor and their new house and new reality aren't as idyllic as the old life, but you suspect there's more to it than that. Blue aliens arrive in town, more like immigrants than invaders, and despite racial tensions the mother, through economic necessity, takes them on as clients. The story is layered with meaning and stands up to a second reading. Strange and refreshing.
A couple of stories centre on parent-child bonds. 'The Messanger', Ken Liu's space age tale of planetary exploration could have been written any time since Dan Dare were it not for the concerns of a middle age protaginist trying to bond with his estranged teenage daughter. The mystery of the alien civilisation is is intriguing, but the personal story a bit predictable. Still it did go some way to satisfying my space craving.
C.W. Johnson's tale 'Outside the Cone' is more of a gritty deep space thriller, set in a penal colony of claustrophobic hulks held outside the normal rules of space/time, albeit with a first person narrator who sounds like a mother from the valleys. I like the way Johnson conveys the reality faced by the crew whilst introducing some mind bending quasi-physics as back story. You can almost see the twist coming, but it does raise some very different questions a parent's moral responsibilities.
The most original premise comes from Karl Bunker, who weaves a romantic myth for a couple of intelligent water-dwelling creatures that look like extras from Spore. Squid meets squid, squid falls in live with squid, romantic tragedy ensues. All quite neat again, but fair play for managing to suspend my cynicism.
I'm not so keen on period dramas or royal court fantasies though, and sadly Priya Sharma's story doesn't rise above this for me.
I'm also, like most of the reading population, pretty sick of vampires, yet Lavie Tidhar's story of a young female Strigoi managed to draw me in with a solar system-spanning back story, a well fleshed out future and a rather grisly piece of artwork. Probably the most satisfying of the bunch to get your teeth into (snare cymbal).
At the back of the magazine there's a good number and spread of book, DVD and film reviews. Those that I read were good and well informed, with a whole page dedicated to China Mieville's comments at the recent driver's conference in Edinburgh. It's also nice to see an interview, this month with David Brin.
Overall I felt there was a good balance between the stories and regular features. The stories themselves were varied enough to please a broad church of SF readers, even if nothing jumped out at me as strikingly original (on that front, this review of 2012 anthologies in the LA Review of Books is essential further reading). I enjoyed it enough to head back to Wardour News and try another issue though.
Rating: ***
