Scan barcode
mary_soon_lee's review
This is the 70th anniversary issue of F&SF, a milestone indeed. As ever, it contains a lovely breadth of stories, from science fiction to fantasy, from dystopic to humorous, plus two poems and a range of articles (book reviews, film reviews, et al). Remarkably, I liked every one of the dozen stories. My two favorites bookended the issue. Kelly Link's opening novelette, "The White Cat's Divorce," is a beautifully told fairy tale. Gardner Dozois's short story "Homecoming," both beautifully told and beautifully felt, closes out the issue, and stands as a memorial to Dozois, long a giant of the science fiction landscape. I note that I was glad of the three lighter pieces in the issue -- Y. M. Pang's "Little Inn on the Jianghu," Amanda Hollander's "Madness Afoot," Esther Friesner's "The Wrong Badger" -- because some of the other stories, while good, are rather bleak, ranging from the understated gentle bleakness of Maureen McHugh's "Under the Hill" to the more theatrical bleakness of "Erase, Erase, Erase" by Elizabeth Bear. A fine issue. Here's to the next seventy years.
More...