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A review by richardleis
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 117 by Zhang Ran, Nancy Kress, Michael Flynn, Neil Clarke, Alethea Kontis, E. Catherine Tobler, Sam J. Miller, Matthew Simmons, Chris Urie, Margaret Ronald
5.0
One of my favorite short stories of all time. With this story, Miller, like Charlie Jane Anders and other writers I have read recently, surprised me with what was possible in a short story. It's a mistake to dismiss this story as fan fiction. Not that there is anything wrong with fan fiction either, but the source material here is a starting point for what becomes a fresh perspective that leads to some chilling and revolutionary truths. The final lines of the story really resonated with me; they represent an expansion of what it means to be a monster or other, and also human. Miller is doing great work in this story (as in all his stories and in his first novel, The Art of Starving, which I'm reading now) that is more than just appreciation for a great horror film from the 1980s.
This was the first story I read by Miller, and led me to track down more of them. Every single one has been fantastic. Needless to say, Miller is one of my absolute favorite writers writing today, and of all time.
Merged review:
Brief descriptions I read about "And Then, One Day, the Air was Full of Voices" by Margaret Ronald and "Things With Beards" by Sam J. Miller convinced me to subscribe right then to a year of Clarkesworld Magazine, and I'm so glad I did. Ronald's story finds the melancholy, family drama, and distance in first contact. Miller's story is a direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing and it finds the monsters and hidden selves already beneath our skin even before invasion. I was also surprised to find a reprint of Nancy Kress's amazing "Pathways" and happily read it a second time. Because of this strange and often awful American election cycle, the background politics in "Pathways" resonated even more with this reading.
I enjoyed the transcendence of beings in ".identity" by E. Catherine Tobler and the beautiful and sad horror of "The Promise of God" by Michael Flynn. I struggled with the lengthy "The Snow of Jinyang" by Zhang Ran but its twists and turns near the end and unexpected appearance of and explanation for the internet were worth the effort. A helpful introduction provided context without which the story would have been even more difficult to read. The way history asserts itself makes for a compellingly ending.
The nonfiction essay about the microbiome by Matthew Simmons, interview with Guy Gabriel Kay by Chris Urie, and inspiration from Alethea Kontis were wonderful. In the issue's "Editor's Desk", Neil Clarke sold me on his anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year. I have read a few of these stories and if they are reflective of the overall quality of the anthology, then I am eager to read the rest of them.
One of the disadvantages of reading magazines on a Kindle is how the cover art is too small and missing color. There are other ways, though, to view cover art in detail, and Vincent LAÏK's exquisitely beautiful artwork is available to view on his website:
https://vincent_laik.artstation.com/portfolio/xtc
There is so much activity occurring in the artwork set against a spacescape of planets almost too close for comfort. Meanwhile, the silhouette of a character and mount is almost lost in the foreground, adding amazing juxtapositions between enormous and small, active and still, detailed and obscured.
This was the first story I read by Miller, and led me to track down more of them. Every single one has been fantastic. Needless to say, Miller is one of my absolute favorite writers writing today, and of all time.
Merged review:
Brief descriptions I read about "And Then, One Day, the Air was Full of Voices" by Margaret Ronald and "Things With Beards" by Sam J. Miller convinced me to subscribe right then to a year of Clarkesworld Magazine, and I'm so glad I did. Ronald's story finds the melancholy, family drama, and distance in first contact. Miller's story is a direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing and it finds the monsters and hidden selves already beneath our skin even before invasion. I was also surprised to find a reprint of Nancy Kress's amazing "Pathways" and happily read it a second time. Because of this strange and often awful American election cycle, the background politics in "Pathways" resonated even more with this reading.
I enjoyed the transcendence of beings in ".identity" by E. Catherine Tobler and the beautiful and sad horror of "The Promise of God" by Michael Flynn. I struggled with the lengthy "The Snow of Jinyang" by Zhang Ran but its twists and turns near the end and unexpected appearance of and explanation for the internet were worth the effort. A helpful introduction provided context without which the story would have been even more difficult to read. The way history asserts itself makes for a compellingly ending.
The nonfiction essay about the microbiome by Matthew Simmons, interview with Guy Gabriel Kay by Chris Urie, and inspiration from Alethea Kontis were wonderful. In the issue's "Editor's Desk", Neil Clarke sold me on his anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year. I have read a few of these stories and if they are reflective of the overall quality of the anthology, then I am eager to read the rest of them.
One of the disadvantages of reading magazines on a Kindle is how the cover art is too small and missing color. There are other ways, though, to view cover art in detail, and Vincent LAÏK's exquisitely beautiful artwork is available to view on his website:
https://vincent_laik.artstation.com/portfolio/xtc
There is so much activity occurring in the artwork set against a spacescape of planets almost too close for comfort. Meanwhile, the silhouette of a character and mount is almost lost in the foreground, adding amazing juxtapositions between enormous and small, active and still, detailed and obscured.