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Interzone # 214 -
01/03/2008 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
Bi-monthly magazine: UK publisher/editor address: Andy Cox, TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB6 2LB. Price: £ 3.75 (UK) $ 7.00(US). ISSN: 0264-3596. Buy Interzone in the USA - or Buy Interzone in the UK  check out website: www.ttapress.com
The diminished market for short stories means fierce competition. In this Darwinian scenario only the fittest get into print so with any magazine nowadays the standard is pretty high. 'Interzone' is Britain's flagship Science Fiction magazine and probably has the highest standards of all so, with one exception, I found all the stories good.
The one exception was the one big name writer. 'The Trace Of Him' by Christopher Priest struck me as a very trivial little fantasy. It's nicely written and downbeat which always helps with 'Interzone' but not very entertaining. It was also mercifully brief leaving plenty of room for the good stuff.
Most of this space was given over to an enjoyable novella by Jason Stoddard. 'Far Horizon' is about a very rich inventor whiz kid called Alex Farrel. It starts in a pretty near future which has genetically modified creatures, nano-technology, rapacious big corporations and the usual cyberpunk trappings. It ends thousands of years later. In between there is a Science Fiction love triangle and a lot of corporate skulduggery. The story is full of incident and could probably have been stretched to novel length.
There are quantities of plot in all the stories except Christopher Priest's. There is atmosphere and cleverness and good writing but a lot happens too. This is great. The plot free story has its place and that place is probably high brow literary fiction. We mere genre readers like to have a bit of action.
My favourite tale was 'The Scent Of Their Arrival' by Mercurio D. Rivera which packed in a lot of ideas and the best aliens I've read about since Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves'. A good SF story might tell of Earth being invaded by aliens from another dimension. A better one might tell of man's attempts to flee in starships. This one does all that but also tells of the ship's arrival at a distant planet and its attempts to negotiate with a very different race. Told from the point of view of an alien couple who communicate by scent the whole thing was marvellous. The ending is like a kick in the guts. Wonderful.
'Pseudo Tokyo' by Jennifer Linnaea was about a future where tourists can 'jump' to their destination by some kind of matter transporter. A young man jumps to Tokyo with his native guide but it turns out not to be the Tokyo he expects. It's not even in our universe. This gives rise to plenty of woe for the protagonist but intriguing developments too and another good ending.
'The Faces Of My Friends' by Jennifer Harwood-Smith was about persecution of minorities. This is a bad thing. There is an interview with Ian M. Banks about his new Culture novel 'Matter' and all the usual film and book reviews.
I gave up on 'Interzone' a few years ago because the pervading air of despair and misery in every story got me down. The stories are still pretty downbeat but this issue has revived my interest. It won't have you dancing in the streets with the joy of life but it won't bore you neither.
Eamonn Murphy
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