Publisher - Interzone

Purchase -€5 via https://interzone.press

Let’s return to the world of short fiction and just what I needed to start the Bank Holiday Weekend was Issue 300 of the acclaimed speculative fiction magazine Interzone and a fine collection of stories awaited me in this issue. Interzone brings with it a fascinating collection of non-fiction pieces, reviews and short fiction which keeps the reader on their toes.

Among the pieces I enjoyed were

Climbing Stories: How to Read Your Rebel Instruction Booklet by Aliya Whiteley - Whiteley discusses life and how fiction is supposed to instruct the way we live it. A fascinating incident of a hidden message in an RPG booklet/tome starts to questions how many of us really pay attention to messages. We get a look at Philip K Dick, Elvis Presley ans Cordwainer Smith along the way to explore how rebels and authority sometimes do mix. In some ways this helps prepare for the short fiction later in the issu ewhere often what we are told is not quite what’s going on.

Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe - gives a whirlwind look at summer movies from Furiosa, Inside Out 2 and Fly Me to the Moon. I’ve been away from the cinema a lot this year and while I want to go back in many cases it seems I haven’t missed too much! I appreciate how each movie is given time for Lowe to examine and contextualise the film.

In short fiction I enjoyed

Hate: A Genealogy by Fabio Fernandes - a brilliant and haunting example of cosmic weird fiction awaits in this story where we get told the narrator’s character’s father is now dead and so our narrator decides to meet and then kill him. Four lines that immediately grab you into the story then we go on a tale of dreamscapes, parallel lives, secret organisations, mysterious travellers in these realms with strange titles and mysterious paths. This is short fiction creating a massive story to play with and we flow dreamlike from one scene to another to explain how the narrator found this skill and what they plan to do with it. It’s a gorgeous read and then skilfully Fernandes brings us as the reader into it too and that I reacted to the final message showed I was very happily entering that reality myself. Excellent

Joanne From Rupture to Rapture (Once Again Under The Spotlight) by Carlos Norcia - our narrator is a far future music critic thinking about an elderly music star announcing a comeback. Now this doesn’t sound too SF does it but actually this is a fantastic story where the main thrust is a few hundred years of human history featuring environmental collapse, government homophobia and repression, social unrest, generational starships and questions of what the right thing to do is? Run or Fight? All of these things run through the story and our two main characters’ experience of the events help us see the bigger story going on around them and actually make us care - a quick set of pen portraits of two queer men who became the star’s parents help us see the world far more than some SF blockbusters could ever hope to achieve. Gorgeous storytelling.

Fables by Rachael Cupp (with music by Eleanor Cupp and lettering by Charlie Snow) - our narrator tells us of Hercules helping out a lion with a paw, folklorists may immediately spot the problem; the narrators attempt to spell the correct character’s name also suggest they were struggling too. This is a fascinating set of tales of someone telling someone little fables and as each goes on we learn more about who the characters are, their relationships and why they’re in this place. It’s a wonderful story that unfolds with heart, exploration of empathy, art, selfishness and deep down what love brings people to do. I dearly want to know their fates and that shows by the end of reading this I truly cared for people I don’t even know the names of. Beautiful.

Swim With The Space Whales by Lyle Hopwood - a tale of murder, space whales and SF setting sadly was tonally the type of story I tend not to read and in this case felt more down to my tastes than execution. Others can look forward to trying it.

The Complete Expiration Records of Nebu Inc Colony KE-4-01 by Noah Lemelson - this ingenuous story tells us the last moments of various colonists/company workers dying on a newly found planet. Lemelson creates lovely moments of human nature or alien wonder and then slams in a gruesome death - with cause and cost to the company added too. We start to see things escalate and the death toll mount. This could be simply humour but slowly we find out who is talking to us( we get a fascinating mystery about the life forms of the planet and in its final arc thoughts on life and death; the desire not to be alone and life versus profit. Very smartly constructed and uses the black humour of the situation to make its points very well.

Then back to non fiction

Book Zone features Zachary Gillan, Kelly Jennings, Nick Mamatas, Paul McAuley, Premee Mohamed and Val Nolan all talking about new releases. I loved the variety of approaches and styles here - reminder reviews have many forms and reflect the authors. Gillan I really enjoyed exploring South Asian fiction and makes me eagerly await my copy of Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera and I love the shout out for Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta

Kelly Jennings has a wonderful assortment of novels with range and good insights from Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan, Echo of Worlds by M R Carey and The Mars House by Natasha Pulley - great Booktempting.

Paul McAuley explored Ninth Life by Stark Holborn and I really liked how this explored the Western and how it influenced the book -an angle I was not aware of.

Premee Mohamed gives a very good assessment of The Mad Butterly’s Ball edited by Preston Grassman and Chris Kelso and also explores why weird fiction and bugs go together so well.

Val Nolan explores with a refreshing style Hogh Valutage by Chris and Jen Sugden for cyberpunk and more weirdness awaiting in Extremophile by Ian Green which makes me even keener to read it.

Finishing off the issue we get

The A to Z of Zelazny by Alexander Glass not simply about Zelazny books but also exploring wider SF looks at topics and in this case we explore how Gods get handled which is very interesting

Finally in Folded Spaces by Val Nolan we get a look at time travel and SF criticism as they explore Veronica Hollinger and a 1987 look at how SF influences human beings own perception of time and what this has meant and been reflected on across later media. Very interesting discussions ensue.

A very fine collection for a milestone issue and I sincerely think a reminder Interzone has a lot to help us understand the universe and SF in years to come!