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Interzone # 202 - February 2006
01/03/2006 . Source: Rod MacDonald 
bi-monthly magazine: UK publisher/editor address: Andy Cox, TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB6 2LB. Price: £ 3.50 (UK) $ 6.00(US). ISSN: 0264-3596. Buy Interzone in the USA - or Buy Interzone in the UK  check out website: www.ttapress.com
Much ado has been made about 'Interzone' achieving the status of Britain's longest running Science Fiction magazine. If nothing else, this is indeed a memorable achievement in British publishing history. Let's hope it continues well into the future to eventually take the title of Earth's longest runner.
The cover by Dan Dos Santos of a girl buzzing around hives is quite striking and it does attract attention. However, on closer look and some contemplation, it becomes a disappointment. Firstly, the definition is rather poor, especially for a magazine cover. Lacking sharpness, the image is a bit fuzzy.
Secondly, the subject matter is OK until you start to think about it. Here is a girl acting the drone with artificial wings on her back! Whatever planet or environment you can envisage, low gravity, high density atmosphere or realistic size and scale, such wings even if capable of flying her about would pull the girl's body in a painful and dangerous way if connected to her by only the flimsy backpack straps shown. Besides this, what use are controls on the back where she can't see or touch them? You may say I'm nit-picking but art should make some sense and employ a bit more thought in its construction.
Two very good interviews appear in this issue. Michael Lohr talks to Terry Pratchett about his books in general and how he has achieved success over the years while Sandy Auden and Gerry Anderson get together to discuss the 'New Captain Scarlet'. Concerning the latter, I didn't know that each episode cost almost £1 million to make and that the series was in serious danger of collapse early in its production.
Now to the fiction! Happily this issue is much better than the last. All the stories were of good quality and were actually readable. Perhaps issue 201 was an aberration! Let's hope it was.
The novella 'Sundowner Sheila' by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre was rather curious. Funny, sad and serious all at once. I wasn't sure if the whole thing was a joke. By all recollections, the author has been around for some time and his writing suggests to me that he is an old joker just like myself. Anyway, despite the magazine making a mess of the text layout on several pages by trying to be clever, we have here an excellent story which I'd urge you to read.
Events occur on a planet which has a captured rotation - keeps the same face to the star all the time just like the Moon with the Earth. As a consequence, it gets pretty hot on the surface closest to the primary. You'd be right to agree that few would volunteer to tackle the job of terraforming the planet, so creatures grown out of a billy-can are used instead.
Years ago, in a book entitled 'Alien Psychology' (well, nobody else will plug my book) I pointed out that it would be much easier to engineer a bio-human than construct a humanoid robot. A mobile biped is a rather complicated apparatus which we, failing to appreciate our 4 billion year development, take for granted.
Dicko and Bodger are Compozzies. They are engineered from dead remains, Australians in this case, having personalities and memories made up from the genes of several characters. Whether or not this is scientifically possible is beside the question. Are such memories retained in genes? Despite the fact that they had every stereotype Australian from Skippy to Crocodile Dundee speaking for the pair, the 'big thick guy/small smart guy' partnership reminded me of 'Of Mice and Men'.
The poor lads work out in the midday sun every day of the year with the snag that it's an endless day and always midday. Nothing would be right without a woman, of course, and one arrives to spice things up a little. She's called Sheila (what else?) though I couldn't help thinking of Dame Edna. Now, this is something you won't believe! She has a pouch. She's a marsupial.
Some could be inclined to say this story is nonsensical nonsense but the characters and the planet absorb you after the first page. After the second page, you'll like it and when you've finished you'll be shouting, 'Fair dinkum, mate.'
There was other fiction. The second part of the novella 'After The Party' by Richard Calder will finish with the third part in the next issue. The other stories were to a high standard. Again, we have a terraforming plot and others with microbes, artificial intelligences, alternative realities and virtual realities. OK, so this is what we're on about these days but whatever happened to the good old-fashioned honest alien from outer space?
There you have it. Issue 202 with an unintelligent but otherwise good cover, very good artwork inside, good stories and good reviews so...for goodness sake buy it!
Rod MacDonald
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