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Interzone # 207 - December 2006
01/02/2007 . 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 href="http://www.ttapress.com">
Cover art by Richard Marchand depicts what? A futuristic crucifixion scene with two of his disciples praying in adoration? This picture singularly lacks imagination and is a very bad choice for the cover of 'Interzone'. There is nothing original about this form of representation today and the artist himself, when you look at his web site, displays a moronic repetitive behaviour disorder which compels him to paint heads in all forms of disfiguration, endlessly and without exception. I mean, once you have seen one disfigured head you have seen them all! Perhaps he needs directional help.
There is a Christian symbolism in this art which some may find offensive. If the magazine had chosen a similar depiction involving Islam, a fatwa would have been issued against 'Interzone' and its editors. Of course, this would have given them plenty of publicity and boosted their sales in the same manner as Salman Rushdie did, some say cynically, with his deliberately controversial 'Satanic Verses'. No, 'Interzone', better stick with boobs and bums! It's safer that way and the circulation goes up just the same.
Now that's the complaining over. We can get on to the content!
Hoing's 'The Purring Of Cats' was of initial interest to Tiddles but once he discovered the story had nothing to do with felines he gave up and went back to sleep. It was actually a long story about a woman who had illegal sexual relations within an alien, only the latter had no genitals and didn't react in the normal manner expected of a human. At the same time, another lot of aliens were loitering with intent around and about the vicinity of the Earth.
The whole scenario of his story is rather pointless and has no real benefit to its telling. We don't really need the loitering aliens and we don't need to have a relationship between human and an alien to make this work. There is a lot of text here that isn't necessary. Beyond the description of a love story relationship, there isn't much else to this but, leaving this aside, the writing was very good and the author obviously has ability which augurs well for the future.
David Mace, who featured in 'Interzone' recently with a story called 'This Happens', appears again with a reworking of 'Frankenstein' in 'Frankie On Zanzibar'. Only the monster is a girl with special abilities who is guarded by foster parents dedicated to her survival in a dangerous world controlled by crazy capitalists. Genetically modified people are not accepted but that doesn't stop their secret production for nefarious purposes by the corporations. However, the monster is a person, a human, with an identity and a life of her own with as much right to exist as anyone else and she knows it. In essence, this story is about the preservation of purpose and individuality in a beehive world.
Diverting from the stories, there is an excellent interview with author Christopher Priest whose fortunes have been revived recently with a book, 'The Prestige', and a film production. He has been around for over 30 years and I have been an admirer of his work since first reading 'The Inverted World' and 'Fugue For A Darkening Island'. It's worth buying the magazine for this interview alone.
'Spheres' by Suzanne Palmer is an excellent story using colloquial speech in the first person to take you right into her own world, only this world is somewhere in orbit. The characters are rather like the flotsam and jetsam of society. Living an impoverished life in restricted space, rather like old people in sheltered accommodation, their main battle is one of survival in the community of living spheres. An old chap become suspicious when his neighbour is killed in an accident and someone else moves in. What is going on? Old people have a will to survive which in many ways is just as powerful, if not more so, and that displayed by impetuous youth.
Wendy Waring's 'Stonework' is about archaeology on another planet. This is quite an atmospheric story set amidst the ruins of an ancient civilisation. If there is as much life as we think there is out there in universe, just think how much dead life there is as well. Of course, the archaeologist is a person, only he is alive and has to make some sense of the dead. In order to do this, he has to try to rid himself of his preconceptions and get into the mindset of the aliens who built the civilisation. In doing this, he begins to lose his own identity.
'Interzone' is different this month in that it is bound together with staples. Otherwise, apart from the cover which I didn't like, the magazine continues its high-quality reproduction. It has become an icon.
Rod MacDonald
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