Here's a quandary for those as like to ponder over them.
If a magazine contains two first
stories and they are no better and no worse than the other
stories in the issue, should one cheer or
worry? Does it mean that the more experienced writers
aren't growing or that the first-sellers are
off to an auspicious start? I'm inclined toward the
belief that any worthwhile editor picks stories
that are not just barely good but are good period,
and any unpublished writer who wants to scale
that bar had best be prepared to do so with inches
to spare. OnSpec has an editorial collective
judge stories in competition format: i.e., blindly,
without the writer's name on the manuscript.
Perhaps they cancel out one another's weaknesses
and blind spots; perhaps this is an approach
other small press magazines might want to emulate.
I say this
because this issue of OnSpec indeed contains
at least two first stories, and I plan
to turn on them the identical critical apparatus
as the others. I'm betting you can't tell which they
are by my comments. The answers will come at the
end of this review.
Taking the stories, all short stories by my
estimated counts, in order, we begin with
"Second Coming," by Heather Fraser. The title is
accurate, up to a point: observations of a few
days in the first century have allowed scientists
to put together a virtual Jesus, sufficiently
interactive to be able to hold conversations and
observe the modern world. Allison, President of
a Theological Students' Society of the Christian
variety, thanks her God (literally) by being
fortunate enough to get close to the closely guarded
little brown Yeshua, close enough to get an
extra spin put on her religious teaching. Allison
is believable, more so than some of the
professors and scientists, and the story, one that
needed delicate telling in the extreme, succeeds, I
think, at doing everything Fraser wanted.
If I have a qualm it is that even though the
point is hammered home that the real Jesus
may not fit the image modern society has made, I
would expect the real Yeshua to do more than
politely shrug at such an edifice as Christianity.
The effect is a bit like bringing Torquemada to
life in modern-day Israel and have him look around,
shrug and say, "Well, I always knew they
were industrious."
Kate Riedel's "The Babysitter," is a ghost
story in mainstream dress, featuring a murdered
young babysitter who sends messages through her
drunken mother whenever other children are
murdered. Like Fraser's story, this one is told
competently and without stumbles. Also like the
earlier piece, it is a bit too pat, lacking the
frisson of surprise necessary to the best fiction.
"One One," by Preston Hapon, surprised me.
Hapon experiments with style, although not
language, in using alternating interior monologs
to portray two research scientists alone together
on Mercury. Each scientist is made the opposite
in personality to the other, with predictable
results until halfway through, when their attitudes
begin to change, and then cross, until each
has nearly assumed the other's worldview and
then they start to move toward the center in the
end. Hapon wisely keeps them from ever truly
coming together, allowing just enough change to
keep things credible. While I could have wished
for a bit more depth - something only a near
genius can create in interior monolog - this story
will stick with me longer than any of the
others.
Kafkaesque is the word for Michael Mirolla's
"Changes and Identifications." It's all there:
the impenetrable bureaucracy; the guiltless,
tortured everyman; the endless symbolism; even a
cocoon. I have perhaps gotten too old to appreciate
people as symbols, however. Writers who
can produce people who are individual, dimensional
people will woo me away every time.
Editors, all too often, like to stack almost
similar stories one atop the other, a practice that
tends to diminish the second of the pair. I was
very nearly put off by "Empty Interiors," by
Wayne Santos, for no better reason than it too
starts with a protagonist pointlessly beleaguered by
a symbolic nemesis. I'm glad I stuck it through,
for Santos forces his protagonist out into the
world, to a friend, and to a resolution.
Character development in the classical sense almost
always depends upon the interaction of people,
as real as writers can make them. Harry and
Salvatore are the truest and deepest characters
in this issue. I don't for a moment pretend that I
understood what Santos was up to, but I did not
feel cheated by my lack.
Even editorial collectives nod. Some one of
them should have had the sense to tell last-nameless
Jocko to start his story with the second
line, so that more sensitive readers wouldn't
throw the magazine at the wall after smashing their
eyeballs on, "'So yer a golly-geologist, are
ya?'" The story improves from there (in chorus now:
as it would have to) although the dialect
remains. (Usually. Few grizzled prospectors,
I suspect, use "such as we" in the same sentence as
"I woulda kilt.") In truth, "High Moon," (yes,
the title needs to go, too), is not a half-bad yarn,
mixing ghosts and aliens, and the unsentimental
look at the Old West is handled with a impressive
level of verisimilitude. Jocko, next time how
'bout a straight western, with just a soupcon of
dialect. You show obvious respect for your world
and your characters; respect your readers as
highly.
I've reviewed these stories in order of their
appearance and I hope I have given you at
least a suggestion that each story has racheted up
the language volume a notch. Allan Lowson's
"Mummers" takes it all the way to 11. He works every
sentence until it nearly bursts, but they
collectively befit characters like Death and Sin and
the all-too-human arch-mage, John. In plot,
"Mummers" nearly brings the issue full circle, for
a second coming of a sort is about to bring a
future into hard existence. He ends the issue with
a drunken high tempered by the morning after.
A fine performance.
Who's who among these? The author notes
state explicitly that these were Heather
Fraser's and Jocko's first professional sales.
My earlier "at least" was occasioned by Wayne
Santos' sale-free biography and the omission of
a mention of any previous sf sale in Allan
Lowson's. Even the least of this issue's stories
is at a high level for the small press world, and the
better of them are good in any estimation.
OnSpec works. I recommend it.
Copyright 1997 by Steve Carper
