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Subterranean Magazine, Fall 2011
FALL 2011 CONTENTS
White Lines on a Green Field by Catherynne M. Valente
Cutting Edge Technology: by K. J. Parker
SHAKA II by Mike Resnick
Review: The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
Review: The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge
Antiquities and Tangibles by Tim Pratt
Review: Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
White Lines on a Green Field by Catherynne M. Valente
Cutting Edge Technology: by K. J. Parker
SHAKA II by Mike Resnick
Review: The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
Review: The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge
Antiquities and Tangibles by Tim Pratt
Review: Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
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First published October 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 24, 2018
White Lines on a Green Field by Catherynne M. Valente
As usual, I found Valente's writing engrossing and mysterious, I think hers is the only magical realism I actually like.. Lots of symbols and mythology, but the football and teen sex aren't that interesting to get past the 3★ "I liked it"..
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
A victorian short story set during the Great Game, featuring Balfour and Meriwether (an interesting pair, alike the famous Sherlock and Dr.Watson), the entertaining Russian Czarina Maria Feodorovna, a seemingly Afghan wizard and lots of opium.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get very engaged in the story, I don't know if it was my disposition or the writing, but nonetheless it was quite an enjoyable read.
As usual, I found Valente's writing engrossing and mysterious, I think hers is the only magical realism I actually like.. Lots of symbols and mythology, but the football and teen sex aren't that interesting to get past the 3★ "I liked it"..
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
A victorian short story set during the Great Game, featuring Balfour and Meriwether (an interesting pair, alike the famous Sherlock and Dr.Watson), the entertaining Russian Czarina Maria Feodorovna, a seemingly Afghan wizard and lots of opium.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get very engaged in the story, I don't know if it was my disposition or the writing, but nonetheless it was quite an enjoyable read.
October 21, 2020
Review and rating are solely for the Pratt and Valente stories. The Pratt is (imo) a masterpiece.
• "Antiquities and Tangibles" by Tim Pratt. One woman’s quest for happiness, with the help of the proprietor of a truly capacious antique shop. It's a remarkable journey: “Eventually they just started trying things at random: a ring that made her invisible, a cloak that let her transform into a bat, a whistle that let her summon winds, a seashell necklace that enabled her to swim to any depth in the sea, with no need for air or worry about pressure. That one almost worked. She stayed gone for nearly two years, but when she returned, she said the sea was full of wonders, but it was cold and dark and there was no one to talk to, essentially the Arcadian wood all over again, only with squid instead of squirrels.”
And the ending is just right, too. Pretty nearly a perfect story, I think, and I recommend it most highly. 6 stars!
And I need to read more of Tim Pratt's stuff.
Story link: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
The story this one reminded me of was the Robert Sheckley classic "The Store of the Worlds," which has a recent online reprint: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3ydp...
If you somehow missed it -- hey, it was first published in 1959! Well. It's one of his most memorable stories. I'm pretty sure I still have a copy of a crumbling 1960 mmpb with the first reprint. I'll have to dig it out. And now you can read it for yourself....
• "White Lines on a Green Field" by Catherynne M. Valente. Who would think that high-school football and teenage sex could be this magical? Valente spins out a tale of Coyote and Rabbit as an apotheosis of Western Americana. OK, on second read it's pretty seriously over the top -- but her fans won't want to miss it! For me, 3.5 stars. Story link: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
CMV was 32 when this story was published -- so her HS years would have still been pretty fresh in her mind when she wrote it. Not one of her very best, but I'm glad I read it.
• "Cutting Edge Technology" by K. J. Parker. No longer online! Dammit.
I'm calling it good with these two stories. With the option to return some other time. In the meanwhile, I'll be looking at more of Subterranean Magazine's backlist.
• "Antiquities and Tangibles" by Tim Pratt. One woman’s quest for happiness, with the help of the proprietor of a truly capacious antique shop. It's a remarkable journey: “Eventually they just started trying things at random: a ring that made her invisible, a cloak that let her transform into a bat, a whistle that let her summon winds, a seashell necklace that enabled her to swim to any depth in the sea, with no need for air or worry about pressure. That one almost worked. She stayed gone for nearly two years, but when she returned, she said the sea was full of wonders, but it was cold and dark and there was no one to talk to, essentially the Arcadian wood all over again, only with squid instead of squirrels.”
And the ending is just right, too. Pretty nearly a perfect story, I think, and I recommend it most highly. 6 stars!
And I need to read more of Tim Pratt's stuff.
Story link: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
The story this one reminded me of was the Robert Sheckley classic "The Store of the Worlds," which has a recent online reprint: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3ydp...
If you somehow missed it -- hey, it was first published in 1959! Well. It's one of his most memorable stories. I'm pretty sure I still have a copy of a crumbling 1960 mmpb with the first reprint. I'll have to dig it out. And now you can read it for yourself....
• "White Lines on a Green Field" by Catherynne M. Valente. Who would think that high-school football and teenage sex could be this magical? Valente spins out a tale of Coyote and Rabbit as an apotheosis of Western Americana. OK, on second read it's pretty seriously over the top -- but her fans won't want to miss it! For me, 3.5 stars. Story link: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
CMV was 32 when this story was published -- so her HS years would have still been pretty fresh in her mind when she wrote it. Not one of her very best, but I'm glad I read it.
• "Cutting Edge Technology" by K. J. Parker. No longer online! Dammit.
I'm calling it good with these two stories. With the option to return some other time. In the meanwhile, I'll be looking at more of Subterranean Magazine's backlist.
June 10, 2016
reading cat valente instead of everything else i am supposed to be doing: a lifestyle i am not ashamed of. if you want the link to this (short story) just ask
June 28, 2017
At just 18 pages (so says Kindle), this was surprisingly rich in characters. It feels like a fantastical fever dream, and I was caught up in the rapid flow of the story immediately.
Without spoiling anything, I can say the main character, Coyote, is clearly unlike the other kids at school, and unlike anyone on the planet. His reality engulfs and reshapes everyone else's. Maybe it's just my kind of story, but for those 18 fast pages I felt the reality shift myself. Pulled in completely.
I'm going to search Goodreads for opinions on Catherynne M. Valente's other works and hope the quality is this high. As someone who hopes to take a swing at writing short stories soon, this gave me a lot to think about, and a lot to aspire to.
I should probably mention the source. As a devotee of BookBub, I've been collecting the short story volumes of The Best Fantasy and Science Fiction of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan. This is from Volume Six, copyright 2012.
Without spoiling anything, I can say the main character, Coyote, is clearly unlike the other kids at school, and unlike anyone on the planet. His reality engulfs and reshapes everyone else's. Maybe it's just my kind of story, but for those 18 fast pages I felt the reality shift myself. Pulled in completely.
I'm going to search Goodreads for opinions on Catherynne M. Valente's other works and hope the quality is this high. As someone who hopes to take a swing at writing short stories soon, this gave me a lot to think about, and a lot to aspire to.
I should probably mention the source. As a devotee of BookBub, I've been collecting the short story volumes of The Best Fantasy and Science Fiction of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan. This is from Volume Six, copyright 2012.
January 22, 2016
Valente takes her erudite and poetically epic sense to tap into the minds of young people, and the results are...well, magical, as she always seems to be able to pull something out of the bottom of her hat. Nerds find magic among jocks here, and magical realism is always front and center, with her gifted voice so solidly codified in her novella "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland" and "In the Night Garden." Teenage life, teenage sex...For better or for worse, Valente brings her unique vision of everyday life to the mundane world of small-town culture. If only those of us truly living such a life could experience such a thing.
September 28, 2015
Valente is a beautiful writer but I am not sure she could make me that excited about football and high school, even with a fantasy twist, I think I would need more than a short story and less football to make that happen. This showcases a completely different voice from her Fairyland series.
September 25, 2018
White Lines on a Green Field by Catherynne M. Valente
Coyote der Trickster in Small-Town-America: american football, teenage sex, ein endloser Sommer zwischen Jugend und Erwachsensein, exquisit wie alles von C. M. Valente
Cutting Edge Technology: by K. J. Parker
netter Essay über Schwertkunst damals und jetzt
SHAKA II by Mike Resnick
brillianter Kurzroman: der Zulu Robert ole Buthelezi schwingt sich vom Nobody zum Herrscher über Welten auf; eine Studie in Brillianz und Wahnsinn, Macht und Grausamkeit
Antiquities and Tangibles by Tim Pratt
nette Geschichte über die (schwierige) Suche nach Glück
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
viel Holmes & Watson, etwas Steampunk und reichlich Action
Coyote der Trickster in Small-Town-America: american football, teenage sex, ein endloser Sommer zwischen Jugend und Erwachsensein, exquisit wie alles von C. M. Valente
Cutting Edge Technology: by K. J. Parker
netter Essay über Schwertkunst damals und jetzt
SHAKA II by Mike Resnick
brillianter Kurzroman: der Zulu Robert ole Buthelezi schwingt sich vom Nobody zum Herrscher über Welten auf; eine Studie in Brillianz und Wahnsinn, Macht und Grausamkeit
Antiquities and Tangibles by Tim Pratt
nette Geschichte über die (schwierige) Suche nach Glück
Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham
viel Holmes & Watson, etwas Steampunk und reichlich Action
May 7, 2017
The two main protagonists form a kind of Sherlock and Watson. Far more engaging and entertaining was the Russian Czarina Maria Feodorovna, an adventuress with a history with those two Victorian gentlemen. Djinns, warlocks, shooting mixed in the London atmosphere. Abrahams knows how to catch your attention, provides a fluid narration. Read this in between longer novels to clean your thoughts.
Full review at my blog
Full review at my blog
September 6, 2015
Coyote story
April 27, 2017
Love this story.
Have one huge question, however. Time doesn't seem to make any sense in this story. Fall tryouts include baseball? Day after the first football game is midterm papers? They win four games in a row (presumably first four, one a week), then it's a September wind -- were the midterm papers completed in August?
And then it's Christmas, and the next reference is to the girls being six months pregnant, and there's talk of sidelines and the defensive line. I've never heard of anywhere high school football season ends after November, and I guess it could be basketball sidelines and the football defensive line, but that's a weird combo for one paragraph. Finally it's "January stars" and championship game day and it's clearly a high school football game around the time even the college football would be over.
So... is this all part of Coyote's magic? I started compiling this on the assumption that it Cat just doesn't know the football schedule. But so many other things seem wrong timewise that it seems like it must be more than that?
Have one huge question, however. Time doesn't seem to make any sense in this story. Fall tryouts include baseball? Day after the first football game is midterm papers? They win four games in a row (presumably first four, one a week), then it's a September wind -- were the midterm papers completed in August?
And then it's Christmas, and the next reference is to the girls being six months pregnant, and there's talk of sidelines and the defensive line. I've never heard of anywhere high school football season ends after November, and I guess it could be basketball sidelines and the football defensive line, but that's a weird combo for one paragraph. Finally it's "January stars" and championship game day and it's clearly a high school football game around the time even the college football would be over.
So... is this all part of Coyote's magic? I started compiling this on the assumption that it Cat just doesn't know the football schedule. But so many other things seem wrong timewise that it seems like it must be more than that?
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews