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Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine
August 1998

Stories featured in this issue are:

"On the Penal Colony" by Kit Reed gives a chilling look at how 'prisoner re-education camps' may be in the future. Dressed up as American Colonist in a theme park, this story is part of the journal of one prisoner who decides to escape.
"Chestnut Street" by Esther M. Friesner is a typical light humourous story. The peace of a quiet suburb is disturbed when a taxi arrives with an unusual customer. Immediately, rumours and insinuations by neighbours arise. The resolution is unexpected and quite funny.
"A Holiday Junket" by Ray Vukcevich gives a short, sharp look at a holiday by two people on a world in an unknown universe. Read it if you have a twisted (in more ways than one) mind.
"The Grateful Dead" by Robert Onopa gives a fascinating look at the future of the funeral business which has been turned into a franchise business (even McDonalds is in it). Into this comes a hot mixture of a vase containing the remains of a judge that makes noises, his widow and her enticing daughter and a comet that may signal the end of the world.
"Zinnias on the Moon" by Mark Budz starts with the unusual premise of flowers that can grow on the moon and links it with the life of a late grandmother who had the unusual ability to grow flowers.
"Diana in the Spring" by Richard Bowes links the thoughts of a Manager of a Play with the witnesses and police officers he sees while on jury duty.
"Vaults in Vacuum" by Gregory Benford is a science fact article that looks at the interesting issue of how to package messages that will be sent to outer space. Such messages have already been put on the Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts. Here, Benford describes the decisions made while designing such a message for Cassini.
"Butterflies" by Richard Paul Russo is a strangely surreal story that starts off with a man without memory of himself stumbling into a jungle clearing. As the story progresses, more and more of the man's past is revealed, changing the atmosphere of the story from pure fantasy to neat SF. But the ending could have been better.
"A Few Minutes in Granddaddy's Old House on Black Bottom Bayou" by Steve Perry starts off with two kids telling their grandfather about the legend of the monster in the bayou that takes an unexpected turn halfway and still has a neat ending.
"Sweet Nothings" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman shows how those whispered words between two loving people may take on a life of their own.
"The Pacific Front" by Jan Lars Jensen takes an unusual look at the Pacific War. An American bomber on its way to deliver a bomb over Japan crashes on an island. Things become more complicated when one of the crew with Japanese ancestors has to decide what to do when Japanese (equipped with strange mechanical devices) land. The story doesn't sit well with me.

[Home Page][Index of Reviews][May 1998][January 2002]

Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine August 1998

Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine
August 1998