Review: Free Science Fiction and Fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 23, 2013
Tor is a leading independent publisher of fantasy and science fiction books, and also maintains a website which publishes free short fiction. This e-book collects 10 pieces which appeared on the website in 2012 (some short stories, but mostly novelettes), and it is overall a very good anthology.Gene Wolfe's SF is often too dark and "literary" for my taste, but "Dormanna" is a delightful little story, reminiscent of Clifford Simak. Rachel Swirsky's "Portrait of Lisane de Patagnia," about artists who paint using magic, is a compelling fantasy that also touches on themes of sex, betrayal, and artistic creation. "The Ghosts of Christmas," by Paul Cornell, is even richer; it begins as a science fiction story about a device designed to treat schizophrenia which becomes an inadvertent time machine of sorts, but becomes a meditation on love vs. betrayal, free will vs. destiny, parents vs. children. Powerful stuff."The Mongolian Wizard" by Michael Swanwick, is set in an alternate 19th-century Europe in which countries fight each other with magic as well as armies. The idea is interesting, but the story ends in the middle, as if it is a fragment of a novel rather than a stand-alone story."Am I Free to Go?" by Kathryn Cramer is a truly odd story, set in a near-future semi-dystopia. There is not much plot, and the narrator doesn't even tell us all that happens, as she obsessively tells and re-tells a single incident, adding details haphazardly, but the narrator's voice is so compelling that we keep reading. Another odd piece is Elizabeth Bear's "Faster Gun," a steampunk western in which Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo encounter a flying saucer.Brit Mandelo's "The Finite Canvas," set on a future earth rendered nearly uninhabitable by war and pollution, does a fine job of world-building, and also tells a compelling story about love and betrayal. Unfortunately, the foreground and background are not well-integrated; as compelling as the narrative is, it has very little to do with the future earth; with a very few changes, the plot could have been a non-SF crime story. Pat Murphy's "About Fairies" is a lovely story, with fine prose and a deep sense of loss and longing, but the fantasy elements are only hinted at, and could have been better developed.Despite some flaws, nearly every story in this collection is worth reading. Recommended.