Interzone #248 (Sep – Oct 2013)
TTA Press
My gestalt real-time review of the fiction in this magazine that I received as a result of my subscription to TTA Press.
All my previous reviews of Interzone are linked from HERE.
All my real-time reviews since 2008 are linked from HERE.
The fiction in this issue is written by Carole Johnstone, James Van Pelt, Greg Kurzawa, Ken Altabef, Sean McMullen.
My review will appear in the ‘comment’ stream below as and when I read each story.
The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews 
Ad Astra – Carole Johnstone
“It always makes me think of that swan on a lake analogy: existing in zero gravity really is like that, except that the frenzied paddling under the surface is only inside your head.”
…and for ‘zero gravity’, please read life itself. This is a very frightening stasis of a story, distant space travel where the solitary heterosexual couple have sex to pass the time until sex becomes just another madness of habit – a minimalist music or anti-novel where even the walls begin to become formed of the man’s metaphorical tumescence (I sense) as well as formed of both their recycled excrement…
The minimalism is outside and in, an infinity ad absurdum punctuated by hopes of change or false alarms of change. When we realise what they are and why they are, we look at ourselves in a new light. And emptiness envelops our screams.
We are our own Weaver of Aliens.
This is SF that awakens and deadens at the same time. A masterstroke.
(The characterisation via the woman half of the relationship is very convincing. And the story needs to be read to appreciate that aspect of the fiction writing, an aspect that further accentuates the interpretation that I’ve tried to adumbrate above without at the same time spoiling the plot.)
This GRTR now continues HERE.
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