Way over on the other side, I put together an overview
review of the new SFF magazine Broadswords and Blasters.
Briefly, despite being initially sceptical I was pleasantly
surprised: there’s an interesting mix of story styles here, though the quality
does vary a bit. There are a couple of winners here, a number of solid if
unremarkable pieces, and (though it pains me) a couple of duds. In all, a
pretty respectable showing for the first issue of an experiment, especially
considering how little money they had to throw around at authors.
I don’t know if I’d really call the magazine “pulp” – with modern
sensibilities or not – but there are a few stories here that either make the
sorting pile or come close. It will be interesting to see how they develop it.
Now, on to the reviews!
For each story, I’ve utilized a highly complicated
biological algorithm processor[1]
to assign a score in four categories:
Pulp is my sense
of how well the story matches the pulp aesthetic as I’ve discussed here and
elsewhere. At the top of the scale you’d find hell-for-leather action tales
like Doc Savage, REH’s less introspective heroes, ERB and the like.
Slick is my sense
of how much “big idea” the story engages – ie how “high brow” it is in content.
Here we’d see things like Asimov, or Larry Niven’s “engineering puzzle box”
stories score well. Likewise stories with a strong underlying political or
moral message like Octavia Butler’s work.
Purple is my
sense of the richness of the style – how literary is it? Vance (especially
later works) definitely scores well here, as would Dunsany’s 51 Tales.
Tech is my sense
of how well the story is put together – how are the beats aligned? Does the
story flow? Does it feel complete? How well does the author apply technique and
form?
For various reasons I’ve chosen to use a 7 point scale for
the first three, and a 10 point scale for the last.
And finally I’ve melded all these scores together with just
the basic “did I like it” gestalt in the deepest recesses of my mind to give
each story a letter grade – not objective in any sense of course, but perhaps a
measure more accessible to others.
So here we go:
Skin Deep
by Nicholas Ozment
Pulp: 4/7 Slick:
5/7 Purple: 3/7 Tech: 6/10
Nicholas Ozment is a contributing blogger over at Black Gate, and in fact his most recent post there was a promotional piece for B&B. He has been publishing in SFF since 1998, with a bibliography viewable at the isfdb, including his 2010 novel Knight Terrors: The (MIS)Adventures of Smoke the Dragon (Ancient Tomes Press – currently out of print). He has been interviewed by Every Day Fiction back in 2008, and (very) occasionally makes an appearance on his Livejournal, but appears to be otherwise internet invisible – a shame!
This story is a basic moral vehicle rooted in the selkie
mythology of the Northern British Isles: the actors are warriors travelling
north to find the legendary ilsilke,
who are reputed to rise from the icy waters to bathe in the sunlight, and to be
supernatural beauties. Our heroes are clear early on, both because of the
narrative focus on the young Kenrin and Haralt, and because of the nearly
comical contrast painted between them and the unpleasantly rough usurai sword masters. There are some
interesting ideas here, and the author has done a creditable job of building up
hints of the wider world without resorting to ponderous exposition.
Unfortunately the beats of the tale seem off, and I had a strong sense that
there is more story here than really fits in such a short piece: ultimately
we’re not really given much reason to like the protagonists other than for the
fact they’re not the grizzled thugs travelling with them North. And lest we
mistake their nature, the thugs are - in addition to being arrogant, boastful
drunkards - given several opportunities at “puppy kicking” early on, both in
dialogue and action.
Even with the implied attempted rape, the signals of
villainy aren’t over the top - but there’s too much in such a small space, and
the author’s effort to make the bad guys bad overshadows any sense of good I
might have had from the heroes. This feeling was worse at the climax: the story
promised selkies, and it delivers. It also hinted at a wry discovery, and it
delivers there as well - though it did perhaps telegraph the exact discovery a
bit loudly. But this is just where the story really stumbles.
The two young sur
apprentices[2]
were positioned as being really equal to the veterans right from the beginning,
so of course we anticipate the eventual confrontation - and the nature of the
tale and the usurai’s moral evil
tells us who will win. This is why it felt so unfortunate and disappointing how
brief and anticlimactic Mr. Ozment’s treatment of that battle turns out to be.
Not only that, but he undermines the affair by clawing away a heroic victory
with deus ex machina, and then
topping it off with the double punch of a reward that feels undeserved and a
“deep” moral to the story - which itself fails for me exactly because the
heroic dimensions have been undermined.
Still, though the heroes suffer from shallow treatment the
story hits the heroic pulp notes in one respect: they are painted as clearly
moral superiors to the veterans (even if I think the balance was ungainly) and
indeed at the crisis point it is the decision to stand by principle despite the
risk that pushes the story forward.
There is definitely a strong story here, but it’s obscured
by the author’s focus on other angles and the effort put into amplifying the
moral conceit from which the tale springs.
Grade: C
---
Dead Men Tell Tales
by Dave D’Alessio
Pulp: 4/7 Slick:
2/7 Purple: 2/7 Tech
7/10
Dave D’Alessio has an impressive line-up of titles under his name on Amazon, a number of which have encouraging ratings on goodreads. Remarkably, his entries on isfdb include only one of his stories, which makes it tough to really see the full range of his work. He also has a healthy social media presence (if you can call Facebook healthy) including a regular interview by fellow author Martin Ingham, an “interview” with the protagonist of his book Yak Butter Diaries , and a face-to-face with Dr. D’Alessio himself on aliens on Author Talk.
This story starts briskly with a murder and goes downhill
(for PI John D. Arbogast) from there. It’s not immediately clear whether it’s a
real SF mystery or just a standard detective tale with a few verniers and
flashing lights duct-taped on for looks.
Turns out it’s half-way between.
Let me start by mentioning that one point that took me
rather by surprise, considering the stated goals of the magazine, was the
rather bluntly racist depiction of the Triad thugs that play a part in the
mystery. This seems a strange choice in context, but perhaps the same things
that led me to overlook it got this story past the editors.[3]
In true pulp fashion the story starts with action, and at
every stage the protagonist - our undoubtedly square-jawed gumshoe - is at
decision cusps. While the actual technology is only vaguely relevant Dr. d’Alessio
does work it in skillfully and very naturally, and the beats of the scene
presented work very well. He focuses very closely on the protagonist’s actions
and to some extent the technical details however - with the consequence that we
learn relatively little about the universe in which the story takes place. And
one consequence of the first person narrative form - which of course is de rigeur for a story like this, and a
perfect tone for the tale - unfortunately gave me little to hold on to when it
comes to the protagonist.
Indeed, all I really saw to sell him was his evident dislike
of organized crime and his almost-witty narrative style (which actually is
quaintly noir in tone). This is unfortunately compounded by two problems.
The first is most obvious through the continual crises: we
are simply given no reason to believe in Arbogast. There’s no history, no
context, none of the usual autobiography that comes with this sort of first
person account - not even the sort of side comment like “when I was in the
colonial marines” which hints at experiences and can render later competence
believable.
The second actually explains all the rest: the story ends
abruptly in a way that suggests it is actually a fragment of something larger.
As a longer piece, we might expect a bit more meat, more feeling for the
setting (and more opportunity to see the Triad trio as more than cringe-worthy
caricatures), and more reason to root for Arbogast.
To be honest I think that I’d read a noir gumshoe
“pocketbook” that expanded this story.
Grade: B (and could easily be a B+ in a longer version)
[1]
My gut.
[2]
This little fantasy language conceit – the relation between usurai and sur –
actually goes a long way toward hinting at the nature of the broader world, and
is really quite clever.
[3]
I’ll note as well that the depiction is also
a fairly de rigeur over-the-top
cyberpunk gangster archetype, which fits with the technology depicted, and the
noir style. As such my response to the approach may be more knee-jerk, again
related to the shortness of the piece.
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