“What Makes You Forget,” by new-to- F&SF Greek writer Victor Pseftakis is another fantasy, set in a disintegrating part of (I assume) Greece. She never seems to make it home at Christmas, but always assures her mother she’ll be there around Easter.
Every year, as payphones disappear around the world, this one seems to survive-a bit dirtier, often with cracked glass and missing handset, but she worked at Radio Shack once and learned to bring a linesman’s handset. At first, when she was young, she couldn’t afford a home phone-she was in college-but as she grew, it became a tradition to at least phone home around Christmas. Megan Lindholm, who is also Robin Hobb, writes a light/dark little fantasy with “A Dime.” Peggy has been coming to the same convenience store parking lot for many years to use the pay phone. Against this backdrop of apocalyptic disaster, Hopkinson tells a simple tale of human survival, of new life discovery, of family-including the pig! So well done. Only the various taz and the highest landlock is left. The sea’s been busy reclaiming the land, and only higher landlock is left the Gulf Coast, Amazon Basin, Pacific Islands, Eastern Seaboard and so much else is now underwater. Jacquee has borrowed “Uncle” Silvis’s ultralight to go from the “taz” she lives in-a kind of floating, 3D-printed raft-to go visit the landlock, where she had wetware implanted to match her brain implants. Written in a semi-Jamaican patois, it tells the tale of Jacquee and her pig Lickchop, who has an implanted vocoder (wireless, apparently) implanted in his head. The first story is “Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story,” by Nalo Hopkinson. Which makes me wonder: when will someone invent the “flashdark?” I think that could be useful. The issue begins with a short editorial talking about light as a metaphor as well as something to combat the darkness. And so to begin my 9th year writing a more-or-less weekly (okay, I only did 28 columns in 2021, which is a bit over every other week) column for Amazing Stories® Online, let’s jump in. This thick issue contains no fewer than four novelets, six short stories, and four poems, and columns by the aforementioned columnists. This issue brings to a close the magazine’s 73rd year of publication (and my 74th year of existence!) It’s been memorable for both of us-we became friends about when I was ten or eleven (i.e., I found and started reading F&SF), and we’ve been friends, mostly-there have been a few years where my F&SF reading was sporadic-ever since. F&SF arrived just before Christmas (at 8:30 in the morning-first time in a dozen years I can recall the mail coming that early!) 258 pages of SF & Fantasy goodness! I’d say thanks are due to Gordon Van Gelder, publisher Sheree Renée Thomas, editor all the publication and editorial staff, and the columnists who banded together (all in their separate places) to bring us this bounty. The watchword for this time, for me, has always been “Joy!”Īnd our Nov./Dec. For most people, this season-whether you are religious or not-is a time of celebration, of reflection of peace and of thanks for all the gifts that life has given us. I hope your Christmas (and New Year’s) were memorable. How evocative and descriptive is that? Of course, we have neither great hall nor fireplace, and the winter’s been fairly mild in Vancouver-before Christmas, then snowy up to the New Year, with cold, wet, snowy and mild in more or less equal portions so far in January. One of my favourite winter poems has always been this one of The Bard’s: When icicles hang by the wall