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A review by mary_soon_lee
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2019 by Mary Soon Lee, S. Qiouyi Lu, Diana Peterfruend, Michelle West, Gregor Hartmann, Sophie M. White, Paul Park, Jerry Oltion, Jerome Stueart, R.S. Benedict, Charles de Lint, David J. Skal, Nick DiChario, Rich Larson, Graham Andrews, Tina Connolly, C.C. Finlay, Margaret Killjoy, John Kessel, Matthew Hughes
This issue contains a dozen stories. Spoilers ahead.
Oddly enough, my three favorite stories, all of which I liked very much, shared a musical theme. Tina Connolly's short-short with its disproportionately lengthy title is a light, sweet, fun tale featuring an alien and a saxophone. Margaret Killjoy's "The Free Orcs of Cascadia" is a darker, poignant tale, very well told, with the strongest ending in the issue (at least for me). Jerome Stueart's novelette "Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun" is a lovely story that begins in loneliness and moves toward hope.
I also particularly liked--though not quite as much as the musical trio--Gregor Hartmann's detective SF story, "The Unbearable Lightness of Bullets," and Matthew Hughes's new Baldemar fantasy story, "The Plot Against Fantucco's Armor" (indeed I'd like to read a book-length work about Baldemar).
As usual, I recommend this issue.
Spoiler
A few of these were well done, yet unpleasant or upsetting, so that I cannot say that I enjoyed them per se. Diana Peterfreund's second-person piece "Playscape" is powerful and thought-provoking, but cut too close to my parenting worries to be a pleasant read; S. Qiouyi Lu's "At Your Dream's Edge,” also told in second-person, holds a point worth making, but is graphically horrific; R. S. Benedict's "All of Me" is striking and original, but I found the protagonist unlikable and the premise rather implausible.Oddly enough, my three favorite stories, all of which I liked very much, shared a musical theme. Tina Connolly's short-short with its disproportionately lengthy title is a light, sweet, fun tale featuring an alien and a saxophone. Margaret Killjoy's "The Free Orcs of Cascadia" is a darker, poignant tale, very well told, with the strongest ending in the issue (at least for me). Jerome Stueart's novelette "Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun" is a lovely story that begins in loneliness and moves toward hope.
I also particularly liked--though not quite as much as the musical trio--Gregor Hartmann's detective SF story, "The Unbearable Lightness of Bullets," and Matthew Hughes's new Baldemar fantasy story, "The Plot Against Fantucco's Armor" (indeed I'd like to read a book-length work about Baldemar).
As usual, I recommend this issue.