Magazine Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April 1978 edited by Edward L. Ferman
This issue of the long-running speculative fiction magazine is “All-British”, which the editorial material notes was one of the easiest theme issues to do, since they already had a number of stories by British authors on hand. They dug through the submissions pile for enough more to fill out the issue and then commissioned an essay to tie it together.
“The Gulf and the Forest: Contemporary SF in Britain” by Brian W. Aldiss, is that essay. He suggests that one of the distinguishing qualities of 1970s British speculative fiction is skepticism about technology as an end in itself. The New Wave is also much more free about using sexual relationships as a focus. (I’ll come back to that in a bit.)
“Ariadne Potts” by Keith Roberts begins with amateur photographer Henry Potts taking a picture of a nymph statue. He wishes she were a real woman, and suddenly she is. Ariadne rapidly transforms his safe, dull life into one of taking financial risks and living well. Oh, and having hot sex. This is very much a “manic pixie dream girl” story, but follows the idea to some of the less pleasant consequences; neither Ariadne nor Henry are satisfied where they end up in a few years.
“The Man Who Understood Carboniferous Flora” by John Brunner has an author lured onto the estate of a movie producer and get lost in the wood. It turns out that the estate used to belong to a mad paleobotanist who had some interesting ideas about how plants used to sustain themselves in the distant past. He’s buried out in the back acreage, but I wouldn’t go too close to the flowers that grow on the grave.
“Three Ways” by Brian W. Aldiss takes place in a future where relativistic space travel has become possible. The trio of photographers who had been on the returning scientific expedition are dismayed to discover what changes had been made in the intervening centuries on Earth. Corporatia is a misandrist matriarchy, Anarchia has turned its back on knowledge of past history, and Neutralia is, honestly, racist. When the captain of the expedition tries to get the men back for another trip, the survivors have adapted to their new homes in different ways.
“Films and Television” by Baird Searles has him mentioning that he’s something of a Tolkien purist, and panning the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit.
“Marriage” by Robert Aickman has a youngish man falling in love with roommates Helen Black (dark-haired, non-demonstrative, theatre fan) and Ellen Brown (light-haired, touchy-feely, good cook). His encounters with them become increasingly weird, and possibly hallucinatory (is Helen really watching him and Ellen get it on?) This one has a last-paragraph twist that some readers may find triggery.
“My Soul Swims in a Goldfish Bowl” by Ian Watson is a short fantasy story about a man who coughs up his soul and keeps it in a goldfish bowl. It’s more of a mood piece than anything else and doesn’t really go anywhere.
“Drink Me, Francesca” by Richard Cowper examines the last message of a space explorer who discovers that the seemingly vanished civilization of a planet had a very different logic as the basis of their thought from the perspective of a history class centuries after that message reached Earth, and affected it. Notable for its critique of non-diverse exploration teams.
“Psycho Sis” by Kenneth Bulmer has one of the last independent psychiatrists being interrogated by the Social Integration Service. They show him scenes of his last case, which may or may not have actually happened–are they trying to break him, or cure him?
“Science” by Isaac Asimov uses his recent ocean liner trip to talk about icebergs. How they occur, what happened to the Titanic, and the possible use of icebergs to bring water to thirsty areas. Interesting stuff.
“The Watched” by Christopher Priest fills out the issue with a novella taking place on a planet that’s like Earth, but not Earth. Yvann Ordier used to sell scintillas, tiny cameras the size of dust specks, very useful for surveillance. Now he’s retired to a neutral archipelago, away from the constant war between the north and south continents.
His neighbors are also exiles, the Qataari tribe. They’re known for their hatred of being observed, so much so that if they know they’re being watched, they freeze in place, waiting for days in hopes that the observer will go away.
Ordier has discovered that a ruin on his property just so happens to have a way for him to see his neighbors’ rose fields without them noticing. He is the first to see the mysterious Qataari rituals. Or have they known all along, and he is the one under observation?
There’s a heavy theme of voyeurism here, leading to an ambiguous conclusion. With the Roberts and Aickman stories, this gives the issue a feel of “British men write about their fetishes” which is a bit creepy. Maybe if there’d also been a story by a British woman writing about her sexual fantasies as well?
Most of these stories have been collected elsewhere, but this issue might be worth hunting down because of the packaging.
