Rich Horton Reviews Interzone In 2007
Filed under Reviews • 08-12-2007 •
Rich Horton picks out “Ack-Ack Macaque” as one of his favourite Interzone stories of 2007:
Tags: Ack-Ack Macaque • InterzoneMy favorite Interzone short story was “Heartstrung”, by Rachel Swirsky (June), with its powerful central metaphor of girls removing their hearts and sewing them to their sleeves as part of their passage to adulthood. I also liked Beth Bernobich’s “A Handful of Pearls” (October), a dark story about a scientist investigating an isolated island who has a troubled history — only too disturbingly replicated when his team discovers a girl from a humanlike species on the island. Another good one is Gareth Lyn Powell’s “Ack-Ack Macaque” (October), about a man’s failed relationship with a woman who writes a successful anime about a monkey airship pilot. (One does wonder, between this story and the Blaschke story and David Mole’s “Finisterra” in F&SF, if some stories aimed at the delightful anthology of a couple of years ago, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (co-edited by Moles, actually), didn’t get finished in time for that book and are now appearing.) And I enjoyed Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “Molly and the Red Hat” (December), a neat tale about a very young girl and her magical hat and how it saved her brother. M. John Harrison’s “The Good Detective” (April), about missing persons — people lost to the pressures or the existential stress of contemporary life. It’s quite beautifully written. Other good stories came from Jay Lake, Stephen Francis Murphy, Aliette de Bodard, Tim Akers, and Ahmed A. Khan.
