Steve Redwood rambles on about Jupiter Magazine
A new quarterly magazine edited by Ian Redman, subscriptions available £9 for four issues. Taking a tour of Jupiter's moons, Issue One is Io, 32 pages, pretty small print, and Issue Two is Europa, 56 pages, much more comfortable print size. The second issue also rectifies an omission in Issue One, and tells us something about the writers, which I always find helpful to put a story in context, and interesting in itself. (I hope the Man from Nemonymous doesn't read this!)
As is not unusual with new magazines, the standard of the fiction is uneven. Indeed, there is an odd correspondence between the two issues: each has a humdinger of a story, a couple more pretty good ones, and a relative failure. (Having had a recent bad experience myself, I'm not giving the names of the writers of the stories that didn't work for me; people who buy the magazines will be able to judge for themselves, and thus the writer will be able to defend himself BY THE STORY; as for those who don't buy the magazine, there is no way for the writer to defend himself, and, besides, the quality of the fiction offered is more important than who wrote it.)
But let me say outright that the good easily outbalances the bad.
Each issue also has four poems (seven by Lee Clark Zumpe) but I don't feel qualified to comment on them.
Issue One's humdinger is 'The Child of Her Dreams' by John Rosenman, and the story well deserves its pride of place as lead story for a new magazine. It concerns a woman (the next step up in evolution?) who seems to be immortal, and whose children's lifespan from birth to maturity to death is little more than a week. The story is very well-written, and very moving in its exploration of the relationship between the mother and her child. A close attention to significant details (even the name of the mother, Dawn) held me all the way, and although the story is a tragic one, there is the suggestion that 'the deaths of all the children...were not wasted or futile after all'. A little gem.
“The Breeding Grounds', by Lavie Tidhar, is another very well-written story, though without the emotional force of the first one--not unnaturally, since it concerns the emergence of artificial intelligence. I really cannot say more without giving the game away, but it is convincing, with a great ending.
'Combustible Eden', by Davin Ireland, takes an old theme--hidden life on an alien planet--and gives it a nice twist. Apart from having us wonder who or what the aliens are, tension is added with the distrust of the narrator for his companion. A satisfying, traditional story.
'Cold Adventure', by Tom Smith, is short but far from slight. It's about a man in a research station infatuated with a woman in another research station on a freezing planet, and who makes a fatal mistake on the way to see her. His story has taken on the aspect of a myth. What gives the story its bite is the attitude and reaction of the lady in question. An excellent example of how much can be said in a few words. I also got the impression that the writer had done his research into the effects of extreme cold.
'Murder on Station 5' is by far the weakest of the stories on offer. I almost wonder whether it was meant to be a parody of old private eye stories. The 'clues' are childlike (the victims didn't recognise the killer on Deep Station 5, so the hero brilliantly deduces the killer might be a stranger who has come in on a visiting ship!), there are two strangers, so the hero chases the wrong one, the showdown is risible (they keep missing each other with blasters from a distance of a few inches), and a space freighter is so shoddily constructed that our hero throws the baddie against a panel, which 'gave way. Space lay behind it... Simon floated away, his hand at his throat. His skin turned red, his eyes expanded, exploded... I looked away. Simon was gone, he wouldn't be coming back...'(!). It's cliché after cliché, both in plot and language ('you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to...' etc.). And dozens of typos.
By an odd coincidence , Issue Two also has one super story and one rather unoriginal one, with the other two being pretty good. The 'super' story is 'The Ancient', by Nicholas Waller, about two lovers travelling through time (through relativistic effects) searching for each other (maybe). It is also, as the author points out, a story of disillusionment with childhood role models. And yet, so strong is the writing, I found myself having more sympathy for the main protagonist that perhaps the writer intended. Yes, his quest is selfish, he does indeed 'feed his memories by sucking the sympathy of the living', but there is also something glorious in the intensity of his search. It reminded me of an early George RR Martin story, 'The Lonely Love Songs of Loren Dorr', and even (unintentionally, I'm sure) of Coleridge's 'The Ancient Mariner', though the Mariner's purpose in recounting his sad story is much less selfish. The skill of the ending left me stunned.
'Fractions of Jason Bar', by Liam Rands, is also very good. It concerns an interview between a man cryogenically frozen, and brought out of stasis (so he believes) 400 years later, and a representative of the future society he awakes in. It is full of ideas, as we come to realise the imperfections of the new perfect society. The evolving relationship between the two men is also convincingly shown, with a fairly shocking denouement, although the love story behind it all seems a bit superfluous.
'Aria' by A.J. Alliegro, tackles the old idea of whether a replicated human is really human. It's an ambitious story that holds the attention, but is stylistically sometimes uneven. There are, for instance, too many replacements for 'said' such as 'inserted', 'returned', 'disclosed', 'noted', 'proceeded' that grated on me; and too much (unnecessary?) info-dump by the protagonist's friends, which might better have been devoted to the replicant herself. We don't get time to know her, or to really feel for her. The story, although good, with some excellent touches, perhaps needs either to be longer (to build up the relationship between the protagonists) or more focussed on this aspect. Here, though, is where notes on the author put things in perspective: it appears Alliegro has only just started writing, and if so I think we'll be seeing much more of him. This story attempts a lot for an early effort. I feel sure that one day he will return to this story, polish it up, and have a real winner.
The fourth story, 'Dying Days', is competently written, but for my taste rather unoriginal and clichéd. The earth is struck by some strange radiation that buggers up technology, and also makes 92% of the population run amok tearing the other 8% to pieces. We are then given scenes of different people reacting to the situation, and more scenes of destruction (freeway, nuclear reactor stations, etc.). The title perfectly describes the content, and this content is itself well-described. But I can't see any purpose in this content. There simply is no 'story' behind it all, no character to care about. Worst of all, there isn't a single scene not seen in films or on TV. However, this may just be my taste, I tend to be a bit fanatic about originality--I know the writer has a biggish following. And, like Murder on Station 5 in Issue One, it's littered with typos. (Perhaps these two stories were scanned in, with unfortunate results, I can't believe the writers were so crass. Apart from these two stories, there are almost no typos.)
All in all, I can certainly recommend 'Jupiter' to anyone with a love of SF (or, indeed, a good story) , and it is to Ian Redman's credit that he has dared to bring out a new magazine despite the present climate. With the exceptions I mentioned (and I must repeat, I suspect many would disagree with me in those cases) the fiction is much better than I had expected in such a new (and very reasonably priced) magazine, and often superior to that in the early issues of many other magazines I can remember.
www.jupitersf.co.uk for subscription details, etc.