The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2019

A better than average 70th anniversary issue of the magazine with an unusual fairy tale by Kelly Link, a tale of media destruction by Paolo Bacigalupi, a funny twist on eastern martial arts by Y.M. Pang and other interesting tales by Ken Liu, Esther Friesner and Gardner Dozois.

• “The White Cat’s Divorce” by Kelly Link: a contemporary setting for a fairy-tale like story of an elderly rich man who sets out three tasks for his three sons to see who would inherit his fortune. The youngest (it's always the youngest in fairy tales) encounters an unusual cat who helps him with the first two tasks. The third one, however, would involve the cat in an unusual situation with the old man himself.

• “American Gold Mine” by Paolo Bacigalupi: a tale of destruction and chaos that occurs when a newscaster deliberately whips up the outrage of mobs raging across a city. And all for higher ratings and money from advertisers. But it may all come crashing down at the end.

• “Little Inn on the Jianghu” by Y.M. Pang: a humorous twist to the usual 'wuxia' stories that feature martial artists, this one tells it from the point of view of an inn-keeper fed up with his inn being trashed by the warriors and goes on a quest to get rid of one of those warriors.

• “Kabul” by Michael Moorcock: a story set in a future full of implied conflict around the world. An army made up of many peoples (Americans, Russians, Ukranians, Afghans, etc.) is making its way to Kabul in Afghanistan. They encounter people fleeing Kabul and when they get they, they see the reason why. But one scout who enters Kabul makes an unexpected encounter that recalls old times that will never return in a world gone to war.

• “Under the Hill” by Maureen McHugh: a look at the life of an undergraduate at a college who discovers that it has an unusual side: a connection to the Fairy world. As her studies in the real and fairy worlds proceeds (unknown to the outside world), she has to decide which world she finally wishes to live in.

• “Madness Afoot” by Amanda Hollander: a humorous look at the fairy tale of a prince looking for his true love via a shoe. Only here, the point of view character is a cousin who decries the whole matter through letters to her husband. But it also reveals a cunning resolution to the story that made help the oppressed pheasants, usually not mentioned in such tales.

• “The Light on Eldoreth” by Nick Wolven: a tale of parents negotiating a marriage for their children, only here the parents are rich, own worlds and running interstellar alliances. But even here, crisis arise in the form of objecting children and a way out of the ever present fear of machines failing, in a form that makes past attempts at enslaving humans look tame by comparison.

• “Erase, Erase, Erase” by Elizabeth Bear: an unusual contemporary fantasy story of a girl who appears to be gradually vanishing; parts of her pass through things. Only the act of writing down her memories of a painful episode involving a college cult, with a fountain pen on notebooks, appears to keep her solid. But her memories of it are patchy, and she is desperate to get down the details, for it may involve a soon to occur terrorist act by the cultist.

• “Booksavr” by Ken Liu: an online site where people post their writings adds an AI feature, Booksavr, that rewrites the stories to suit the tastes of the reader. Controversy ensures as both readers and writers argue whether it is a good or bad thing.

• “The Wrong Badger” by Esther Friesner: a humorous story set in Englandland, an American theme park about 'authentic' England. A visitor comes to complain that the wrong kind of (robotic) badger is being featured. But that is just a front for the chaos that would occur, and the start of a friendship between a saboteur and an aid suddenly made aware of the underlying bias in the theme park.

• “Ghost Ships” by Michael Swanwick: a short story featuring some ghosts and a journey back to a college reunion that the author says is real, but with altered names. It's up to the reader to decide whether it really is true or not.

• “Homecoming” by Gardner Dozois: a short tale about an old man who enters a town and stays for a while. Keeping to himself, people presume he is a wizard. A young girl approaches him after he shows some fighting skill, in the hopes he is a wizard and can help her dying grandfather. But what he tells her, instead, is advice for those facing death.