I just finished reading this issue and my god was it amazing. As I've previously mentioned I have a huge crush on their fiction editor Deborah Treisman and she continues to impress. Just an amazingly talented, smart, beautiful woman with great taste in all things literature and the voice of an angel. This issue is chocked packed with great fiction and interesting articles about science fiction. Sam Lpstye wrote a good little story called The Republic of Empathy that bounced around from different characters points of view. Jonathan Lethem wrote a really short story about 2 exclusive internets that I'm not sure I fully get. There is an article by Anthony Burgess about his book Clockwork Orange that was interesting. Margaret Atwood wrote a quick piece that makes an eloquent point about science fiction genre. Overall I had 3 favorite pieces in the magazine;
Monistro by Junot Diaz
Junot Diaz writes another fantastic story. This one is about an apocalyptic outbreak of a strange illness that started in Haiti and a coming of age story about a young boy in the DR on the other side of the island. The dialog style of Diaz is fun and thinly veils a great sophistication in his writing.
Quests by Karen Russell
Karen Russell is my other great literary crush, funny, beautiful & original. This quick article joins Atwood's to discuss how science fiction gets the shaft as not being taken seriously as a genre. She tells about how she was reading science fiction books when she was 10 as part of a school program to get a free pizza after reading 5 books. Funny and insightful. Can't wait for her new collection of short stories to come out!
Black Box by Jennifer Egan
I'll be absolutely shocked and will loose a lot of faith in the world if this story isn't included in every year end anthology about the best short stories in 2012. It's a story about a woman who volunteered to be a spy for some future or alternate US who has been modified Bionic Woman style. I don't want to give away too much but it's one of the best stories I've read this year by far for the style, writing & plot.
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