CONTENTS: CREDITS: 3 | EDITORIAL: Fiction by Ricardo Loureiro Editor In Chief: Roberto Mendes Non fiction by Nassau Hedron Fiction Editor: Ricardo Loureiro FICTION: Non-Fiction Editor: Nas Hedron 5 | THE ASTRONOMER Interviewer: Christian Tamas Zoran Živković Magazine Designer: Ana Ferreira 15 | THE BIRD CATCHER Slush Readers: Ana Cristina Rodrigues | Ana S. P. Somtow Raquel Margato | Diana Pinguicha 33 | ALGORITHMS FOR LOVE The ISF Consultant Panel: Ellen Datlow | Paul Di Ken Liu Filippo NON-FICTION: Website: internationalsf.wordpress.com 43 | THE METAPHYSICAL FANTASIAS OF Cover artist: George Munteanu ZORAN ŽIVKOVIĆ 2 Copy Editing and Proofreading: Indie Book Launch- Michael A. Morrison er: http://www.indiebooklauncher.com/index.php 47 | FANTASTIKA AND THE LITERATURE OF E-publishing services provided by IndieBook- SERBIA: A CONVERSATION WITH ZORAN ŽIV- KOVIĆ Launcher.com Michael A. Morrison Cover Design: Saul Bottcher Copy Editing and Proofreading: Nas Hedron | REVIEWS BY SEAN WRIGHT 59 EPUB/Kindle Preparation: Saul Bottche 60 | REVIEWS BY JORGE CANDEIAS INFORMATION: Copyrights to the pictures, stories, and articles in this e-book are held by their respective authors. This e- 61 | ABOUT GEORGE MUNTEANU book file is provided for your personal use (including one-time printout of the PDF edition). Republishing 65 | ABOU ISF stories, articles, or images online or in print (including making them available for download or feeding them 67 | SUBMISSION GUIDELINES into peer-to-peer networks) without the explicit au- thorization of the copyright holder is against the law. 68 | MEET THE ISF TEAM 72 | ABOUT INDIEBOOKLAUNCHER EDITORIAL: There’s more to this issue, but I’ll leave those introduc- tions to Mr. Hedron. As always we’re very happy with FICTION this issue and hope that you find it interesting and well worth your time. Drop us a comment at: www.InternationalSF.wordpress.com. So we’ve reached issue 4 and this, let me tell you, is going Until then, farewell Dear Reader. to be an awesome issue. Not that the previous ones were- n’t, mind you, but… well, keep on reading. Ricardo Loureiro, fiction editor First let me introduce our new non-fiction editor, Mr. Nas April, 2013 Hedron. From now on Nas will be the one to select the high quality non-fiction articles that ISF strives to bring to its loyal readers every issue. Mr. Hedron maintains a blog at www.NassauHedron.com that I urge you to seek out. It’s full of interesting stuff. EDITORIAL: On the fiction side this issue, as I’ve already hinted, is NON-FICTION simply awesome. We’ve gathered a roster of fabulous authors, all of them winners of several awards. Before I talk about this issue, I want to say a brief but Zoran Živković is a writer, essayist, publisher, and trans- heartfelt thank you to the ISF team for inviting me lator from Serbia. The very first time I read his prose, as I aboard. Fábio Fernandes set a very high standard for ISF’s recall, it was “The Violin Maker,” originally published in non-fiction and I have no intention of letting that stand- Interzone #176. I was instantly captivated, so I’m ex- ard slip. tremely proud to have secured permission to reprint one In this issue we have a real treat for you: a trio of pieces of his stories, “The Astronomer.” This novelette, published by and about Serbian author Zoran Živković. Ricardo has in 1999, is the first in a series of short works of fiction that introduced the fiction side of the equation, but this is en- together make up the Time Gifts series, and after you’ve hanced and contextualized by two non-fiction articles. read it you’ll know what kind of gift he’s writing about. Both come from Michael A. Morrison, who is not only a Finally I point you to Mr. Živković’s web site at professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at www.ZoranZivkovic.com. the University of Oklahoma, but also an inveterate liter- ary reviewer and essayist with a special interest in the And when my editor-in-chief emailed me to say that we fantastic. had permission to reprint a novelette by S. P. Somtow I was, to put it mildly, flabbergasted. I mean, S.P. Somtow! In The Metaphysical Fantasias of Zoran Živković, Morri- 3 Ever since I read his horror novel Vampire Junction back son not only provides an overview of Živković’s fictional in 1984 I’ve been addicted to his prose. But Mr. Somtow is universe, he also locates the author in the larger context far more than just a writer of horror/fantasy. Perhaps not of literature. as well known is his work as a musician and composer, with five symphonies and a ballet to his credit, not to And in Fantastika and the Literature of Serbia, Morrison mention several operas. Currently Mr. Somtow is artistic gives us an in-depth interview that ranges across a variety director of the Bangkok Opera, and in 2006 he initiated a of topics, from the fantastic in literature, to Živković’s program to bring the entire Ring Cycle by Wagner to transition from scholar to novelist, to a detailed look at Southeast Asia. We at ISF are extremely proud to bring the author’s oevre. Morrison even draws Živković into you “The Bird Catcher,” a novelette that’s far more than a giving a detailed commentary on his various works, cautionary tale about the traumas of war and the boogie- something he’s refused to do in the past. man. This story was nominated for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction in the 2001 Bram Stoker Awards and went ISF’s non-fiction offerings have frequently delivered on to win Best Novella in the 2002 World Fantasy breadth, taking readers from country to country and from Awards. As always I recommend that you visit Mr. one literary form to another, embracing all the variety Somtow’s site at www.Somtow.com. that speculative fiction has to offer. In this issue we also deliver depth, giving you a taste of Zoran Živković’s im- And rounding out the fiction in this issue, Mr. Ken Liu pressive fiction, delivering an overview of his work, and once again graces our magazine, this time with allowing you to meet the man himself. Enjoy the ride! “Algorithms for Love,” a story that I can only describe as The Matrix for the thinking reader and far more interest- Nas Hedron, non-fiction editor ing and thought provoking than the movie could ever April, 2013 hope to be. Be sure to visit his site at http://kenliu.name/ about/. FICTION 4 3 THE ASTRONOMER* Zoran Živković I He had to escape from the monastery. He should not have been there at all; he had never wanted to become a monk. He’d said so to his father, but his father had been unrelenting, as usual, and his mother did not have the audacity to oppose him, even though she knew that her son’s inclinations and talents lay elsewhere. The monks had treated him badly from the begin- ning. They had abused and humiliated him, forcing him to do the dirtiest jobs, and when their nocturnal visits commenced he could stand it no longer. He set off in flight and a whole throng of pudgy, unruly brothers started after him, screaming hideously, torches and mantles raised, certain he could not get away. His legs became heavier and heavier as he attempted to reach the monastery gate, but it seemed to be deliberately withdrawing, becoming more distant at every step. And then, when they had just about reached him, the monks suddenly stopped in their tracks. Their obscene shouts all at once turned into frightened screams of distress. They began to cross themselves feverishly, pointing to something in front of him, but all he could see there was the wide open gate and the clear night sky stretching beyond it. The gate no longer retreated before him and once again he felt light and fast. He was filled with tremendous relief when he reached the arched vault of the great gate. He knew they could no longer reach him, that he had gotten away. He stepped outside to meet the stars, but his foot did not alight on solid ground as it should have done. It landed on something soft and spongy, and he started to sink as though he’d stepped in quicksand. He flailed his arms but could find no support. He realized what he had fallen into by the terrible stench. It was the deep pit at the bottom of the monastery walls; the cooks threw the unusable entrails of slaughtered animals into it every day through a small, decayed wooden door. The cruel priests often threatened the terrified boy that he, too, would end up there if he did not 5 satisfy their aberrant desires. The pit certainly should not have been located at the entrance to the holy edifice, but this utmost sacrilege for some reason seemed neither strange nor unfitting. He began to sink rapidly into the thick tangle of bloated intestines, and when they almost reached his shoulders he became terror-stricken. Just a few more moments and he would founder completely in this slimy morass. Un- able to do anything else, he raised his desperate eyes, and there, illuminated by the reflection of the distant torches, he saw the silhouette of a naked, bony creature squatting on the edge of the pit, looking at him mali- ciously and snickering. He did not discern the horns and tail, but even without these features he had no trouble understanding who it was; now that it was too late, he realized whom the terrified monks had seen.