Sun 12 Mar 2017
Stories I’m Reading: NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN “Vinegar and Cinnamon.”
Posted by Steve under Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[3] Comments
NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN “Vinegar and Cinnamon.” Lead (and cover) story in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January-February 2017.
In a world in which magic exists, but not everyone has the same ability to cast spells, one family undergoes a small tragedy when the twelve year old sister transforms her fourteen year old brother into a rat. It was in fit of anger, and once done, she does not know how to reverse it.
Luckily Sam decides that he likes being a rat. His sense of sense of smell is enhanced tremendously, for example, even though his vision is restricted to seeing only objects nearby.
Even emotions have smells: “vinegar surprise, hot-pepper anger from Ma; baking-bread love from Pa; and caramel love and salt-water dismay from Maura.” Maura does her best to change Sam back again and he finally agrees to let her try. Does she succeed? Read this delightfully enjoyable homespun sort of tale and find out.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman has written 17 novels, some for pre-teens and young adults, including The Thread That Binds the Bones, reviewed by Barry Gardner here on this blog. Her short story “Trophy Wives” won a 2008 Nebula award.
March 12th, 2017 at 10:11 pm
THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION is a big favorite with me and one of the most unlikely successes in the fiction magazine business. It was first conceived in 1946 but since magazines were not selling well at the time the first issue was not published until 3 years later in 1949.
Starting out as a quarterly with each issue printing several reprints it somehow survived and became one of the best magazines to ever publish fantastic literature. See THE EUREKA YEARS for more about the early history of this magazine.
I have all the issues in my library, over 750! Though the circulation is extremely low it continues somehow publishing quality fiction.
March 13th, 2017 at 12:37 am
I have a long run of F&SF as well, but finding issues to keep it going has gotten fairly difficult over the past couple of years, and I’ve given up on finding the ones I missed. I bought this issue as well as the next one at a Barnes and Noble in Los Angeles — a long way to go from Connecticut to get good reading material!
March 13th, 2017 at 7:07 am
I used to buy all my issues at Barnes and Noble but a couple years ago they didn’t have copies and I had to subscribe.
I hate to have to subscribe because my issues arrive banged up with cover rips and the dreaded address sticker. But I’d rather have poor reading copies through the mail instead of no copies at all. It’s a great magazine and the literary quality of the stories remains high.