Review of Challenging Destiny
Number 14, June 2002

This review is by Woody O. Carsky-Wilson. It appears here with the permission of the author.

The cover is the most immediately notable thing about the magazine. Professional gloss with excellent shading, it depicted a funny visual joke (about alien cereal). The teasers on the back cover were much better than the typical blurbs from reviewers. (I remember a blurb once from Catherine Asaro describing Linda Nagata as having "an uncharacteristic knack for charaterization", which still makes me wince. Linda's characters are cardboard! It's the tech that is so amazingly cool in her stories. Obviously, reviewers are to be taken with a grain of salt.)

The contents page was uncluttered, and very professional. It gave only the info that needed to be there. This tendency characterized the entire magazine, as though an editor had gone through it with a fine eye to omitting all unnecessary wordage.

I always judge the worth of a story by whether or not I think about it later. After reading the magazine and letting it sit for a week, I find myself thinking about the imagery of the letters spilling out and being captured in "Bobby's First ABC's" -- I want to see those letters run free! --, and the sense of cosmic unfairness revolving around "The Trial of Edgar Allen Poe". I mean, geez, is somebody gonna yank me seconds before my death and try me for crimes I committed that aren't even crimes yet?

Also, I remember commenting a few times to my wife that your magazine did a great job showcasing all those illustrators in the rear of the magazine. That is simply outstanding. It not only exposes the readers to more original art than they would ever see in a similar mag, but it exposes the illustrators to a large audience. For that alone, I commend you. I also liked that you allowed the illustrators to comment on their work. It was education and entertainment all at once, the best combination.

My only real 'complaint' is this. In my opinion, your magazine definitely has the format, editing, attention to detail and artwork that marks it solidly professional, standing far above the semi-pro markets. The fiction, however lagged behind a little bit, with the exception of "Bobby's First ABC's" and "The Trial of Edgar Allen Poe." There was nothing technically deficient in the other stories, per se, but they did lack something. "Deciphering Vermillion" was just a bit amateurish in its treatment of the aliens. Their dialog was too SF movie-like, the solution to the problem too easy. The psychic component could have been handled more deftly. Why did the protagonist have to be a fake? She could have just as easily been a real psychic without any damage to the storyline.

"Not Poppy, Nor Mandragora" was a good example of a talented female author writing from a male POV, but just not getting it quite right. She had the intellectual ideas pegged for a male, but lacked the emotional feel of a man. I mean, if my wife and son were killed by a monster, I would not be so cavalier about it! By damned, my hatred would burn in every bone brighter than starfire, and if I related the tale even a hundred years later, that hormonally-backed hatred would be obvious to all. It would not be a smooth and rounded thing, but studded and jagged, ugly to behold.

"Perfidy" was fun, but the ending was not believable. The woman killing Dromm did not work for me. It was too much out of character, though the logic of it was sound. Still she would have to have been a cold-blooded killer to have done what she did, unless she was being physically attacked at the time.

Anyway, those are nitpicks, but I think they are valid nitpicks. Challenging Destiny holds its own with the pro zines, and, in fact, is better than most so-called pros. It just seems that it could be taken to a higher level if the fiction was tweaked that one last iota. Regardless, the magazine was a great read!

Last modified: February 1, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by Woody O. Carsky-Wilson