One Story magazine

One Story

“Snow Men”

by Naomi Williams (Issue #131 January 30, 2010)

“Bomb Jockey”

by Terese Svoboda (Issue #130 January 8, 2010)

One Story is a magazine that fully justifies its name. He did publish in each issue only one story and mailed to subscribers every three weeks. On the one hand it is not burdensome for the reader: if the modern reader weary of the volume, then 20 pages will be just afforded. On the other hand: for someone who reads a lot, this volume is clearly small. Also, subscribing to the magazine is kind of game of roulette: getting only one story in on one issue, you can not browse to the next story, if you do not like previous. It turns out the wasted money it is.

For that two issues, which were the subject of review, fortunately, failure did not happen. In "Snow Men” the story of the contact of seamen from the expedition of the Comte de La Perouse to the tribe, who live in the Lituya Bay is told by the young girl Eskimo. Actually the whole point lies in the fact that the contact did not take place. Naomi Williams in an interview at the One-Story website said she had tried to convey in the story thinking and language rights, which is very much different from civilized people. The author has succeeded in that, although the young narrator still seems smarter than relatives of her community (that, in principle, does not negate the fact that she really could be smarter than them).

Fans of science fiction will find this story attractive, too: have not put Williams just under the title the date and place of action, the reader is left to guess where and when the events described take place - in the XVIII century on the Earth or in the XXIII century and somewhere in a distant galaxy on god forgotten planet. People from the expedition reminiscent of an advanced race, coming to the race behind. To tell the truth, the stranger were no need, the carnage did not happen (fortunately for the reader).

"Bomb Jokey" by Terese Svoboda is much richer in language, though perhaps less organic. To avoid being just another story about the environment, the author, as she says in an interview on the website of the journal, adds to the short story a love story between one of the workers in the Black Hills Army Depot and daughter of a local politician. Barbed prose is accompanied by difficult relations between the couple. However, Svoboda seems to undecide what the story is about: about poisoning the land or poisoned life. It is certainly the story worth reading, where the environmental side of it seems unnecessary.