In
UFO6 (Unidentified Funny Objects 6), editor Alex Shvartsman once
again delivers the high quality comedy we've come to expect from his
UFO series. A good portion of UFO6 titles utilize epistolary formats
for a non-traditional punchline—these stories are otherwise quite
unlike each other. A wonderful collection, expertly arranged.
Stories
range from the self-explanatory “Twenty-Nine Responses to Inquiries
About my Craigslist Post: Alien Spaceship for Sale. $200, You Haul”
by Tina Connolly to the surprisingly touching “A Crawlspace Full of
Prizes” by Bill Ferris, which is a bit like if your life were a
video game, while being nothing like other stories about video-game
lives.
UFO6
includes heavy-hitters Jim C. Hines with parody “A Game of
Goblins,” Jack Campbell with “Agent of Chaos,” in which a
writer's muse forces her on a trek deep into the mountains where she
coincidentally encounters Gothlack, God of Chaos, Alan Dean Foster
with a Mad Amos Malone story, “A Mountain Man and a Cat Walk Into a
Bar,” and Mike Resnick with a Harry the Book story, “The Great
Manhattan Eat-Off,” which is as perfectly ridiculous as it sounds.
If you've never read Mad Amos Malone or Harry the Book, you're still
in for a treat with these two. And let's not forget Ken Liu, whose
“An Open Letter to the Sentient AI Who Has Announced its Intention
to Take Over the Earth” drips with sleaze.
On
the hard science fiction side of things, “The Breakdown of the
Parasite/Host Relationship” by Paul R. Hardy shows how a symbiote
and its host can degenerate into petty arguments as fast as your
roommate. The Captain reluctantly attempts to intervene as
disagreements turn violent and regulations fly out the spaceport.
“Display of Affection” by P. K. Sambeaux serves up a healthy dose
of creepy in a world where everyone's wired into the net. Guy can't
take any more of it when his mother dies, and—well, you'll never
look at a museum quite the same afterward. In “Common Scents” by
Jody Lynn Nye, symbiote Dr. K't'ank helps host Dena Malone solve a
murder mystery with his love of stink. “Alexander Outland: Space
Jockey” by Gini Koch may make you wonder if a comedic anthology
could, indeed, be complete without space pirates and explosions.
“Approved Expense” by David Vierling gives us a chance to live
vicariously through dimension-hopping Special Operative Morgan T.
Graymael as he explains his itemizations to The Budget and Accounting
Administration.
Israel's
lost tribe returns on a spaceship in “Lost and Found” by Laura
Resnick, in which they are quite shocked to learn what's become of
their temple. Esther Friesner introduces readers to the mythical
Yiddish town of fools with “From This She Makes a Living?”—along
with some interesting phrases, uttered at the discovery of a
people-eating dragon come to town. Both Friesner and Resnick's
stories treat religion with whimsical irreverence.
“Dear
Joyce” by Langley Hyde turns all your fantasy tropes on their head
with an opinionated advice columnist in this parody reminiscent of
LOTR, if Frodo had written to Joyce. “Return to Sender” by
Melissa Mead takes us back to folktale classics with letters written
by giants of the fe-fi-fo-fum persuasion. “An Evil Opportunity
Employer” by Lawrence Wayt-Evans pokes fun at both lawyers and
secret identities as our hero tells a henchmen that he should have
read the contract. “The Friendly Necromancer” by Rod M. Santos
shows us the proper way to deal with those pesky Knights and Knaves
riddles—with violence. Santos delivers an excellent blend of
characterization, quest-like trickery, and irreverent humor.
Told
in first person by the morally-ambiguous scientist who unleashed
chaos on the world through humanity's greed and self-loathing,
“Impress Me, Then We'll Take About the Money” by Tatiana Ivanova,
Translated by Alex Shvartsman, closes out UFO6 with a bang.
