’Primitive Hunt, Day One’ by Monte Davis is reminiscent of safaris where rich Europeans went on trophy hunts and were photographed with their kills. In this story, however, the hunt takes place on another planet. A father, grandfather, and son have gone on a hunting trip. Weaponry is important in this story - firepower and ammunition. There are locals who act as guides, and bizarre creatures to be shot at in the alien jungle. At one point, the men are even photographed with one of their kills. This story seems to be part of a longer piece. There’s a sense of things happening beyond the ending. ‘Primitive Hunt, Day One’ is meant as entertainment, adventure, and offers exotic creatures, complete with illustrations that veer towards the humorous side. The story seems very American in its obsession with hunting and guns.

David Price’s ‘Silhouette’ is more understated. Set on earth after an alien visitation has reduced the population to shadowy forms, the human tendency towards prejudice is the reason for the aliens’ action. Humans judge people too much on appearances, and to fit in, the aliens intend to reveal themselves gradually, after allowing people to get to know them first. From a prose perspective, there’s more attention to language in this story than in the first, though unless the narrative is set in Ireland (or the US), there’s absolutely no excuse for spelling whisky with an ‘e’. Take it from a Scot - ‘whiskey’ is wrong! I blame the Americans who have spread this odious habit (and who also confuse Scotch with a person from Scotland. Scotch is the drink, Scots or Scottish is the nationality). David Price does not confuse the drink with a nationality, however he does spell Scotch with a lower case ‘s’. The word ‘scotch’ means to scotch a rumour, etc. Okay, I’m getting pedantic, but even though I don’t drink the stuff myself, I reserve the right to correct erroneous notions regarding our national drink. In spite of his sins against Scotland, David Price’s story is probably one of the best in this issue of Jupiter.

’Stranded in Crudland’ by Tom Sykes commits the same sin as the previous story in its spelling of whisky. Is the editor of Jupiter perhaps to be held accountable here? Or is there some dastardly plot to Americanise whisky? As for ‘Stranded in Crudland’, the story puts forth the premise that inventions come from entities in another dimension, who hand them over to human inventors. This time something goes wrong. An invention is passed over before the entities work out it’s a complete disaster. The invention would fully automate human life so that people needn’t lift a finger. Humans will become a bunch of lazy so and sos. The Automator must be stopped. There’s obviously a tongue-in-cheek element to this story. Amongst other things, the people from this other dimension appear to have invented the home shopping channel.

’Just an Illusion’ by Edward Rodosek centres on a man held prisoner by an alien who is attempting to extract information about the location coordinates of a base. Instead of direct methods of torture, the man in the story is subjected to a series of illusions, which are so real, he has difficulty separating reality from the mind-games of the Covon alien. Loved ones appear and try to get the information out of him. As the title says, it’s all an illusion. The ending has a dark twist. Given the prose style of the story, I’m assuming that Edward Rodosek has English as a second language. This is not in itself a problem, but more obvious mistakes could have been corrected by the editor. The way the story plays with reality and illusion harks back to some of Philip K Dick’s writing.

The last story in this issue of Jupiter is a joint effort by Allen Ashley and Andrew Hook, called ‘Vitamin X’. There are two main threads, plus some emails. ‘Vitamin X’ takes pot shots at spam emails advertising wonder drugs, as well as the manipulative machinations of the reality TV show, Big Brother. There are some very good jokes going on in this story, but the authors throw in a blond petite Australian singer called Kacey Pinhole from Melbourne who sings in a high voice, has a gay designer, a perfect bottom, and a famous song called ‘Everything is You’. Okay, spam emails, wonder drugs, and reality TV are fair targets, but Kylie Minogue is a step too far! What did she do to deserve this? As for Big Brother, it’s actually called Big Astro in the story. But it’s still a case of “Who stays? Who goes? You decide.” Anyone evicted is sent through the airlock. (Yes, this is space-age Big Brother.) The story is obviously another tongue-in-cheek effort, but that does not excuse yet another crime against Scotland - the presence of a bizarre Scotsman who talks like no Scot I’ve ever heard in my life. He’s also called Hamish. On a serious note, the female narrator is unconvincing, sounding more like a male, and the email sections fragment the story a bit. ‘Vitamin X’ is still one of the best reads in the magazine.

There are two poems in Jupiter IX. Tracy Patrick’s ;Three Handed Man’ describes a remote controlled hand. “The hand obeys, / a well-trained pet.” The last lines are good, particularly “though the cup is empty / and he cannot yet drink.”

‘Deus ex Machina’ by JPV Stewart is a much longer poem. Some genre poetry I’ve seen elsewhere lacks lyricism, but this is not true of ‘Deus ex Machina’, which is one of the better genre poems I’ve come across. On a general note, there were formatting problems in some of the stories, which were consistent enough to indicate that the writers themselves were probably not at fault. ‘Jupiter’ is an entertaining magazine that caters to the SF buff and those who like their science fiction a little more humorous. They just need to learn how to spell whisky.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.