New Ceres

Issue 2

Alisa Krasnostein (2007)
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Reviewed by Adam Bales, May 2007

When I woke up this morning with a craving for futuristic science fiction that explored Eighteenth Century culture I thought I was bound for disappointment. At least until I saw New Ceres.

New Ceres is a shared world webzine where each new author contributes to and helps expand the world of New Ceres. While this planet exists amidst a universe of sophisticated technology, the settlers aim to recreate the Eighteenth Century and outlaw any technological advancement created after this period.

The second issue of this magazine features four stories and a non-fiction piece.

“Mist and Murder”, Lucy Sussex's contribution, is crime fiction featuring two characters introduced in the first issue of the magazine: La Duchesse and Pepin. When a ghost is sighted at a mansion in the country, La Duchesse is called to investigate and, in her mind, to come up with a logical explanation for the sighting. This story follows standard conventions but is no less enjoyable for that. This isn't my genre of choice and I felt the story started a little slowly but by the end I felt it had vindicated itself, particularly with the final scene.

Jay Lake's “Tower to the Sun” focuses on the last hours of Brother Linnaeus, the leader of New Ceres' most feared organisation: the Lumoscenti. The Lumoscenti are the priests who ensure no illegal technology is used on the planet. Brother Linnaeus must decide who to pass his task onto even as he grows weaker and more unable to be sure of his decision. The piece is character rather than plot driven and I would have liked to have seen the Brother being portrayed as a slightly stronger character but that is a minor complaint in a story that is, overall, an interesting read.

“Sufficiently Advanced” by Stephen Dedman features Barrington, an employee of the Bureau of Trade, who is sent to investigate reports of illegal technology use in a brothel. However, as he does so, he struggles to figure out right and wrong amidst pressure from his boss. Not only did I like Barrington's character, as well as the character of Madame Genevieve, the owner of the brothel, but I also enjoyed the plot and the side of New Ceres that this piece revealed. In fact, this is my favourite piece from the issue.

“The Bride Price” by Cat Sparks is another good story. Padraic, the son of a rich lord, is to purchase a future wife but, even from the start he has doubts about the process. When he runs into some refugees from Earth he is led to question the system further. Padraic is likeable and the other characters in this story only serve to make him stand out more. All up, this story works well.

The final piece in the magazine, a fictionalised non-fiction piece is a theatre review from the Prosperine Times. I'm not a fan of this style of piece - I prefer my fiction fictional and my non-fiction factual. Still, reading the piece in conjunction with the stories, I did get a deeper feel for the world and I found the style interesting enough to sustain it. In fact, in a magazine like New Ceres, I might be able to learn to appreciate the idea, as the world is interesting and looks set to grow more so.

While I didn't really wake up this morning with the desire to read such a specific genre, after reading this issue of New Ceres, I'm impressed enough that I might do in the future. Still, while I enjoy reading this romanticised view of the Eighteenth Century, I'm happy to enjoy reading the magazine through the medium of my Twenty-First Century computer.

My advice after reading the whole issue: Keep an eye out for the next issue but, before you do that, I suggest you go and subscribe to this one. It's only five dollars and it's well worth the cost.

Alisa Krasnostein (2007)
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Syndicated from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Reviewed by Tehani Wessely, May 2007

New Ceres is an innovative project initiated by Gillian Polack and Alisa Krasnostein, with the support of some of Australia's best speculative fiction writers, including Tansy Rayner Roberts, Dirk Flinthart, Lucy Sussex, Cat Sparks and Stephen Dedman.

The New Ceres concept is a shared world-building experience where authors write stories set in the future colony world of New Ceres. New Ceres has been developed as a world where the precepts of the 18th century are stringently adhered to - most of the time. However, given that the world is open to refugees from an increasingly tortured Earth, and to visitors from other colonies, there are bound to be anachronistic conflicts. This is added to by the very nature of such a stagnant society and the oppressions such a society fosters, and the hints of revolution or evolution are ever-present.

In this second issue of New Ceres, the world is beginning to grow. I was fascinated by the gentle twining of threads from the first stories, and the information provided about New Ceres by its creators, woven in delicately with the plots and characters of the new pieces. We are being offered the growth of a rich tapestry, where readers can become lost in the ever expanding reaches of this planet, and writers are allowed the opportunity to extend their own imaginations. The constraints of writing in New Ceres are not onerous. In fact, I would suggest that any author could find a niche in the colony in which to tell a tale. It matters not whether you, as an author, choose to build on what another writer has begun, or simply to touch upon details already featured - the evocativeness of the writing to date has provided a patchwork of facets to draw upon, to meld with a new story, or to expand into a larger construct.

New Ceres 2 offers a perfect example of how this world is intended to operate in Lucy Sussex's “Mist and Murder”. Sussex has taken the characters of La Duchesse and her secretary, Pepin, created by Tansy Rayner Roberts in Issue 1, and thrust them into a new mystery, this time a haunting backed by murder. Sussex stays true to Roberts' original characterization, yet fleshes out the characters somewhat, especially that of Pepin (and I am looking forward to seeing Pepin again in Issue 3).

Jay Lake ventures into the world of the Lumoscenti, an organization that basically polices the maintenance of the era, working against any who would introduce new technology. While I felt that Lake's piece was not quite as polished or plot driven as the other works in Issue 2, at the same time “A Tower to the Sun” certainly adds depth to the world of New Ceres, and I can see more stories being set against the backdrop he has provided.

My favourite story in this issue is “Sufficiently Advanced” by Stephen Dedman. In this story, Dedman ventures into the bordellos of New Ceres, and we meet Barrington, a delightfully innocent man who is a clerk for the Bureau of Trade, a government body responsible for regulating technology, and the Madame Genevieve, who operates the most successful brothel in New Switzerland (a province of New Ceres). This unlikely couple enchanted me throughout this piece, which is somewhat of a departure from much of Dedman's other work, for he tends to have a darker side. This story does a great deal to explore the societal problems on New Ceres, in such a way that the reader is drawn into the world in exploration, rather than being info-dumped and lost. Dedman shows a keen awareness of the difficulties facing women in an environment such as New Ceres, and extends on the theme first explored in Dirk Flinthart's “She Walks in Beauty” from Issue 1 of an undercurrent of quiet revolution and change in the waters of New Ceres. I hope we will see more of Genevieve and Barrington in future issues.

In “The Bride Price” - the final story of Issue 2 - Cat Sparks tackles class issues on New Ceres and delves deeper into the issue of refugees than we have yet seen explored. While frequently mentioned in other New Ceres stories, this is the first time we have been given a look at the lot of the refugee first hand. Tansy Rayner Roberts introduced refugees in some detail in Issue 1, but Sparks has taken us to the next level of understanding. Here we meet Padraic, clearly from an upper class echelon, sent to find a bride from a matchmaker. His bewilderment at the process is endearing, but what really provides the character growth, is his reaction to meeting refugees on his journey home. Clearly Sparks intends herself or others to revisit the character, as she has set a scene that allows great scope for expansion.

The last piece in Issue 2 is the “Prosperpine Times Theatre Reviews by Arabella Hedgwick” - yes, I've deliberately included the 'author' name in the title, as these 'non-fiction' pieces in New Ceres are all world building features that add to the intrinsic growth of the project. Copyrighted to Alexandra Pierce, an experienced reviewer in the real world, the piece nods to Maxine McArthur's story in Issue 1, and while I didn't feel that in itself it was much more than a nice bit of fluff to end the issue, it holds the seeds of further exploration in the world of New Ceres, and this in itself is no bad thing for those who wish to write here. These sorts of details make future works all that much more authentic and allow for depth and realism that might otherwise be difficult.

New Ceres deserves attention from readers and writers alike. There are few boundaries on what can be submitted to the editor for consideration as a market, and it pays extraordinarily well for an Australian small press publication. And the stories in the two issues thus far have been of extremely high quality, from well known authors who are proud to be initiating the process of writing in this ground-breaking project. I will make note that while the new website is nice, the user friendliness of the files themselves are still a work in progress. I have it on good authority that these issues are under review and I suggest that improvements in this regard are not too far away. In any case, the stories are well worth the effort. I recommend you take a look at New Ceres. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Tehani Wessely is a judge in the 2007 Aurealis Awards Fantasy: Novel category. This review is the personal opinion of the writer, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the panel or the Aurealis Awards Committee.