Book Review - Changeling

Changeling
By Nancy Jane Moore
Aqueduct Press
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(First published in Apex Digest)

Nancy Jane Moore's Changeling is the third of Aqueduct Press's Conversation Pieces, a chapbook series that "celebrates the speculations and visions of the grand conversation of feminist SF." Having read this mission statement, I tiptoed ahead, half expecting to be bludgeoned with some dry chunk of polemic. But I was pleased to discover that Moore's novella was a reasonably strong piece of science fiction capable of standing on its own merits.

Ten-year-old Maggie Hines lives in Wichita Falls, Texas, which is not a thriving metropolis by any stretch of the imagination. But Maggie also makes frequent visits a wondrous city, apparently in her dreams. When she takes up painting, with the city as her favorite subject and starts claiming that she was born there, Maggie's parents become irate with her and she begins to suspect that they have something to hide.

Fast forward a decade or so and Maggie is now a paraplegic, thanks to a bad motorcycle accident. She lives a dull life, punctuated by unsatisfying sexual encounters with schoolmates. The "visits" to the strange city eventually start up again, but now they have taken on a darker tone.

Maggie meets another schoolmate - Irene – and begins a more meaningful relationship, all the while continuing to visit the city. There she meets Gayomart, lord of the city, and Anna, a mysterious young girl whose importance to the tale is eventually revealed to be quite significant. Irene refuses to believe that the city is real, so Maggie takes a camera along on one of her visits and brings back photographic proof.

When Irene goes away to school, Maggie is devastated, but the visits to the city continue and she gradually finds out the truth about Anna, Gayomart, the inhabitants of the city and her parents. To tell any more would be to reveal too much, but suffice to say that the Moore builds the story to a satisfying climax. Maggie, whose body is undamaged in this strange alternate world, eventually is faced with a choice and makes the only one that she can, given the circumstances of her life up to this point.

Moore paints Maggie Hines as a strong and fairly complex character, but does not do quite as well with her supporting cast. This is particularly the case with Gayomart, who, at times, comes across like a cardboard supporting character from an old Star Trek episode. But these are minor flaws, to be sure, and Changeling is recommended to genre readers, regardless of their interest in the feminist sub genre of science fiction.

Copyright 2007 – William I. Lengeman III