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i.e. Ben Burgis: Musings on Speculative Fiction, Philosophy, PacMan and the Coming Alien Invasion

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Review of "The Star Inside the Swastika"

Randomly checking Tangent OnLine (the review site for fantasy and science fiction magazines) I saw that they have indeed posted a review of the issue of DKA that my story The Star Inside the Swastika was published in. I guess since they got behind while between reviewers, they've been reviewing old issues slightly out of order, but I think they're caught up now.

Here's the portion of the review dealing with "The Star...":
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"The Star Inside the Swastika" by Ben Burgis is an intriguing tale about identities. Fritz is the perfect son of the Nazi Fatherland: he has been a Hitler youth, has joined the Luftwaffe, and now takes part in air raids against the enemies of Germany. But things change when Fritz's father, who is a researcher at the University of Berlin, shows him an odd Hebrew artifact. Fritz now finds himself behaving oddly and in contradiction with everything he has been taught.

This is uncomfortable territory, but Burgis handles it without sinking into too much cliché. The story is well done, and the explanation for Fritz's change of behavior is not the obvious one. The only thing that did not work for me was the ending, which I found too convenient: it relies on someone's decision, and since that someone is never really dwelled on, it felt tacked on.
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Oh, and also--no dear reader, I'm not making this up--as mentioned here and here, yesterday was "blog against heteronormativity" day. I didn't blog yesterday because, y'know, I'm actually a strong supporter of heteronormativity.

Takes a beat, wearing dead-pan expression of seriousness...

Actually, in all seriousness I think I'm pretty solidly on record regarding my position on homophobia/gay rights/etc., but if terms like "heterenormativity" aren't meaningless, then meaninglessness has no meaning. (-:


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