"The Language of the Whirlwind" is set in a post-apocalyptic Tel Aviv, cut off from the rest of the world by black mountains or a wall of some sort. A volcano of some sort has arisen in the center of the the city, and people are killed when they try to ascend. Possibly sentient giant dust devils periodically sweep in from the Mediterranean and carry people away. People scrabble by on rats and scavenged food and goods, while some assemble into gangs that enslave anyone unfortunate enough to be unable to fight back. Among the ruins, one man copes by becoming a priest of a new religion revealed to him alone. This is his story and the story of a boy who follows him with a whistle.

I liked this story more than I did Tidhar’s story in Interfictions 2, but it was still out there enough that I was really confused as to what was going on. There’s so many moving parts, and most of them have little explanation. I was constantly trying to figure out in my head what each of these things "really" was. Is that a volcano that appeared? possibly not. Who is this fireman that the priest keeps talking about? What are these whirlwinds? What’s happened to the rest of the world? The questions might not even really be that important, but I couldn’t stop wondering about them. Sometimes I like stuff that has unanswered questions, but in this case they seemed to pull me in so many different directions that I never really got a point from the story.

Also on my blog at: http://reading.kingrat.biz/story-reviews/clarkesworld-podcast-february-2010 ( )