“[A] brilliant meditation upon the role of magical thinking in our political culture… it is also one of the most atmospheric, disturbing and thought-provoking short stories I have ever encountered. If Rivera’s work does not get picked up by one of the Year’s Best anthologies then there really is no justice in the world.” –Jonathan McCalmont, SF Signal
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“Set in some future in which “proxy wars” have left some small counties uninhabitable, Edgar is a refugee from the Dominican Republic who worries about increasing terrorist attacks in the United States. He is grateful to be living in a run-down apartment building but something odd is happening in the basement. Edgar finds out and must make a decision on how to deal with it in another very effective story. –Sam Tomaino, SF Revu
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“[A] mutant Copland, with mongrel Spanish/American Chandleresque freeflow amid an alternate war against ‘Chinos’, spiced with S&M and Voodoo. And on the surface this is a breath of cruel air….Good job I passed Spanish A Level in 1966. A bit rusty, but enough to cope with this story.” —A mighty Story Quintet
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“Mercurio D. Rivera jumps nimbly between bystander, torturer, and victim in “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us.” This fast-paced tale follows Edgar, a war refugee immigrant from the Dominican Republic to New York City. While we learn that the wars and terrorists of this not-so-distant future have left everyone a victim in some way, Edgar is relatively lucky with a new apartment and a safe home for his mother and sister upstate. No apartment is perfect, though, and Edgar tries on the one hand to turn a deaf ear to the screams in the basement, and on the other to quickly apologize to his landlady when he and a girl are making too much noise.
The reason they’re making noise is because Mercedes is the kinky type and trying to goad Edgar into fulfilling her masochistic fantasies. Their love-making turns into a heated argument where Edgar gets slapped around, and the landlady comes in to make sure everything is okay. Embarrassment ensues, and Edgar’s worried he’ll get kicked out.
After realizing they can’t be lovers, Mercedes and Edgar become friends instead, and he confides to her his worries about the screams in the basement. He can’t bear not to investigate, but as he does so, his perception of the world spirals out of control.
Plenty of gore in this one. Rivera includes a lot of Spanish lingo, but it’s easy enough to infer the meanings of all his phrases, and if you do know a bit of Spanish, the story is enhanced. I predict that this is the story from this issue that will stick with you the longest. Tight, fast, dramatic, and tortuous.” –Sharon Campbell, Tangent Online
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“Mercurio D. Rivera’s “Tu Sufrimento Shall Protect Us” stands out like a sore thumb in an issue that is dominated by quiet psychology, profound humanity and lightness of touch. Set in an apocalyptic world in which the government battles “Justice Gang” lynch mobs in the wake of a series of terrible terrorist attacks, this story is a brilliant meditation upon the role of magical thinking in our political culture. “Tu Sufrimento Shall Protect Us” explores the idea that, in times of stress, humans retreat into atavistic beliefs about the need for pain and purification. This idea is first introduced in the figure of a masochist who wants to be brutalised by men in order to satisfy her unspecified psychological needs. Rivera then takes this principle and projects it against the use of torture in the War on Terror.
As a 21st Century civilisation, we in the West know for a fact that torture does not work. It does not work because if you beat someone long enough and hard enough they will invariably wind up telling you anything that will make the beatings stop. We know this. We all do. But despite this knowledge Guantanamo Bay remains open and our governments continue to outsource the interrogation of terror suspects to countries with more ‘liberal’ attitudes to torture. Rivera asks: Is the acceptance of torture a result of ignorance or the product of superstition? Do we send people to be tortured because we genuinely believe that this is a reliable means of extracting intelligence or is it because we think that as long as someone out there is suffering for us, we will be safe?
Rivera asks this question through the lens of South American culture, the story is elegantly written, beautifully atmospheric and filled with some wonderful local colour. “Tu Sufrimento Shall Protect Us” is not only the strongest story in the issue, it is also one of the most atmospheric, disturbing and thought-provoking short stories I have ever encountered. If Rivera’s work does not get picked up by one of the Year’s Best anthologies then there really is no justice in the world. –Jonathan McCalmont, SF Signal
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“Another newcomer is Interzone regular Mercurio D. Rivera whose ‘Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us’ is the best story in the issue.
Edgar first hears the screams while he’s undressing and Mercedes is changing clothes in his baño. He doesn’t normally get involved in the shit that goes down in this vecindario – best to let the justice gangs handle it – so he ignores it, tries to shut it out.
Set in a near future New York in a world of ‘proxy wars’ and nuclear-armed terroristas, Rivera neatly reworks the classic scapegoat theme while peppering his narrative with Spanish. Outstanding.” –Colin Harvey, Suite 101
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