"The Wizard of West 34th Street"
Mike Resnick
Asimov's - December 2012

WARNING: This is a bit more of an analysis than a review and there is information that might be considered spoilers involved. Proceed at your own risk.

Science fiction stories can accomplish a multitude of things. They can explore fascinating technologies, surprise and amaze, entertain, and provide astute commentary on society. At its best science fiction also explores the nature of being human, and it is this that "The Wizard of West 34th Street" by Mike Resnick does with amazing aptitude and subtlety.

While the title might hint at Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden or call up images of fireballs in the streets of New York City the truth is that this is not what would be classified as a typical urban fantasy and it certainly is not an action-adventure tale. In fact, the vast majority of the story is dialogue and the interactions of two men who simply like to hang out and talk to each other. For me, the hardest part of reading this was getting started. Between the notions the title instilled and the fact that it starts very slowly, it felt like a bit of a slog for the first page or two. However, the pacing is akin to a rolling boulder. Yes, it takes a little to get moving but it once it is there's no stopping it.

Jake is a normal guy who when he meets the wizard, a man who has the ability to predict future events, is skeptical. Most people would be. However, Jake is open-minded enough that when evidence is presented, he does not seek to rationalize it away until it conforms to his beliefs. He accepts it and then he tries to understand it. Very quickly he moves beyond the puzzle of the powers and begins to empathize with the Wizard as a person in a very tough situation.

See, the Wizard can see the future and feels that he is compelled to use this gift to help people. People like Milton, Jake's co-worker, who keeps getting into financial trouble. While the help does not come for free, the Wizard does solve the problems presented to him, though he does not do this for everyone. He chooses to help those most likely to use the help well.

It's never enough, and this is where Resnick excels at exploring the human condition and he does it from three angles. First, there are the Miltons, decent people that go to the Wizard, mostly for financial advice from what is shown, when they get in over their heads. As the reader is shown with Milton, they don't necessarily like having to resort to using the Wizard, but they do, and not necessarily as a last resort, but as a last resort of convenience. It's the equivalent of borrowing money from family rather than getting a second job. Distasteful, but easy. A quick fix.

And like most quick fixes it actually solves nothing. These people, the Wizard tells Jake, are rarely helped for long. They come time and again to the Wizard to bail them out. They do not learn to solve their problems, only to delay them. The sad thing is that only the Wizard sees this. These people run to him, pay their fee, and continue on with their lives until the next time they make the same mistakes.

It's incredibly sad, and also, if you take the time to look at it, terrifying. Because the Wizard in this case could be a representation of any number of real life analogues: credit cards, government aid, parents. Of course, none of those things are bad and neither is the Wizard, but they are things that can be and at times are abused. More and more a sense of entitlement has pervaded at least American culture that makes people think they are owed things and advantages even if they cannot earn or afford them. The Miltons of this story are the every day example of this attitude and the Wizard is the fast fix they need to survive. Without him the entire system crashes.

Unfortunately, there is no Wizard in the American economy, and so this parallel is particularly frightening.

While on the flipside of the issue the Wizard is no less self-interested the people he helps. He has created a situation where he feels he must help people rather than letting them suffer the consequences of their actions and yet he is also lonely and miserable. He wants to be free of this life and the only hope for that is to find someone else to take on the burden. This is, of course where Jake comes in. The Wizard befriends Jake because he knows Jake has the potential to release him. It is telling that the Wizard always says Jake could be his friend but when Jake asks if the Wizard can be a friend to Jake the response is not yes, but that it does not matter because Jake has lots of friends. This, like much of this story, means more than initially obvious at first glance. Because it can be read simply as a sign of the Wizard's loneliness, of all the people the Wizard knows only Jake wants nothing from him, but it's also true that the Wizard is not Jake's friend at all. He is simply using Jake to try and free himself.

He, like the people he serves, is using another person to escape the consequences of his own actions, but unlike his patrons, the Wizard is self-aware. The reader gets the sense that he both feels bad for what he is doing and that he is trying to find the best possible replacement to keep the system going. It does not make his actions better, but Resnick does a fantastic job of making the choices made relatable and understandable. Because in the end it is the same choice most readers would make. Not because they are bad people, but because they are human.

In fact, Jake, who is drawn as something of a decent but typical Everyman, is faces the exact same choices at the end because he falls victim to a variety of the same flaw as everyone else in the story. He does not think about the consequences of his actions.

The ending of this story, the idea of Jake becoming the new Wizard, is not a surprise. It's not meant to be. Resnick plants the signposts of it clearly. Jake wants to understand the Wizard and the Wizard wants Jake to ask questions. Tellingly, when Jake asks how the Wizard became what he is his response is "I asked a foolish question." He says it is better Jake not know which one, though he does not say better for whom. This is the most obvious, but not the only clue that the Wizard is hoping Jake will free him.

In fact, one of the best parts of this story is that the reader sees the end coming well before Jake stumbles into the trap. It resonates well with the earlier discussion presented of free will because you can see clearly the mistakes Jake is making but also, the path is consistent with the character, the choices so small, that you know there is no escape. It lends the story a sense of bitter inevitability that makes the story compelling.

In the end this story has a great deal to say and very little of it is easy to hear. Many readers, like me, will likely be left disquieted. But it's definitely worth reading and thinking about.