Reviews
Distillations: Assonance
This month we continue our exploration of poetry techniques with assonance, defined as the repetition of vowel sounds. Last month, I referred to assonance as “alliteration’s crafty cousin.” The reason for this is that assonance is much less visually obvious. Although the English language is quite free with the correspondence of spelling to sound, this […]
Continue ReadingAmbit #190
Ambit is a long-running, non-speculative fiction, UK magazine that comes in digest format with a smattering of illustrations and photography as well as poetry and fiction. From the issues I’ve read previously, I’ve found that its literary trappings are nonexclusive and don’t tie the magazine to a pretentious mast (something that can’t be said for […]
Continue ReadingStrange Horizons, November 2007
As seems to be the trend for me, November was another month in which I very much enjoyed most of Strange Horizon’s fiction and didn’t dislike any. The first story of the month is “Bears” by Leah Bobet, and it’s about, well, bears. “Ninety-eight percent of all fictional deaths are directly attributable to being eaten […]
Continue ReadingFrom the Podosphere: December ‘07 podcasts
Greg Van Eekhout’s “In the Late December,” read by Stephen Eley, is a good old-fashioned, sense-of-wonder, weird SF tale with a modernist twist. It seems that we are close to the end of all life in the universe, no less. Santa and his reindeer are still alive, as are some “children” scattered across different […]
Continue ReadingThe River Horses by Allen Steele
In Allen Steele’s novella, The River Horses, Marie Montero and Lars Thompson are banished from the colony of New Boston on the frontier planet, Coyote. The savant Manuel Castro—a man who has had himself transferred into a mechanical body—chooses to go with them for reasons that Marie does not understand and Lars does not care […]
Continue ReadingClarkesworld #16, January 2008
In issue 16 of Clarkesworld, Tim Pratt’s story, “The River Boy,” is a sweet little tale about an old woman anxious to carry on her line by having a child, the bargain she makes in order to do so, and its consequences. Her desire becomes linked to the needs of the people who live in […]
Continue ReadingHub #35 - 38
Over the last year, I’ve learned by experience exactly what people mean when they say their lives keep them too busy to read. Now, by this I mean, of course, that while I may have plenty of time in which I could read, sometimes I choose not to because working life forces one to be […]
Continue ReadingThe Town Drunk, January 2008
In The Town Drunk for January, 2008, “Panko” by Zdravka Evtimova weaves an interesting tale of a dead donkey whose meat has the magical ability to make even the most downtrodden woman appear “magnificent” to the (human) male asses that happen to be around.
The imagery of a man more devoted to his donkey than to […]
Analog, March 2008
The first science fiction magazine I ever bought was the January 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The issue featured a Christmas cover by Kelly Freas. I had been reading SF about 5 or 6 years and up to then had been content with books, mostly paperbacks. My taste for short fiction was satisfied, I […]
Continue ReadingMurky Depths #2
It should be noted before reviewing an issue of Murky Depths that the presentation is different from most other print magazines. Even the short fiction is heavily infused with moody, graphic novel stylings. From the author and illustrator biography boxes to spikes of graphic strips between some of the stories, Murky Depths is much more […]
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