Reviews
Distillations: Imagery
For many people, poetry is a strange new land, as bizarre as any landscape imagined by Tolkien, Heinlein, or in extreme cases, Lovecraft. As the number of poetry reviewers at The Fix grows, I will be taking some time each month to discuss the mechanics of poetry. This guide will not make the landscape any […]
Continue ReadingElectric Velocipede #13
Electric Velocipede is an eccentric zine edited by John Klima with work ranging from literary fantasy to slipstream science fiction to the quirky and comical. A host of mostly unknown authors find a home in its pages in issue #13, but several pieces of fiction read as if crafted by pros thirty years past their […]
Continue ReadingFrom the Podosphere: October ‘07 podcasts
In “Immortal Sin” by Jennifer Pelland (read by Stephen Eley), a man murders a girl who refuses to marry him. His Catholicism suggests that if he repents, he can avoid being damned and going to Hell—except the priest to whom he confesses won’t absolve him because he must first be truly repentant. And since […]
Continue ReadingPostscripts, #12, Autumn 2007
Parasitic ghosts possess a child. Zombies storm a library. Aliens receive murder lessons from a serial killer. A mute screams. This haunting and often surreal issue of Postscripts (a publication with which I was previously unfamiliar) makes me wish I could regularly subscribe. Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers have assembled an intriguing cast of writers […]
Continue ReadingFantasy Magazine Online, Oct. 29-Nov. 5, 2007
Fantasy Magazine, formerly a print journal from Prime Books, has debuted online with a number of reprints and two new stories.
In “Swan” by Eilis O’Neal, a teenage girl’s attempts to come to terms with the transformation and imminent departure of her older brother serves as the basis for a finely balanced dialogue between reality […]
Asimov’s, January 2008
The January 2008 issue of Asimov’s offers a variety of tales, ranging from straightforward SF to subtle fantasy.
In “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick, Silver and Gold are two old men who met each other as kids in the titular shop, which purports to sell magic tricks. They are now ninety-year-olds in […]
Viewpoints Critical by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
L.E. Modesitt, Jr., is an author better known for his novel length writing than his short fiction. In the introduction to Viewpoints Critical, Modesitt points out that he has published half as many stories as novels, an unusual achievement for a writer who began his career in the pages of Analog and Asimov’s. Equally unusual, […]
Continue ReadingTattered Souls, edited by Frank J. Hutton
The first offering in anthology Tattered Souls, edited by Frank J. Hutton, is Jeff Crook’s “The Monkey Skin Cloak,” a battle against primal frenzy in the African jungle. Theo, his wife, Stanci, and guide, Doc Palmer, are on safari when their jeep runs over a native girl. It soon becomes clear that Stanci has somehow […]
Continue ReadingJim Baen’s Universe, Vol 2 Num 3: October 2007
The October 2007 issue (Volume 2, Issue 3) of Jim Baen’s Universe is something of a mixed bag, offering traditionally structured stories that often do not fulfill all the traditional storytelling requirements (e.g., something changes by the end). The ones that do stand out, however, do so spectacularly. Also, be sure to check out […]
Continue ReadingAbyss & Apex, #24, 4th Quarter 2007
Issue #24 of Abyss & Apex is a solid one. One of the underlying themes in all the stories is how we do—or in some cases don’t—use technology. The stories run towards the science fiction end of the speculative fiction spectrum but do make room for both the everyday and the magical. I can’t say […]
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