Hub Magazine, Issues #51-55

The last five issues of Hub have included a few great reviews, several memorable short stories, and even a poem—one you won’t want to miss, even if the word “poem” makes you cringe.

D.K. Thompson’s “God-Shaped Box” in Hub #51 kicks off with one hell of a first-paragraph hook:

“I didn’t kill God; we should clear that up right away. I just captured him and put him in a little box.”

But most competent writers can craft a killer opening. The question is whether they can deliver the goods. Happily, the rest of “God-Shaped Box” is every bit as polished as the opening. Thompson’s story of a couple taking extreme measures to resurrect their son strikes an excellent balance between whimsy and poignancy. The story seems allegorical, too, but not in a heavy-handed or preachy way. The ending is far more thought-provoking than didactic.

The elderly Mr. Tandem, the protagonist of Daniel Good’s “Until Pebbles Grow” in Hub #52 is spending some quiet time in his garden when his neighbor, Mr. French, comes over to visit. Tandem has just returned from the hospital, where he received a neural implant granting encyclopedic knowledge on demand. French has one, too, so when the two get to talking, their conversation soon becomes a dialog of polymaths.

It’s dull stuff, but that is Good’s point. Tandem and French worry about the world leaving them behind, their grandchildren viewing them as dinosaurs. The implant is the latest thing. It’s the answer to their worries. But what have they given up in exchange?

“Until Pebbles Grow” isn’t a sparkler, but it does a fine job encouraging reflection on aging and future shock, and a consideration of what’s really important in life.

The constant drip of blood in Simon Forster’s “Blood” in Hub #53 should incite feelings of horror and dread in the reader, or at least provide a sound explanation for the protagonist’s obsession, much as a heartbeat does in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-tale Heart,” or as a cat’s visitations do in Poe’s “The Black Cat.” But while Poe’s two stories are textured accounts of the guilty psyche, all the reader gets in “Blood” are vague hints that the narrator deserves his fate, or at least believes he does. There’s no backstory, no character development, no insight. Any reaction the reader might develop to Forster’s ever-widening (and deepening) puddle of blood is quenched by the pointlessness of it all.

A.J. Brown’s “Chapiesky” in Hub #54 is a brief but well wrought ghost story, the sort that could be told by children in a darkened bedroom with no more assistance than a flashlight and a creepy voice. The standard elements are present: an unsolved multiple murder, a child who sees things adults will see only too late, and of course the requisite ghosts. Everything gets wrapped up in a not-too-surprising ending. Brown’s tale breaks no new ground, but the technique gleams, and the result is an entertaining diversion.

My home-schooled twelve-year-old hates poetry. He would complain bitterly if I told him to explicate “Khubla Khan,” and God help me if I asked him to write anything more sophisticated than doggerel. But even he granted Peter Roberts’s “The Real Tooth Fairy” in Hub #55 the compliment, “Pretty good,” and my wife (another non-fancier of poetry) said, “Well, that was grim.” High praise from two people who would rather get their teeth cleaned than read Browning or Dickinson. And, speaking of teeth, the Real Tooth Fairy . . . well, she has a thing about teeth. Children’s teeth. To say more would rob you of the pleasure of this delightful gem; it’s my clear favorite of today’s group, so good I’m tempted to print it out and frame it.

I’m going to go brush my teeth now.