Hub Magazine, Issues #59-62

Hub #59 features Guy Haley’s “Man of Stone,” where a hardened veteran abandons a doomed battle. More than a soldier, he’s also the commander of his forces, so his flight in scene two is a pleasant surprise—that he doesn’t regard his act as cowardice makes him an even more provocative character.

Unfortunately, the story takes a strange turn and becomes a rumination on men and their gods. The veteran’s story arc shoots up, then fizzles. Add to that problem a variety of glaring editing errors, and “Man of Stone” is, ultimately, a disappointment.

It’s always great fun to watch a wife-beater/child-abuser get his comeuppance, so I can easily forgive the predictability of Steve Calvert’s story, “Petey’s Christmas” (Hub #60). Petey’s a twelve-year-old who still believes in Santa, even though his school friends have told him otherwise. Petey’s dad is dead, Sam’s the new man in Petey’s mom’s life, and oh is he ever a turd. When Petey’s belief in Santa earns him a blow to the head, the reader knows Sam’s days are numbered. But don’t expect a killer Santa to deliver the coup de grâce; Calvert has devised a far more aesthetically pleasing ending than that.

Barbara A. Barnett’s “To Someone Who Needs Prayer” (Hub #61) is a hoot. Divorced, unemployed, alcoholic, and swamped with unpaid bills, Chuck needs a break. And a Cadillac. He has tried every other get-rich-quick scheme, so when a direct mailing from some religious fanatic promises to turn his life around if he welcomes Jesus into his home, he’s open-minded. Willing to try anything, in fact. “To Someone Who Needs Prayer” is a brief but brilliant gem that had me laughing out loud several times by the end. Highly recommended.

Hub’s editors have a penchant for the perverse, as their publication of Eric Brown’s delightful “People of Planet Earth” (Hub #58) proved. Ellen J. Allen’s “The Whole Chicken” (Hub #62) strives for the same audience. She begins with the aphorism that as sex toys go, feathers are erotic, but the whole chicken is downright kinky; then, she shares a real-life example of “the whole chicken” involving decadent European wealth, a trained constrictor (boa? python? Hey, some of us care!), and an alien gigolo with unhingeable jaws and a bifid penis. Ultimately, though, what’s the point? “The Whole Chicken” is more anecdote than story, with little room for character development, plot, or even humor. Read this one for voyeuristic pleasure, if you will, but don’t neglect Brown’s story, either.