New issue is up!

"Five Little Girls" by Pam McNew
"Her" by Tobias S. Buckell
"The Curious History of the Micro-Cynicon" by Lavie Tidhar
"Smart Bomb" by James Stevens-Arce


Discuss them at The Fortean Bureau's sff.net newsgroup, sff.publishing.forteanbureau.

The Hortlak

I am so pleased with myself. I finally remembered to check Ellen Datlow's new ghost antho The Dark out of the library. Kelly read most of her story from it, The Hortlak, at WFC, and I remembered this weekend that I didn't know how it finished. It's probably on the list of my favorite of her stories. To cheat, I'm going to quote a couple of her paragraphs because it's so fabulous.

"Eric was night and Batu was day. The girl, Charley, was the moon. Every night, she drove by the All-Night in her long, noisy, green Chevy, a dog hanging out the passenger window. It wasn't ever the same dog, although they all had the same blissful expression. They were doomed, but they didn't know it."

"Charley drives by. There is a little black dog in the passenger window, leaning out to swallow the fast air. There is a yellow dog. An Irish setter. A Doberman. Akitas. Charley has rolled the window so far down that these dogs could jump out, if they wanted, when she stops the car at a light. But the dogs don't jump. So Charley drives them back again."

"And who will be fired out of the cannon?" the zombie said. It was wearing a suit and tie. "My brother will be fired out of the cannon."

The first is the first paragraph of the story and explains exactly why I love her stories so much. the second is a later passage, and the last I love because it's the opening of her story from "...what time is it?" The only thing that confuses me in the story are the Turkish bits that she uses as scene breaks. Which isn't because they're in Turkish, but because I know about four words of Turkish, which include one that gets used a lot, so I want to know what it really says: "Erkek arkas var mi?" is translated as "Do you have a boyfriend?" but I know var as "there" or maybe 'there is" so it confuses me. probably just a side effect of my dog-Turkish. Very good story. Very Kelly. If you're not a fan of ghost stories, you should still check it out of the library or borrow it from a friend, because it's a good story.

Polyphony

Another review of the antho is up, this one in Rich Horton's newsgroup. I'm not one of the stories praised, but then again, I'm not singled out for sucking either, and the book is praised overall, so it's all good.