And because I’m playing catch up…
…I only just got around to reading Andy Duncan’s “Zora and the Zombie“, from SciFiction, which is a very cool story about writer Zora Neale Thurston’s encounter with zombies in Haiti. I’m going to re-read it later in the year, but at the moment I think it starts really well, but am less confident about the back half of it. I also just read Jay Lake’s “The Rose Egg” from the first issue of Postscripts, which has to do with nanotech, graffiti, gangs and courage. Again, I really liked it, though I couldn’t escape the feeling that Lake handled the story’s voice more confidently as it progressed (though that may just have been my becoming accustomed to the voice as I read). Another one to re-read. The first issue of Postscripts also has a very good Gene Wolfe story, “Prize Crew”, which you should check out when the magazine hits the stands. What else? Um, George Guthridge’s “Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession” is a fascinating story experiment that I think I was just too tired to completely appreciate on first reading, but some pieces of it are wonderful. It’s also a good case of maybe telling too much about something. I didn’t really think of the story as an experiment until I read Guthridge’s postscript describing how he came to write it. Doesn’t make it any less of a story, but … I’d also agree with Matthew Cheney’s point that James Stoddard’s admittedly interesting, entertaining and worthwhile “The Battle of York” is too long. It felt like it needed to be tighter to me.