From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:48:24 2004
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:42:16 -0600
From: Rich Horton <richard.horton@sff.net>
Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton, sff.discuss.short-fiction
Subject: Summary: Cemetery Dance, 2003

Summary: Cemetery Dance, 2003

Once again, it's hardly fair to call this a "summary", as I only read
one issue of the magazine this year. As far as I can tell (not easy!)
>from looking at their website, they published 5 issues in 2003, a
pretty impressive total for a small press. They've been around for 15
years, also impressive, and the issue I saw, the last issue of 2003,
was #46, again an impressive mark. Richard Chizmar is the editor and
publisher. The magazine is a horror 'zine, and I read it in part
because Ian McDowell and others suggested that it was more
representative of the better writing in horror short fiction than
several small magazines I reviewed earlier.

And they were right. Issue #46 is "all-fiction", with 12 stories, one
a novelette (and one more that I counted at 7400 -- so it could be a
novelette too), for a total of about 62,000 words. From a look at the
website, 7 or 8 stories per issue is more typical, so I assume about
40,000 words. (Plus additional features, to be sure.)

The stories are distinguished compared to the previous set of horror
magazines I reviewed in two ways: 1) being much much better written,
and 2) generally having a point beyond "let's watch the "heroes" get
chomped". Granted, it's still horror and as such often depressing, but
that's no sin, though all in a row like this I admit it tires me. Best
of the issue is probably Ian McDowell's "Making Faces", about a girl
with an abusive father and a little brother into art (and in greater
danger from the father), who gets a gift of a small "amulet" that,
natch, turns out to be more than just a objet d'art. Thomas Tessier's
"The Goddess of Cruelty" was also pretty good, and James Ireland
Baker's "Club 262". 

All in all, not precisely a magazine to my taste, but that simply
because I'm just not a horror fan. It seems to do what it does quite
well.