From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:41:36 2004 Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 23:09:52 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton, sff.discuss.short-fiction Subject: Summary: Electric Velocipede, 2003 Summary: Electric Velocipede, 2003 Electric Velocipede is a little 'zine edited by John Klima. Its first issue came out in the Fall of 2001 and Klima has managed a regular twice-yearly schedule from that time. Issues #4 and #5 appeared in 2003, dated Spring and Fall. At first glance the 'zine fits very well with such broadly similar slipstreamish 'zines as Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Full Unit Hookup, Say ..., and Flytrap. Klima includes poetry and nonfiction (reviews and essays) in addition to the stories. His taste does run, however, to a fair amount of pretty pure Science Fiction (albeit often with experimental flourishes). In 2003 the 'zine published a total of some 44,000 words of fiction, 22 separate short stories. Among the contributors were at least two real name/pseudonym pairs, with one story each under the "real name" and one under the pseudonym: Mark Rich/"Ezra Pines" and Jay Caselberg/"James A. Hartley". There were also stories by the likes of Stepan Chapman, William Shunn, and Paul di Filippo, to list only the better known contributors. >From Spring I was particularly pleased with Beth Adele Long's "The Rose Thief", a lovely atmospheric fantasy; Chapman's "Fat Nate's Master Plan", a fun look at Devonian gangs; as well as Caselberg's "The Ship" and Shunn's brutal "Mrs. Janokowski Hits One Out of the Park". From Fall I liked Di Filippo's "The Curious Inventions of Mr. H", a wild time-travel story; Hartley's "Nature's Way", a nice alien biology mystery; Mike Lewis's moving "ghost" story, "Waiting for an Angel"; and Rudi Dornemann's lyrical short fantasy "The Moonless, the Midnight Eye, and the Season of the Last Gate".