From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:43:32 2004 Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 22:37:35 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton Subject: Summary: Talebones, 2003 Summary: Talebones, 2003 Talebones published two issues in 2003, as scheduled (the last one arriving at my house only yesterday, but doubtless officially available before the end of the year). It continues one of the nicest small press magazines, always good looking, with a nice mix of stories, poems, reviews, and interviews. I could wish for the occasional longer story, but so it always seems to be with smaller press publications. The subtitle is "A Magazine of Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy", and in general they stay pretty close to that mix -- most of the fantasies are horror-tinged, not adventure oriented, and there is always some straight SF as well. This year there were 14 stories, all short, some 48,000 words of fiction. Best of the year was William Mingin's "From Sunset to the White Sea" (Summer), a hardboiled private eye tale set on the human/faery borderland that transcends its initial cleverness to become really moving. Also from Summer, James Van Pelt's "The Pair-a-Duce Comet Casino All-Sol Poker Championships" is a good story that rather belies its light-seeming title: its about a rich man's cloned copy, a young man working for him, and a space disaster. From the Winter issue I liked Mark Rich's "Asleep in the Arms of Ambience", which takes kitschy painter Thomas Kinkade's imagery and style and runs with it (changing the names of course), with a woman moving to a "City of Ambience" designed by Jason Firth, the Artist of Ambience, where people disappear, so as not to disturb the painterly effects. She becomes frustrated at the lack of connection, and eventually involved with a man who becomes a suspect in the possible murder of Jason Firth. But it's rather stranger than that!