After his sister is found dead and mauled on a climbing trip, Glen returns home to settle a score with Kale, her no-good boyfriend who he suspects has something to do with her death.
This plays out as a very standard, by the book werewolf story. It hits all the familiar notes and thus fails to surprise, or frighten, in any way. The only real interest lies with the characters who feel like they’ve walked straight out of No Country for Old Men.
(Subterranean, Spring 2008)
After 4,000 years of being trapped in its labyrinth, the Cretan Minotaur is taken by steamboat to England. Hung with golden chains, he is presented to the queen as part of the spoils of empire but she quickly finds out he’s more than just an animal.
Written in the second person, addressing the minotaur itself, this is a beautiful, thoughtful story about the literal and figurative chains which bind us all. There’s a reason why second person naratives are rare, but this a good example of when they work perfectly.
(Subterranean, Spring 2008)
A young man receives a letter from his excentric uncle with a housesitting invitation. When he arrives at the house, the old man’s already gone. On the kitchen counter is a note that reads, “Make yourself at home.” He quickly does, but is he settling into the house or is the house settling into him?
As with all other Blaylock stories I’ve read, there’s a very enjoyable sense of Californian magical realism. But that’s also about all there is to this story, which seems to me more like a thought balloon for a novel.
(Subterranean, Spring 2008)
A risk manager and a paramedic discover that by placing a five-liter beer bottle next to the corpses of victims slain by racketeers, they can drink the memories of the deceased. (It’s a little less arbitrary than it sounds because the racketeers torture their victims with electric irons that coincidentally leave Kabbalistic marks)
This is a great look at escapism in troubling times. Ekaterina Sedia was born in Moscow, which is also where this story takes place (or at least in Russia, it’s never specified). It makes for an interesting setting, I’ll have to check out her last book, The Secret History of Moscow.
(Subterranean, Spring 2008)
After neglecting and failing his studies, Stephen is forced to leave Paris and return to London. There, he is quickly introduced to the enigmatic Eva Dubois and her older sister Lily, who has strange scars on her hands. Eva on her part has an interest in mathematics and is constantly scribbling away in her notebook. When Stephen is invited to a dinner party at the Dubois mansion, he will find out what the Dubois siters are up to.
This is a nicely written story with strong feminist overtones in the end. Unfortunately it’s rather longish. But my attention stayed assured by the mystery of when the genre elements would come into play (not until the very end of the story) and Bernobich’s craft in sketching the Edwardian setting and characters.
(Subterranean, Spring 2008)
