HARVESTING THE MOON
The Company He Keeps: A Postscripts Anthology
TITLE: Postscripts #22/23 – The Company He Keeps
AN ANTHOLOGY by various authors, edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers
PUBLICATION DATE: September 2010
EDITION: Jacketed Hardcover
COVER ART: J.K.Potter
RED VELVET DUST
Nemonymous 7: Zencore:
Ed. by D.F. Lewis.
Megazanthus Press. U.K. June 2007
Buy it
Review by Jim Steel:
Tangent review by Jim Stratton
As originally envisioned by the editor, these anthologies publish cutting-edge magic fiction and magic realism written by professional authors. The catch is that the authors and the editor are anonymous as of the date of publication. This gives the authors unprecedented freedom as they can experiment, try new ideas and techniques, without the reader having any expectations or preconceived notions. The prose stands (or falls) on its own merit.
FIRES
In The Dark: Stories from the Supernatural
Ed. Myna Wallin and Halli Villegas.
Tightrope Books. Toronto, On. October, 2006.
Beginning with the introduction right through to the last piece, the contributors grapple with ghosts and various denizens of the unknown in unexpected ways, pinning them to the page with words.
With In the Dark, editors Myna Wallin and Halli Villegas bring together a collection of stories that are by turns witty, eerie and frightening.
Every story is as unique as the dark shadows of each writer’s imagination, the place where all supernatural stories begin.
THE EYES OF HORUS
The Nine Muses Anthology
Ed. Forrest Aguirre and Deborah Layne.
Wheatland Press, Winter, 2005.
Review by Mathew Cheney:
“Ursula Pflug’s The Eyes of Horus is, as can be expected with most of Pflug’s work, utterly unique … the plethora of oddities and imageries is almost intoxicating at times.”
BLACK LACE
On Spec Magazine Ed. Steve Mohn.
“Editorial on Special Theme Issue: Addictions” Vol. 16, No. 4 (#59)
Copper Pig Writer’s Society, Edmonton, Fall, 2004
Buy it at On Spec.
Review by Rich Horton:
“On Spec put out four issues this year, starting with Winter… The best stories were from the first issue of the year, an excellent issue with a compelling theme (Addiction)…”
THE WIZARD OF WARDENCLYFFE
Leviathan Four Anthology
Ed. Forrest Aquirre
Ministry of Whimsy, Tallahassee, Fl., Fall, 2004
Review by Matt Cheney:
‘The one commonality the stories have is that they are concerned with cities, a concern nicely laid out in a passage from The Wizard of Wardenclyffe by Ursula Pflug:
The City is a figment of someone’s imagination. It is a game The City’s inventor created in a moment of boredom. It kept him amused. It passed the time. He created a city that has no existence outside of itself, that is sufficient unto itself. … The City concedes to no reality other than the one which exists within its bounds. It obeys no laws, not even those of nature, unless The Inventor chooses to impose them himself.
Replace the words “The City” with “The Story”, and you’re as close to a statement of purpose as this anthology ever gets.’
BORDER CROSSINGS
Bandersnatch Anthology.
Edited by Sean Wallace and Paul Tremblay.
Review by Daniel Ausema:
“In Border Crossings Ursula Pflug creates a story as bizarre and unexplained as DeNiro’s earlier story but more effective, one that leaves the reader intrigued and wondering, instead of merely perplexed. The border of the title is between two worlds. In one of those worlds, an unnamed man is a dog, and in the other, human, but Melanie is able to cross between and visits him in each, seemingly unaware that he’s the same person.
There’s much more-the duplicate body parts Melanie is able to grow and then feeds to the dog, the coffee cans the man always wants her to open, the colors that aren’t any colors she knows. It’s a strange and allusive swirl of images that manages to hold together.”
KAOLANI, FROM KAUAI
Bamboo Ridge #91
They’d done their hike through Haleakala, and now, on the way back out, they’d left the trail and were camping on parkland, or maybe it was private land; they didn’t know; it was such a vast tract that nobody could possibly find them. Waterfall after waterfall came splashing down the mountain like a stairway from heaven; mist and rainbows crowning the treetops of the rainforest like damp halos. They had been there for three days, the crater hike itself had been another three.
“What if he kills me?” she wondered aimlessly.