The Garden State Horror Writers kick off their latest anthology, Dark Territories, edited by Gary Frank and Mary SanGiovanni, with “Dream Girl” by John R. Platt.A passive tale, it follows a man who is steeped in his childhood memories of a girl, one who has recently done something to rise to the top of many people’s thoughts.
“Forty-Nine Cents” by Dan Foley is a tale of a child’s brush with the devil…
With the death of her long time friend and male role model, Tavas, looming Anna leaves school and heads back home to the Devil’s Gate ranch. Once there she has to face not just her fading friend, but also her childhood crush, Ivan and his textbook nasty wife, while she’s still not quite over him. Except that things aren’t quite as Anna left them at the Devil’s Gate. It’s been haunted over the summer by the strange ritualistic killings of the livestock.
After almost revealing a dark family secret Tavas passes, leaving Devil’s Gate to Anna. He also leaves her with a mystery to solve, not to mention leaving her to settle her own issue of the heart.
The Devil’s Gate mixes many familiar themes; a ranch on the edge of destruction, suspicious and dangerous people afoot, the best friend who loves the girl, the bad boy who never treated her right and many, many secrets that must be discovered before they claim Anna’s sanity, or her life.
While it reads similarly to older cozy mysteries, like the Nancy Drew books, and features plenty of events to keep the world expanding and solid writing there’s also a slow pace to the story. Anna finds herself undeniably drawn to the dark, broody and married Ivan. Even when best friend-for-life Brad asks for a chance to court her Anna seems to spend all her date time brooding over Ivan. Ivan’s wife, Colleen, is pointlessly mean and cruel, but Brad keeps falling for her manipulations, even to the point of letting Colleen force herself into their big date to the fair. No one’s to be trusted, of course, especially when Colleen shows up dead and just about everyone is hiding something.
The romance angle is muddled as Ivan is married and potentially dangerous and Brad is unsafely desperate. But in the end the strings come together and the tension skyrockets. The Devil’s Gate is more Murder, She Wrote than fast paced car-chase-and-explosions fare. There’s no gore or sex, making this a good tale for readers who shy away from horror and erotica. And the western flavor adds a bit of spice that might be missing from romance or cozy suspense diets.
According to ReelComix.com a judge has ruled that the rights to The Watchmen belong to Fox and not Warner Brothers (who just made the movie). Why this is all coming out today, while much of the world is drunk on either revelry or depression, I’m not sure, but rumor says that Fox wants to shelf the project, killing the movie and the buzz in one fail swoop.
To me, this makes no sense. Why wouldn’t you want to put out a product that’s going to be a blockbuster when you didn’t have to do any of the work? So are The Watchmen trailers doomed to be the greatest what if in 2008 geekdom? Or will some kind soul leak bootleg copies to the hungry masses?
The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security is a dystopian science fiction story of a future spun off from many of the issues found in the headlines today. At times this can violate the cushion of separation found in most utopian/dystopian tales that allows the writer (and thus the reader) to explore ideas of What If from a safe distance. Some of the aspects in this book feel like modern extremist propaganda from current times, which might turn off some readers. However, to Tisbert’s credit the propaganda comes from both the right and left, and the book touches on extremism for the sake of world building then veers off to it’s own story without becoming a long rant on current events.
Leslie herself is a Security Agent who has been reprogrammed via an implanted neural shield. The same thing that lets the people she works for add all the training she needs to her brain with short updates, also strips her of her memory. Ghosts of her past exist, like certain things holding her attention or unexplained emotions and panic, but Leslie has no understanding of why these thing are important and with the consistent reprogramming her employers are able to try to correct her instinctual flash backs, but only after she’s shown them. This leads to Leslie having a very fractured feel, being emotional but not knowing why.
Despite Leslie’s inner conflict she still acts as trained when an Atheist from a sect in Vermont (which, like California, has seceded from America) tries to assassinate Father Washington, the President and religious leader of America. Splattering the would be assassin’s brains on live television earns her the adoration of the people and a Sainting (which makes her an honorary member of Congress, and too high class to continue her current job in Security) from Father Washington.
While Leslie is suffering for doing her job the people surrounding her who know where she comes from are busy panicking an trying to keep her a secret. If the upheaval of her life by instant fame wasn’t enough now Leslie finds herself pregnant, unmarried and unwilling to “donate” her growing fetus to science as the government demands. Seeking safety from the rebel groups is no safer, as Leslie, Saint defector, is about to find out.
While there are elements within this tale to dislike (such as a reincarnated Saddam Hussein) Tisbert shows great world building and plotting skills, as well as making his characters, for good or ill, read as genuine. The pacing is also excellent, scenes that feel like info dumps in the end serve to add tension to further chapters for readers.
While The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security isn’t going to revolutionize the SF genre, it is a solid addition to it.
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