Freaks’ Amour, by Tom De Haven

Mutants on the Outside, Looking In Hardcore. That’s the word that comes to mind. But not just because Freaks’ Amour refers to a XXX rated show where Normals go to watch mutant men rape their wives and girlfriends (and for a finale the Normals pelt them with rotten fruit). The sex scenes are not particularly […] Read more »

Review of Illyria, by Elizabeth Hand

An Elegant Explosion of Repressed Creativity and Desire This is beautifully written, Romantic (in the 18th century sense, not the Danielle Steele sense) novella about soul mates, forbidden love, and being a magical child in a family that’s lost its mojo. It’s also about talent, both the kind that emerges full-blown and the kind that […] Read more »

Review of Osama, by Lavie Tidhar

Wishing Terrorism Was Only Fiction Many people have compared the novel Osama by Lavie Tidhar to books by Phillip K. Dick. It is similar in that the main characters come to realize that reality is not at all what it seems, and that there are those who would stop them from learning the truth. However, […] Read more »

Shakespeare, the Sexy Fantatist

Most people will never read Shakespeare after wading through Romeo and Juliet and maybe Hamlet in high school, and that’s understandable. Elizabethan English is a bit of brain twister. It’s a shame, though, because unlike many greats of the past that we know we should read because it’s good for us, Shakespeare should be read […] Read more »

John Irving

Colorful, Complicated Characters Inhabit Worlds By Turns Domestic, Surreal, and Absurd. In other words, realism. In my opinion, often it is only through the particulars of an artist’s vision that we can begin to delve into the irrational motivations, tendencies, and quirks that many of us (and our culture) have but which (at least until […] Read more »

“Invisible Heist”

photo collage

 fiction by Melanie Lamaga This story appeared previously in “Fiction International #38, Sacred/Shamanic.” Imagine a bank teller.  You know the type: slender, blonde, luminously clean, except that her fingers are coated with invisible money-paste made of microscopic flecks of skin, mixed with dirt and oil. Still, she seems to shimmer pink and gold in the […] Read more »