Hello, Bewildering readers,
Jerry is out of town again this weekend, and I don‘t know whether he’ll have the time to write us the usual friendly note. We wish him a safe journey home and hope it’s less tiring than last time.
In this issue, Deep Bora brings his two-part serial to a tasty conclusion with some Jupiter water and mango juice. I’ve successfully prevailed upon him to send us some factual articles.
Also in the serials, Michael Tyzuk’s pilfering pair rocket off to conclude their adventure. I’ll let you in on a little secret: they’ll find that crime does not pay; worse, it charges interest. On the other hand, Ásgrímur Hartmannsson’s little story about Brian Pilkington seems to suggest that crime might just pay after all, provided you can make someone else foot the bill.
Norman A. Rubin’s imaginatively titled “Imagine Dead Imagine” needs no official Challenge to conjure up its backstory. It’s a coroner’s eye-view worthy of a horror magazine, and at the end we can tell we’ve seen a crime that has a motive but no purpose. Eric S. Brown’s vignette in our official Challenge is also colored in horror hues, and our task is to imagine what vampire Jack is up to with his trunkload of sucked-dry corpses and somewhat ambivalent attitude toward policemen.
Death seems to be a recurrent theme in this issue. Thomas R.’s “Pack Your Bags, Mr. Li” is a poem I persuaded him to excerpt from a longer work. I think it stands by itself and is one of Thomas R.’s very best among the many good poems he’s sent us. The reference to the Senate in “Deletion” makes perfect sense in Canadian terms; in fact, it’s a small but neat point of political satire.
The Challenge category has built up a full head of steam. In addition to the official Challenge, we have Toby Wallis’s well-considered response to Challenge 62. In a double response to Challenge 64, “Iceship,” Dancer proposes a story outline that describes how the character Lila grows up: from cute little girl to ravening psychopath. NewB is not far behind in the cute little girl from Hell sweepstakes with his response to his own Challenge. The horror writers among us will surely be taking notes and cranking up their word processors; the story ideas are an interesting inversion of the theme of the Alien film series.
Sneak preview: the Challenges will continue on a roll. In issue 66, NewB will give us a new female character with an “L-a” name: Lana. She’s the opposite of Lila, and she’s paired with an ambassador named Kevin. In issue 67 she’s going to meet the Dreaded Floon. The scenario might be played by Diane Keaton and Woody Allen. A Challenge question might be: Who’s really the bug-eyed monster here? Keep coming back; you don’t want to miss the fun.
Don
Copyright © 2003 by Don Webb
And here comes the other guy, sneaking in under the wire as it were. I've been out of town for the last several days and have been giving our baby somewhat short schrift, but fortunately, I can trust Don to put together a fine issue for your reading pleasure. I promise to do better next issue. Really.
Jerry
