On "Keep Calm and Carillon" by Genevieve Valentine (2862 words) ***

What if, one day, your sister disappeared for a few hours and when she emerged she was a . . . a . . . choir bell ringer, and weirdly obsessive about it? That's the basic premise of this story, which wins marks for me for simply being strange. Sometimes strange is good. I think of a couple of my favorite John Steinbeck stories, which are unlike most other things he wrote, one about a holy pig and the other about a psychopathic hairpiece (or was it a psychopathic piece of gum?). Both stories take a preposterous situation and run us through an entire plot. The situation itself is enough to get us interested, and the plot propels us forward. Valentine does a similarly admirable job here. I won't say much more about it lest I spoil it. Read it here at Farrago's Wainscot.

On "Lady Glory and the Knave of Spades" by Nicole Kornher-Stace (3813 words) ***

Much genre fiction focuses on form and story more than the language that the writer uses to create that story. That's a likely reason I didn't give much attention to genre writing for many years. So much of a good story is how it's conveyed. So I really I like when a science fiction writer makes me listen to words again, the lilt of the tongue. Not to say the Kornher-Stace's story is science fiction--it's just good fiction with a postapocalyptic world as its setting. And that setting is made that much more interesting by the way in which it is conveyed. Would I have found this story interesting if the author had simply told this straight out? Hey, there's this girl I know . . . I don't think so. Read the story here at Farrago's Wainscot and see if you aren't also entranced.

On "All Roads Are One" by Deena Fisher (1088 words) ***

Is this is a story? Of that I'm not quite certain, if we're going to talk about the formalities of form--conflict, rising action, climax, resolution. I'm not sure what the conflict or the resolution would be, although I suppose if I gave it some deep thought, I could come up with one. But I've never been one to insist that a story must follow the conventions so long as it is interesting. Perhaps, such pieces are not stories but just extended pieces of poetic prose. Into that category, "All Roads Are One" certainly fits. And therein is how a good piece of writing can, without necessarily presenting a rising action or conflict in the plot, still supply a rise and a climax in voice, in the words used, in the energy a piece sends out. When the author begins to simply list experiences near the end, the quick sentences and short paragraphs make me want to shout, make me want say, Go on, go on. And then, we move back into something longer, restful, and it's like we've come through something as readers, a storm of words, and now we're just looking at the damage left. Read the piece here at Farrago's Wainscot.