peter straub, ed. conjunctions: 39: the new wave fabulists
this was my birthday present from fellow avid reader JohnM, which i have been reading in bits and pieces over the past few weeks in between working on school stuff and being stressed out and whatever else i've been doing. it's a great, great, great anthology of fantastical fiction, with stories from big names like neil gaiman, peter straub, and jonathan lethem. my favorites--as much as i could narrow them down--were by karen joy fowler, kelly link, john kessel, james morrow (maybe i should dig out his last book and give it a shot), and elizabeth hand, which run the gamut from touching to sexy to skin-crawling. the volume closes out with two meditations on genre--gene wolfe's is an especially interesting take, one i wish i'd read while i was still taking popular materials. john, let me thank you again--these stories were really wonderful. :)
Glad you liked it! I actually thought the 2 critical essays were nearly as compelling as the stories. I just wonder what the normal pomo and post-pomo readership of Conjunctions thought about this very atypical issue. It probably made them uncomfortable and confused, and that's good. :) Kelly Link subsequently had a story in Conjunctions 43, so that's a positive sign.
ReplyDeleteI really like Kelly Link.
ReplyDeletejohn--i had no idea it was a pomo journal--hee! i'm sure some of them liked it but then felt guilty for giving in to their baser instincts and then were relieved by the analytical essays at the end.
ReplyDeletepinky--i really like her too!