I know I haven’t sent…

I know I haven't sent you over to Strange Horizons in a while -- I just assumed you were reading it faithfully, every week. :-) But if you've been enjoying this post-colonial/nationalistic/cross-cultural stuff I keep babbling about here lately, or if you like (or dislike) Los Angeles and the land surrounding it, or if you enjoy vivid language, or if a bit of gore doesn't bother you (hey Jed, Susan -- when did we start publishing horror?), or if you're interested in the battle between the old and the arrogant young, or if you just like good stories, then you should really take a look at "Pan de los Muertos", by Dru Pagliassotti. You'll like it.

4 thoughts on “I know I haven’t sent…”

  1. That’s not horror, that’s, um, —dark fantasy! Yeah, that’s the ticket! If we like it, it must not be horror, ’cause we don’t like horror; therefore, it’s dark fantasy. 🙂

    We’ve always published dark stuff; some of the stories on that list could certainly be labeled horror. So, yeah, we do take horror now and then. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, or we’ll be deluged with serial-killer stories again!

    Ellen D. has talked (iIrc) about horror being all about mood; mood is fine, but we of course tend to be more focused on style and/or other factors. So something being horrorish doesn’t disqualify it, but also isn’t sufficient to make us like it.

    (I figure Mary Anne probably knows all that, but thought I might as well respond publicly in case others care.)

  2. Uh huh. Sure. Note excerpt below. [spoilers follow]:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    “…blistered skin peeled back like ashes. The tissue underneath sizzled and then surrendered to fire….”

    “…lunged with blackened, skeletal hands…sharp fingers pierced him…sank into his cold, dense flesh, and touched bones….screamed as she pulled him open and…blood poured onto the sidewalk, liquid darkness as thick and as rich as motor oil, as raw sewage…”

    Dark fantasy. Uh huh.

  3. I can’t believe you posted those spoilers, Mary Anne. When the blistered skin peeled back, I would have expected it to peel like an orange, and for little nanosprinklers to emerge from the tissue underneath. But now that I’ve read your SPOILERS, I already know the whole shebang goes up in smoke! Way to kill the suspense, man!

  4. Ah, but maybe I just made you think that was what happened. With all those ellipses, it’s really very hard to tell. 🙂

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