Phantom + The Alchemy of Stone available in ebook formats from Fictionwise

Kes: Although it seems as if almost every book is available in a wide variety of formats, I often find that it is precisely the kind of literature I am most hoping to find--the more literate speculative fiction being published through the mid-sized and small presses--which is still the most difficult to find in electronic formats. Thus it is that I religiously prowl Fictionwise's "new ebooks" list every week, and this week I was doubly rewarded.

1. Phantom Edited by Paul Tremblay & Sean Wallace (Prime Books, 2009)
available as a MultiFormat ebook from Fictionwise
$9.95, on sale this week $8.46   

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b110302/Phantom/Paul-Tremblay/?

As one of those people who admits to being a horror fan, I am often asked--as occurred just earlier this week--why do you read that stuff?

While my long answer can be found here http://kestrell.livejournal.com/585544.html
my short anser is, in hopes of finding books like _Phantom_.

_Phantom_ contains fourteen stories written by some of today's most intelligent writers of horror and speculative fiction, each exploring the idea of what scares us. The answers in this collection offer nothing so trivial as zombies, vampires, or ghosts. Instead, they explore the fears which lie even deeper down in the psyche: the fear of being a monster, the fear of the human potential for inhuman violence, the fear that our very fears will overwhelm us.

_Phantom_ is an excellent introduction to the world of literary horror, as co-editor Paul Tremblay describes the term:

Block quote start
The literary horror story aims to do more than shock, titilate, scare, or affect the reader. While affect is a clear and important (possibly defining)
element of horror fiction, there needs to be more. In using the
elements of literary fiction-style, theme, setting, character-the
literary horror story goes beyond the scare, beyond the revealing
of some terrible truth (personal or social or universal) and asks the truly terrifying questions: What's next? What decisions are
you going to make? Does it matter the consequences? Do you know the consequences? How are you going to live through this?
How does anyone live through this? Stories where the shock or the grand revealings or implications aren't the point, but just a part of the exploration of how people react to the everyday horrors of existence, how they might answer How does anyone live through this?
Block quote end

I have not yet finished all the stories in the book, but among my favorites so far are: "The Cabinet Child" by Steve Rasnic, which explores how the desire we keep hidden can become both magical and monstrous;
"The End ofEverything" by Steve Eller, in which the last human living after a zombie apocalypse turns out to be the most monstrous of all;
and
"Kinder" by Steve Berman, in which a man is literally overwhelmed by his own fears.

Um, really, there are lots of great stories written by people not named Steve, too.

2. The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia (Prime Books, 2008)
This book is on the Locus Recommended Reading List
and was also on the Honor List for the 2008 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
http://lquilter.net/tiptree/?page_id=157
Available as a MultiFormat eBook from Fictionwise

$9.95 Sale: $8.46
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b110301/The-Alchemy-of-Stone/Ekaterina-Sedia/?
eBook Description: Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles,
the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets - secrets that can
completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. This doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to
her heart - literally.

Hal Duncan's "The Behold of the Eye" online

I love Hal Duncan--not only does he create awesome queer Elizabethan pirates, he does totally riotous not-cute fairies. "The Behold of the Eye" features the latter.

"The Behold of the Eye" as a podcast from PodCastle
http://podcastle.org/2010/06/09/podcastle-107-giant-episode-the-behold-of-the-eye/
(includes men with accents!)
and as an etext
http://literary.erictmarin.com/archives/Issue%2028/behold.htm

Review: the Contemporary Theatre of Boston's production of "Midsummer Night's Dream"

I realize that this is my fourth post in less than twenty-four hours and that this will seriously send the Snarkometer toward dangerous levels of vitriol corrosive enough to potentially eat through the computer screen, but I really felt that this information could save the lives of those in my community. Or, at least, it could save two hours of your life which, hey, is just about the level of superhero I feel up to today.

The first suspicious sign was when the person taking our tickets said to each individual person, "This is a two-hour show and there will be no intermission."

In retrospect, I realized that this could be interpreted as, "We're afraid that if we let you leave for the intermission, most of the audience will not come back."

Second suspicious sign: when the music being played over the PA system kept getting louder, until it made conversation impossible. It turned out that that was the sign that the play was starting. This actually made me miss those dweeby speeches usually given by the artistic director or someone in marketing.

Third suspicious sign: Letting Hermia sing. I am not musically gifted myself, I respect how difficult it is to sing in front of an audience, but there were wrong notes and wandering keys involved. And the songs were drawn out to signify emotional commitment. I began to miss the PA system.

Fourth suspicious sign: Interpretive dance. 'Nuf said.

Fifth suspicious sign: Murky lighting. I was sorry that lj user alexx_kay didn't get to really enjoy the nudity, but was somewhat amused by the fact that he complained a few times that he couldn't tell the characters apart due to the murk.

Sixth suspicious sign: Murky interpretations. Theseus may have been a vampire. Puck may have been a demon from Hell. Demetrius may have been a werewolf who tore off all his clothes and ran howling throught he forest covered in blood. Okay, I made that last one up, but the rest are true. However, I'm not really certain if these were impressions intended by the actors, as they seemed to pick up and drop tones and delivery styles from one scene to the next. I sensed a lot of "What is my motivation? What is my intention? Why am I wandering around with thisplate of sardines?", and I'm not sure there was even a director for this production. However, when it doubt, yell, even if it makes no sense as to why the actor is yelling at that point. Also, the yelling made Hermia really shrill.

Okay, so that was about the first fifteen minutes.

It did get better after that, kind of, but it was about then that I realized that there would be no rude mechanicals and *no Bottom*. I mean, Bottom is a liminal character who totally binds together the worlds of the mortals and the fairies, and his words are so vital to what I think of as "Midsummer" that it really felt like the heart of the play, the real emotional and poetic core, had been sacrificed.

There was also a *lot* of dead air, and more actors singing inexplicable tunes by the Beatles (okay, only one of the songs was a Beatles tune). But Theseus, Oberon, Puck, and Helena were all good, if sometimes confusing in their delivery, and Puck was female, which was interesting. I really began to like the interpretive dance to tunes by Marilyn Manson and other gothy types.

Basically, if you like your Shakespeare really experimental and can bear having no Bottom in the show, you may be intrigued enough to check this production out.

Lastly, this has nothing to do with the show itself except that it happened on the way to the show: another blind woman's guide dog tried to herd me in South station. Also, the other blind woman did sardonic really well as she said, "Yes, Jody, it's a second blind person..." (I may be misremembering the dog's name).