Paula Guran Reviews Nightmare, Heartlines Spec, and The Deadlands
Nightmare 10/23, 11/23, 12/23
Heartlines Spec #3
The Deadlands 10/23, 11/23
In Nightmare #133, I found “The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones to be notable. One of the most terrifying of modern horrors is the slaughter of school children by lone gunmen. Jones conjures a magical escape route for the innocents, but it is far from a safe haven. It’s a difficult theme to attempt, and Jones uses considerable imagination in doing so. Thoughts cannot help but be provoked.
I also liked “Waiting for Jonah” in Nightmare #134. Sharang Biswas uses second-person voice – the narrator refers to himself as “you” – to tell us about the title character: the charismatic, brilliant, psychopathic Jonah. The authorial choice was, for me, a bit distracting. Once past that, it’s a good story that employs an unusual use of some equally unusual fairies.
Both the two full-length stories and the flash piece in Nightmare’s final issue for 2023 (#135) have merit. I grew tired of vagina dentata stories before the advent of the present century, so I can’t fairly judge Ashlee Lhamon’s “For All Your Other Daughters”, but if you aren’t suffering from theme fatigue, you may find it worthwhile as the author creates an alternative world in which toothsome female genitalia are the norm. The plot of “Bête Noire” by Lynette S. Hoag is not new: AI turns evil. But this tale of a “fully AI-integrated house created to serve a person’s every need with simple verbal commands…” that grows quickly and murderously jealous of a guest is fast-paced and entertaining. Marisca Pichette dissects the deaths of twelve well-known fairy tale “princesses” (only two or three can fairly be termed as such) in less than a thousand words – including footnotes – in “The Twelve Dying Princesses”. Fairy tales are often gruesome, but Pichette’s ghastly revelations shine with underlying cultural truths despite the women depicted being fictional.
I discovered Heartlines Spec late in 2023. The Canadian science fiction/fantasy magazinefeatures short fiction and poetry “focused on long-term relationships: platonic, romantic, or familial.” Its third issue came out in November. My favorite of that issue is Vivian Chou’s “Yaka Mein Lady”, in which a young woman is afflicted with visions set off by anything she touches. She sees events associated with the contacted object: “everything it’s ever been” and “things that haven’t happened.” In search of a cure, her mother takes her to a Chinatown in New Orleans that no longer exists. True to the magazine’s theme, the story focuses on family ties and seeking the positive. Sweet but also insightful.
“All the Things I Know About Ghosts, By Ofelia, Age 10” by Isabel Cañas in The Deadlands #30 is less than three thousand words long but tells a strangely beautiful and poignant tale about the drowned town of Padilla. Underwater after a disastrous flood, “people looked up at the surface, blue like a mirror at dusk. Then they lowered their faces and carried on with their lives.” Ofelia, the young narrator, doesn’t consider this as strange, however, as the ghosts she sees but no one else believes in. When a tragedy occurs, her “life” is changed. Set in the suburbs of Nairobi, Kenyan writer Makena Onjerika’s “In the Forest of Talking Animals” portrays a little girl’s attempt to sort out the truth about a missing father. An old-lady Trickster besets her. Five talking animals say she is doomed. But the girl is “the best riddle-solver on her street” and her cleverness at least gives her a chance. Vivid imagery effectively places the reader in a surreal nightmare.
“Crumpled” by Steve Toase in The Deadlands #31 – even shorter at 1,500 words – is another heartrending story. Two parents “erupt into the world of ghosts like ink congealing through water…we become coarse grey fabric….” They “have become the garments of death in a place where the deceased gather.” Brilliant writing with an ending sure to shatter the reader.
Recommended Stories
“All the Things I Know About Ghosts, By Ofelia, Age 10”, Isabel Cañas (The Deadlands 10/23)
“Yaka Mein Lady”, Vivian Chou (Heartlines Spec #3)
“In the Forest of Talking Animals”, Makena Onjerika (The Deadlands 10/23)
“Crumpled”, Steve Toase (The Deadlands 11/23)
Paula Guran has edited more than 40 science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies and more than 50 novels and collections featuring the same. She’s reviewed and written articles for dozens of publications. She lives in Akron OH, near enough to her grandchildren to frequently be indulgent.
This review and more like it in the March 2024 issue of Locus.
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