This week I allowed myself to read fiction. Just a little bit, cos even though I’m on the wagon for the duration of the nov, the urge is sometimes too much. Just a short story, maybe a magazine, but nothing stronger. Nae books or nuthin‘, gov.
You know what’s the ideal size for the fiction munchies? A chapbook. Good job then that the great chaps of the East Coast SF Writers and their militant spoken word wing, Writers Bloc, have just produced their newest chapbook titles. I joined some of the GSFWC through in Edburg for the launch of Andrew J Wilson’s “The Terminal Zone” and Hannu Rajaniemi’s “Words of Birth and Death”, and came away clutching a copy of each.
They’re only wee, why should I have resisted the temptation to read just the first wee bit of each?
I tell you, I’m glad I didn’t. Wilson’s chapbook is an engrossing two act play that delves into the life and career of Twighlight Zone creator, Rod Serling. The exchanges between Rod and the version of himself he created to front the programme are at times witty and at times bitter, and reveal much about the man who practically invented genre television.
Rajaniemi’s volume is an entire different proposition, being a collection of three short stories set in his native Finland, and influenced by Finnish mythology. My favourite piece was “Barley Child”, a story as bleak as a January morning, that reveals itself to have a warm heart in the end.
Both highly recommended, and certainly satisfying enough to defer my reading munchies.
Back to the nov now and dreaming of the veritable orgy of literature gluttony that awaits.
ayeahmur 