E-Book Sampler Review
Oct. 19th, 2010 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseOTHER SIDE: 12 Webfiction Tales
Ergofiction Magazine E-Book (October 2010)
http://www.ergofiction.com/ebooks/
This e-book bills itself as a webfiction sampler. The idea is that the vignettes and stories presented here may lead you to follow the link embedded at the end of each piece out to the larger work/community of the twelve authors featured. I have to admit that, at first, I didn’t understand this basic premise, as the introduction by Jan Oda, the book’s publisher and Ergofiction Magazine’s editor-in-chief, doesn’t entirely make that clear. Or, perhaps, I’m too old and too mired in my own traditional print world biases, because Oda begins the introduction with one of my big bug-a-boos about how there’s this digital revolution underway and the mighty traditional presses may fall in its wake, yada, yada, so I was probably grumbling to myself and not really paying attention.
Once I grasped that rather critical design concept, however, I found a lot to enjoy in this sampler. The collection is pretty evenly divided between science fiction and fantasy, with one horror story, “Junk Drawer” by M. Jones.
My two absolute favorites were a science fiction story, “Dalston Junction” by Meilin Miranda, and an urban fantasy, “Mittlin County Coke Blues” by Isa K.
Miranda’s story follows two women living in London in the early 19th century who are up to something seemingly sinister with unwanted babies. It takes a while in “Dalston Junction” for the speculative fiction aspect to reveal itself -- though when it does, it’s a doozy. The ending, though clearly not “THE” end, was satisfying enough for this to feel mostly complete.
K.’s “Mittlin County Coke Blues” is a unique take on a Pennsylvanian Mennonite youth going through rumspringa. I felt the lack of a complete story more keenly with this one, as I found myself easily identifying with Jake and wanting to know what happened with both his relationship with his buddy Danny and with his mysterious, shunned grandma.
Unfortunately, it’s not clear when you follow the links at the end of either, whether or not you can continue following these specific stories. In fact, it seems you may need to register at Miranda’s site to read *any* of her other fiction.
I also enjoyed the laugh-out-loud space opera/adventure story “The Little Problem” by MCM that involved drug smuggling and… garden gnomes. T.L. Whiteman’s “The Spaces in Between” was also a fun little jaunt into demon hunting through the streets of Paris. Other stand outs included “New Stories” by M.C.A Hogarth, which had very complex, gender changing aliens that reminded me positively of Eleanor Arnason’s Hwarhath. Both G.L. Drummond and Nancy Brauer took on the problems of being psychic in a hostile, mundane world to good effect.
Unfortunately, I found much of the rest of the collection suffered from being partials of much larger, on-going or community stories. For instance, from the first line, “Poaching” by Lyn Thorne-Alder and Chris Childs came off as very fannish. In the others, I simply felt that I was missing some critical bit of world-building or characterization that likely came with reading the webfiction from its beginning, rather than jumping in and jumping out, sampler-style.
If you’re actively searching for online community fiction, this book would serve as advertised. If not, it’s still an interesting read to expose you to what sorts of stories you can find on the web.
Ergofiction Magazine E-Book (October 2010)
http://www.ergofiction.com/ebooks/
This e-book bills itself as a webfiction sampler. The idea is that the vignettes and stories presented here may lead you to follow the link embedded at the end of each piece out to the larger work/community of the twelve authors featured. I have to admit that, at first, I didn’t understand this basic premise, as the introduction by Jan Oda, the book’s publisher and Ergofiction Magazine’s editor-in-chief, doesn’t entirely make that clear. Or, perhaps, I’m too old and too mired in my own traditional print world biases, because Oda begins the introduction with one of my big bug-a-boos about how there’s this digital revolution underway and the mighty traditional presses may fall in its wake, yada, yada, so I was probably grumbling to myself and not really paying attention.
Once I grasped that rather critical design concept, however, I found a lot to enjoy in this sampler. The collection is pretty evenly divided between science fiction and fantasy, with one horror story, “Junk Drawer” by M. Jones.
My two absolute favorites were a science fiction story, “Dalston Junction” by Meilin Miranda, and an urban fantasy, “Mittlin County Coke Blues” by Isa K.
Miranda’s story follows two women living in London in the early 19th century who are up to something seemingly sinister with unwanted babies. It takes a while in “Dalston Junction” for the speculative fiction aspect to reveal itself -- though when it does, it’s a doozy. The ending, though clearly not “THE” end, was satisfying enough for this to feel mostly complete.
K.’s “Mittlin County Coke Blues” is a unique take on a Pennsylvanian Mennonite youth going through rumspringa. I felt the lack of a complete story more keenly with this one, as I found myself easily identifying with Jake and wanting to know what happened with both his relationship with his buddy Danny and with his mysterious, shunned grandma.
Unfortunately, it’s not clear when you follow the links at the end of either, whether or not you can continue following these specific stories. In fact, it seems you may need to register at Miranda’s site to read *any* of her other fiction.
I also enjoyed the laugh-out-loud space opera/adventure story “The Little Problem” by MCM that involved drug smuggling and… garden gnomes. T.L. Whiteman’s “The Spaces in Between” was also a fun little jaunt into demon hunting through the streets of Paris. Other stand outs included “New Stories” by M.C.A Hogarth, which had very complex, gender changing aliens that reminded me positively of Eleanor Arnason’s Hwarhath. Both G.L. Drummond and Nancy Brauer took on the problems of being psychic in a hostile, mundane world to good effect.
Unfortunately, I found much of the rest of the collection suffered from being partials of much larger, on-going or community stories. For instance, from the first line, “Poaching” by Lyn Thorne-Alder and Chris Childs came off as very fannish. In the others, I simply felt that I was missing some critical bit of world-building or characterization that likely came with reading the webfiction from its beginning, rather than jumping in and jumping out, sampler-style.
If you’re actively searching for online community fiction, this book would serve as advertised. If not, it’s still an interesting read to expose you to what sorts of stories you can find on the web.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 04:01 pm (UTC)I'm really pleased you liked 'Coke Blues'. Seriously this made my day ^_^
The confusion tracking down the continuing story was a result of a couple of things converging at once. Shortly before the final edits for Other Side were due the piece of webfiction where the character Jake comes from (Split-Self) was accepted for publication ... I wasn't really sure how to handle this ... once the contracts were finalized I would have to take Split-Self down so I couldn't really direct people right to the story as if nothing had changed ... but it seemed like tempting Fate to change the blurb to promote an upcoming non-webfiction release before everything was final @__@
As far as problems go it was a happy one to have, but that's the back story on that particular goof ^^
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 05:08 pm (UTC)And, I totally understand what you mean about anthologies. I tried to talk about the majority of the stories in the anthology, because I always worry about the same thing. I read them all. I find I do in short story collections, but the review would have been super-long if I tried to write about each individually. Plus, I always worry that if I do that, the review is too spoilery.
Anyway, yes, LOVED your story.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 06:24 pm (UTC)Please tell me how I might avoid that impression in future!
"Dalston Junction" was a stand-alone story; none of the rest of the stories on my site go with it. I'm extremely glad you liked it!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 09:33 pm (UTC)Still, I loved it. It is very professionally written.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 07:21 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for taking the time to read and giving an unbiased, fair review. I hope we have whetted your appetite to read more weblit in future!
Yours,
M. Jones
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 09:37 pm (UTC)Similarly with yours (title now corrected, thank you!) I wasn't entirely sure what happened at the end which left me unsure how to feel about the story as a whole. Also, I'm just not enough of a horror reader to know where/how you fit in the genre. I hope you can forgive my omission. I know how irritating it can be to be in an anthology that's reviewed and not get a sense of what the reviewer thought of your specific story.