Stories Review Catch Up 2

More story reviews from my backlog

1. Going Round The Bend by Sandra Arnold

The narrator is trying to drive home but the ford is flooded. Then, looking for another route she accidently gets stuck in another flooded ford. When the level of water equalises she’s able to escape her car and someone has spotted that she’s in trouble and a truck comes and picks her up.

It seems a minor adventure but then she learns more.

Read This: A minor adventure with great atmosphere
Don’t Read This: If threat of drowning is not for you
Image: By Kent Pilcher

2. Housewives by Anu Kandikuppa

In one long paragraph a wife and mother feeds her family, as she should, as she must, and in the process is entirely devoured.

Read This: For a look into the heart of family that is disturbing
Don’t Read This: If the metaphor makes you too uneasy

3. Home With The Nibbles by Steve Lodge

A rambling profile of Piril Quench a child star from the 60s who starred in Home With The Nibbles, a TV show about the Nibble family. It span off into three other series, less family-friendly, and so Quench fell out of favour.

All of these are fictional, and only just unbelievable.

Read This: For a brief version of British TV that isn’t true but could have been
Don’t Read This: If a few grinding jokes and tragedies about something you missed just sounds sad

4. Light From A Thousand Stars by Cathy Ulrich

The Astronaut and the Astronaut’s Wife are both on Earth. Soon the Astronaut will return to space. But for now they are together.

The Astronaut’s Wife has many vases because people keep sending her flowers.

Read This: For a story that is not about space or being apart but about the time before that
Don’t Read This: If the time before something happens is of no interest to you

5,6,7,8 Twist In Time Magazine Issue 9

Four of the pieces from this issue that struck me:

The Barristers Ballade in Oompa Loompaish by Kristen Garth

Part of Garth’s Golden Ticket series of poems that riff off Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, this criticism of Wonka’s treatment of workers is lifted by being in a flawless sonnet form.

Tea and the Weight Of Spirits by Janna Miller
An old samurai gets called to the emperor’s court. He won’t go as he has restless spirits here. And tea. A quiet meditiation on loss.

To an Inhabitant of Çatalhöyük and The Bone Dance by Lucy Whitehead

Two poems inspired by the author’s time excavating the site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey, a Neolithic settlement which incorporated graves into the buildings.

Also, the rest, which included pieces I liked but had too little to say anything about (also the serial which is fun, strange and unfinished yet).

9. Luck be a Modern Lady by Sara Dobbie

Millie is a mermaid and she goes to the casino. She’d had good luck at the casino. She loves the casino.
She’s had bad luck with men at casinos before, but she goes back anyway.

Read This: For a glimpse into addiction, risk and being a fish out of water
Don’t Read This: If a mermaid’s compulsion to come on land to play cards isn’t for you

10. To An Alligator Farm I Saw Advertised On The Highway by Ashley Kemker

The narrator saw an advertisement on the highway for an alligator farm. But the illustration on the sign was wrong, the eyes not like those of an alligator. And there’s more wrong, and the narrator wants you to know.

Read This: For a brief rant about alligators that dips into their nature
Don’t Read This: If disjointed thoughts about alligator farms do not sound like a good time