The SF Site Featured Review: The Silver Web, Issue 15

The Silver Web, Issue 15

The Silver Web
Issues of The Silver Web are available for $5.95US Each and subscriptions for $10.00US (2 issues). The can be ordered from Ann Kennedy,
Buzz City Press,
P.O. Box 38190,
Tallahassee, FL 32315

Buzz City Press

A review by Rich Horton

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The Silver Web is a nice-looking large-sized small press magazine, printing a rather slipstream-oriented lineup of fiction. The lineup this issue includes some pretty impressive names -- my eye was certainly caught by those of Brian Stableford, Daniel Abraham, Stepan Chapman, and Michael Bishop. The editor is Ann Kennedy. This is the fifteenth issue, a pretty solid total for any small press publication. It's the first I've seen -- hopefully it won't be the last I see.

I was particularly taken with Stableford's "Oh Goat-Foot God of Arcady", in which he slyly interleaves a woman's conviction that she is being stalked by the randy god Pan with biotechnological speculation about producing chimeras. A very neat use of fantastical imagery in the service of SF. I also quite liked Carol Orlock's sweet, rather Bradburyan, fantasy "Ye Olde Ephemera Shoppe", about a man who acquires the title business, and after making it a success selling fairly typical antiques finds a more rewarding sort of "ephemera".

Increasingly impressive new writer Daniel Abraham offers an explicitly Borgesian hospital in "The Apocrypha According to Cleveland," in which a young man comes to more complete understanding of the true nature of the infinite hospital in which he works. And two stories in a more traditional "horror" mode also struck me: Scott Thomas' "One Window", and T. Jackson King's "A Lesser Michelangelo". The first is an atmospheric piece set in a dystopianish futuristic sort of milieu -- a man becomes infatuated with the idea of the woman in the apartment across the way, but -- well, it's all atmosphere, fairly effective. King's story treats of a couple, a writer and a composer, using each other for inspiration. They do so in a rather different fashion however. No real surprises here, but the description of their relationship is effective.

The other stories are generally well-executed, but didn't quite work for me. On occasion they were a bit too self-indulgent, or simply too strange for my tastes. Yours may differ. There are also several poems, rather fine work for the most part, and an interview with cover artist Scott Eagle by Jeff VanderMeer. This is one of the finer small press publications in our field, worth a look for anyone interested in the more slipstream, more edgy, boundaries of SF.

Rich Horton is an eclectic reader in and out of the SF and fantasy genres. He's been reading SF since before the Golden Age (that is, since before he was 13). Born in Naperville, IL, he lives and works (as a Software Engineer for the proverbial Major Aerospace Company) in St. Louis area. He writes a monthly short fiction review column for Locus. Stop by his website at http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton.