Review by Joe Mayhew from Absolute Magnitude (see the DNA Publications site.)
Sadly, small presses tend to have small circulation. Sadly, because their independent editors, driven more by the love of SF than anything else, often take risks with stories the major editors won't. Some of what they publish turns out to be second-rate, but some stories, which might have otherwise not been published, are very fine indeed, and deserve serious attention.
In 1991 Steve Pasechnick and Brian Youmans edited Best of the Rest 1990, selecting ten stories and poems from publications that produced less than 10,000 copies and that were not distributed by a major publisher. For this anthology, the scope was expanded to include other English language publications with small circulation in the USA. It contains fourteen stories and six poems, several by writers the average SF reader may not yet be familiar with, as well as a few by better known authors (Michael Bishop, S.P. Somtow, and Eliot Fintushel). Some of these stories did not grab me, but the ones that did had a special kick-in-the head quality and a haunting vitality.
"Eat Your Greens" by Australian writer C. M. Morgan (originally published in Altair #1), follows a group of boys on leaping machines are making their way through a forest canopy in their new headmaster's game of pursuit. He is the quarry. The first one who can hit him with a lopab nut wins the game. But the new headmaster has insisted that the boys eat, which they are not accustomed to do, which changes the game. Morgan gradually takes his readers farther and farther from the expected "public school" into an intricate, utterly alien landscape, and yet the "boys" remain true and real, whatever they are.
In "Burying Marmee" by David W. Hill (first published in Talebones #10) The mother of two small human boys dies on a planet where humans are only a small, unimportant fragment of a multi-species population. Marmee's tribe practices elaborate, quasi-Egyptian burial rites and Marmee's husband doesn't have the means to pay for it. So, he puts her out for the garbage men, who will eat her. But the boys won't have that, and they put her on their red wagon and go from species to species trying to find one whose burial customs seem appropriate. The plot is one found in old folk tales, but the rest is the stuff of dreams.
The reader who is looking for a fresh angle, or is curious about what lurks outside the mainstream of SF, would do well to get this book. In addition to the selected stories, it includes a list of "Honorable Mentions" as well as a bibliography of some recent small press books and chapbooks. While he also cites a number of smaller circulation magazines (complete with cost and mailing addresses), he seems strangely unaware of others (including this magazine!) in both story selection and in his bibliography. Furthermore, as a small-press publication which is not likely to be available in most book stores (although it is available from Amazon.com.), he is probably only reaching the choir.
Back to Best of the Rest 2. Back to the Suddenly Press homepage.