Diabolical Plots #102, August 2023

“On a Smoke-Blackened Wing” by Joanne Rixon

“Shalom Aleichem” by Y.M. Resnik

Reviewed by László Szegedi

“On a Smoke-Blackened Wing” by Joanne Rixon

This story combines the basic idea of the Birds Are Not Real conspiracy-parody movement and the frightening vibe of the Hitchcock movie Birds. The text contains a whole bunch of bird species; as a non-native English reader, I had to look them up one by one which added nice imagery to the story.

Although the story gently touches many aspects of human life like loneliness, friendships, and death, I couldn’t really feel how the author wanted to join all of them. The endgame felt rather plain, didn’t really liberate me at all.

“Shalom Aleichem” by Y.M. Resnik

The author turned the good old excuse of talking to your crush about her pet to the level of connecting Jewish religion and angels in the same paragraphs. However, this promising premise halted here and the stakes for the characters didn’t rise from there. Thus this story only shows the vibe of two jittery teenagers opening their senses and doesn’t deliver much more plot–wise.

László is an SF enthusiast living in middle Europe, who also writes songs in the attic.