Diabolical Plots #74, April 2021

“The Day Fair For Guys Becoming Middle Managers” by Rachael K. Jones

“For Lack of a Bed” by John Wiswell

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

Two very different stories of working people facing strange problems appear in the latest issue of this on-line publication.

The protagonist of “The Day Fair For Guys Becoming Middle Managers” by Rachael K. Jones can only keep his job by either submitting to painful and bloody surgery to make him conform to the standards of the elites, or by becoming prey to be hunted down by them. This brief, darkly satiric story will appeal to anyone who has had to jump through hoops for an employer, although there is not much to it besides the premise.

The main character in “For Lack of a Bed” by John Wiswell is a woman suffering from chronic pain who works in a pet store that sells supernatural creatures. She accepts a used sofa from a friend, even though someone has recently died in it. The piece of furniture proves to be a succubus, draining its victim of life even while it allows her to enjoy pain-free sleep. With the help of her employer, who is also a succubus, the woman finds a solution to the problem.

This tongue-in-cheek story conveys the challenges of dealing with chronic pain, a condition shared by the author, in a lighthearted way. One of the creatures mentioned in the story is taken from a well-known movie, which does not fit in with the rest of the fantasy concepts, which are based on traditional mythology. On the whole, this is a moderately amusing bagatelle.

Victoria Silverwolf would like to mention that John Wiswell has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for the Diabolical Plots story “Open House On Haunted Hill.”