Scott Nicholson invents his own future-speak in "A Socketful of Blather." Viz this: a total wirehead carries on an intense conversation with her Aeropagus Go-Boy, a mechanical construct to offset all the neurosurfing, tri-vids, omniplexes and whatnot. She reckonoids nearly a clocklap away trying to transanalyze her situation, endeavoring to keep from being too paranoia hyped, as she’s not ready for the organ farm yet. All while not trying to think a fassy thing. Suffer the notion, that.

Not a lot happens in the "story," but that scarcely matters. The language is inventive and that’s enough for this short-short. You can almost pick up the narrative anywhere in the text and enjoy it. Linguistically stimulating, I reckonoid.

"The Great Vüdü Linux Teen Zombie Massacree" by Lucy Snyder is a hilarious romp through the state of Texas in a world gone mad. Sarah is a magazine reporter sent to cover the story of Bob the computer guru as he reanimates a dead badger to be used as a weapon against the encroaching zombie population. After locating a dead badger, they head back to the Gas & Grep where inside the boarded-up rebar-enforced building, Bob brings the badger to life using technological voodoo, while next door, smock-wearing beauticians sporting bouffant hairdos hold off the zombies with shotguns. Sarah is quite the narrator in this action-packed tale, as she curses her editor while wielding a six-shot Beretta. This tale is quite funny, and one laugh effortlessly follows the other.

"The Westlake Comancheros" by Larry Tritten is a difficult read. The narrator, known only as "wordlugger," meets up with Tony at a crowded bar and they go have a western adventure with horses, guns, and badguys, etc. Tritten is known for creating his own brand of off-beat western, using arcane language of his own devising. I was perplexed by this on the first read, so I read a previous Tangent review on one of Tritten’s earlier stories to find out if I wasn’t alone. Where in the first story of this issue, "A Socketful of Blather," the language held charm, here I found it a chore, with little story to hang it on. If you’re a Tritten fan, you’ll probably like this, but it wasn’t for me.

In "Saving the World from Sleeping In," Rachel Swirsky has a nice little twist on the Grandfather Paradox of time travel. Clancy has invented an alarm clock with the ability to propel the person who hits the snooze button ten minutes—and only ten minutes—back into the past. It’s another one of Clancy’s oddball inventions like the bathroom-adaptable video chat panel or the rocket-powered office chair. This is a funny little flash piece, and I enjoyed Swirsky’s wit and look forward to more of her work.