SCI FICTION, January 12, 2005

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"Follow Me Light" by Elizabeth Bear

ImageElizabeth Bear's short story, "Follow Me Light," is a beautiful, haunting, modern-day fairy tale.  Isaac Gilman, Pinky to all, is a talented lawyer, but horribly crippled and hideous.  He has a mysterious past, and an aura which glitters with "electric blue fireflies."  Maria Delprado is the lawyer and psychic who loves him, who sees the beauty and the pain in him, and becomes embroiled in a story as old as the sea.  Pinky introduces her to a world of primeval mythology, a brother's feud, and the value and power of love.   

Bear's prose is redolent of treacherous waves–the siren call of the ocean–all framed within the burning desert wasteland of Las Vegas.  She casts a spell of wonder and beauty with her deft pen (keyboard), which left this reader enthralled.  I only wish there could have been more to explore, more to share with these fully realized characters, within Bear's magical world.