"Lonesome Mary" by Philip Thompson
"Memories Of Lilacs" by G. Woodrum
"Fresh Hope" by Leanne Groeneveld
"Tears" by Michael Meeske
"Dust Station Omega" by Pete D. Manison
"In The Leaves Of Grass" by Del Stone, Jr.
"Dark Hollow" by Eve Fisher
Space And Time has been published for twenty plus years. It's published twice a year, and still offers some of the finest hard- edged genre fiction in the field. This issue is no exception.
"Lonesome Mary" by Philip Thompson is an odd, unfocused tale set in the 50s in Hollywood. Louis is a reporter for one of the movie gossip rags, and is assigned to do an interview with Elizabeth Weston, a retired movie star looking for a comeback. But his meetings with the star become bizarre when he learns that Ms. Weston's sister, and now her sister's daughter, have been possessed by an alien lifeform. The whole process flays apart from there, ending in bloodshed and death.
"Memories Of Lilac" by G. Woodrum is a more conventional murder mystery, albeit set in a fantasy world populated by several different species of intelligent being. Using second sight and clairvoyance, a member of the imperial guard tracks the murderer of a slave to the lords and ladies of the land.
"Fresh Hope" by Leanne Groeneveld is a fun little tale about a con man who gets caught up in his own con. He specializes in selling fake miracle diets via mail order. Suddenly he starts getting testimonials from the marks praising his diet, and he is swept away by the idea that he may be a true miracle worker.
"Tears" by Michael Meeske is a rather ordinary tale of a single mother and her daughter who flee the city because of a plague that is decimating the population. But in the end we are confronted with the idea that perhaps they have brought the disease with them.
"Dust Station Omega" by Pete D. Manison is another ordinary tale set on a strange world deep in space. Prospectors have been put down on a hostile world of seas of metal dust, magnetic fields and energy bolts. The dust is very corrosive and quickly disables the miners' ship, and kills several crewman. The protag sets out to rescue a crewman who has wandered off, and stumbles upon riches beyond her dreams. But will she survive to tell the tale?
"In Leaves Of Grass" by Del Stone, Jr. tells of a man condemned to hell, where he must relive the failings of his life. And as he revisits his most painful moments, he is forced to learn and grow.
Last, and best IMHO, is "Dark Hollow" by Eve Fisher. The spirits of the forest feel the evil planned when two men visit their forest over and over, surveying and speculating. Can they thwart the murder plans of the men? With an odd twist they do, and deal with the perpetrators at the same time.
Jim Reichert has been a reviewer for Tangent for a number of years on such periodicals as Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dragon, Weird Tales and Talebones. He's a government lawyer specializing in the field of child abuse prosecutions, and lives with his wife and family in a rural area of southern Delaware. He has been writing short stories and novels for 5-10 years on a sporadic basis, and had his first fiction publication in the e-zine, Dark Matter Chronicle, on June 10, 2000.