Readers
Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Polyphony
Polyphony has now put out three numbers in a year and a half or so -- right on schedule for the twice-yearly publication they have advertised. Not only that, but each volume has been longer than the previous, with #3 being downright huge. The quality has been consistent -- pretty good, strong writing throughout, perhaps not quite as many brilliant stories as I would desire in a ideal world.
From #2 I liked two short stories best: "The Uterus Garden" by Alex Irvine, fine SF about a future in which most women are infertile and those who are not risk kidnapping for their wombs -- or are tempted by fees for bearing children for others; and David Moles's "Theo's Girl", a really odd fantasy set in what seems a version of Alexander the Great's empire, but in perhaps the time of WWI. From #3 my favorite was a Nina Kiriki Hoffman novelette, "Wild Talents", about a girl sold to a strange man by her despairing single mother who can't deal with her behavior problems (caused by psi abilities).
There was other good work in #2 by Beth Bernobich, Honna Swenson, Theodora Goss, and Lucius Shepard (in the amusingly title "The Same Old Story", which is indeed pretty much the same old Lucius Shepard Central American story). In #3 I also liked stories by Michael Bishop, Jesse Walker, Sally Carteret, Alan DeNiro, and Robert Freeman Wexler.
