04 Jul 2008, Posted by Cat in News, No Comments. Tagged clockwork phoenix, writing

Clockwork Phoenix

Don’t you hate it when you get home from a holiday and two hours later you can’t be sure if you actually left the house & didn’t just dream the whole thing up? To cheer my returned self up I thought I’d post a couple of review excerpts (the ones mentioning my own contribution, naturally) that have been sighted for the Clockwork Phoenix anthology edited by Mike Allen

The Fix review of Clockwork Phoenix:

In Cat Sparks’s “Palisade,” teenaged Luisa lives in a mansion with her father, imprisoned just like her only companions, the robotic simulacra of her mother at various ages. Luisa’s online relationship with Harmon provides her only escape, until she finds out a shattering truth about her long-distance lover. Delicious nastiness ensues. Sparks’s rich words bring to life the fecund hothouse of Luisa’s prison while also creating a character study of a petty tyrant and his effect on his captives. Beautiful and disturbing, “Palisade” is like a tasty fruit with a memorably bitter aftertaste.

And here’s a segment from the Bucks County Courier Times (Levittown, PA) staff writer Laurie Mason:

“Clockwork Phoenix” editor Mike Allen describes the anthology as “a home for stories that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the ways they cross genre boundaries, that aren’t afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques.” His choices here don’t disappoint.

Take Australian writer Cat Sparks’ “Palisade,” for example.

This beautiful and unsettling tale of a sad girl living with her father in an opulent compound protected from the carnivorous insects and other horrors that live outside by an electrified fence is part science fiction, part romance and, ultimately, horror:

“Already the jungle has begun its steady creep towards my father’s house. Liana vines entwine themselves around my father’s butchered corpse. Within a week the marble steps will be cracked and broken, no longer visible from above. Within two, it will be impossible to tell what kind of structure once stood here. The grasses will thicken with tentacles and roots, the soils seethe and churn with carnivorous microbes.

“I have freed my father’s slaves. Some of them have ransacked the house and run into the jungle. A few of the hardy ones may survive this time. The others have joined the servants in commandeering the Vazquenadas’ silver ships. I watch their contrails blaze across the sky as soft flames of dawn kiss the horizon.”

You can buy the book here.

Here is the Publisher’s Weekly review:

“Author and editor Allen (Mythic) has compiled a neatly packaged set of short stories that flow cleverly and seamlessly from one inspiration to another. In “The City of Blind Delight” by Catherynne M. Valente, a man inadvertently ends up on a train that takes him to an inescapable city of extraordinary wonders. In “All the Little Gods We Are,” Hugo winner John Grant takes a mind trip to possible parallel universes. Modern topics make an appearance among the whimsy and strangeness: Ekaterina Sedia delves into the misunderstandings that occur between cultures and languages in “There Is a Monster Under Helen’s Bed,” while Tanith Lee gleefully skewers gender politics with “The Woman,” giving the reader a glimpse of what might happen if there was only one fertile woman left in a world of men. Lush descriptions and exotic imagery startle, engross, chill and electrify the reader, and all 19 stories have a strong and delicious taste of weird.” (July)
– Publishers Weekly (May 12 2008)