Witpunk Book

The thematic drive behind this anthology is, according to the introduction, to refute the claim that the genre of SF (or short fiction in general) stopped being fun. Most of the stories do indeed meet this goal (the few exceptions are so head-scratchingly unqualified that one does wonder just what happened).

"The Teb Hunter" by Allen Steele. A hunting trip to bag bioengineered former pets. Ecologically they're an invasive pest, but....

"Coyote Goes Hollywood" by Ernest Hogan. The story finds the Coyote of myth, what he's done so far in modern history, and what change he's making in his life now.

"Spicy Detective #3" by Jeffrey Ford. Remember the Bulwer-Lytton awards? Remember how the first year they were funny, but after that they degenerated into run-on sentences crammed with every unfunny line the contestant mistakenly thought was funny? This could be one of them. Even worse, it's not the last one in this book.

"Auspicious Eggs" by James Morrow. Doesn't really belong here, not being witty or punkish. Dystopian theocracy in Boston, with the Church deciding the survivability of newborns. Even as ironic comment on organized religion, I didn't believe it for a moment, and it fails to make any point.

"Timmy and Tommy's Thanksgiving Secret" by Bradley Denton. Timmy is a small boy, Tommy isn't, and this story definitely doesn't end the way you think it will.

"Savage Breasts" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Getting the Charlotte Atlas exerciser creates self-improvement beyond expectations. Even as a reader of the wrong gender, I found this hilarious.

"I Love Paree" by Cory Doctorow and Michael Skeet. An expatriate Canadian finds himself swept up by the Libertines in a conflict in Balkanized France.

"Arabesques of Eldritch Weirdness #8" by Jeffrey Ford. See above in the previous Ford story.

"The Seven-Day Itch" by Elise Moser. Genuinely horrifying story of too much closeness between a woman and her lover. Despite this, the final line seems to imply that one can get over any tragedy, in theory I suppose that's true. Nonetheless, the situation she finds herself in is nightmarish.

"The Scuttling" by William Sanders. Awful yuppies get what they deserve. Not a terribly surprising story, although the descriptions of what could be called the special effects are pretty good.

"A Halloween Like Any Other" by Michael Arsenault. Vampire hunting. Why aren't you taking this seriously?

"The Lights of Armageddon" by William Browning Spencer. Invoking the end of the world involves a lot of door-to-door salesmanship.

"Doc Aggressive, Man of Tin #2" by Jeffrey Ford. See above.

"Bagged 'n' Tagged" by Eugene Byrne. Convict labor gets secure and privatized. But can you trust the people who use their services?

"Amanda and the Alien" by Robert Silverberg. Teens may care too much about the latest pop sensation, but they're still very, very dangerous.

"Diary from an Empty Studio" by Don Webb. The artist is not mad. Not at all.

"Is That Hard Science, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?" by Leslie What. An overprotective mother installs a monitoring and protection device in her daughter. Her daughter is frustrated. Very, very, frustrated. (The device, by the way, has a nickname that I can't use in this review). Comedy and conflicts over sexual freedom ensue.

"Six Gun Loner of the High Butte #6" by Jeffrey Ford. See above.

"Encounter of Another Kind" by David Langford. UFO skeptics need to be converted in the worst way. UFO believers need something else.

"Tales from the Breast" by Hiromi Goto. Inspirational essays on the wonders of breastfeeding aren't convincing to the one who has to go through it.

"Science Fiction" by Paul Di Filippo. An SF author going through writer's block begins to see the world through the lens of his stories.

"Mother's Milt" by Pat Cadigan. This might be considered the flip side of "Bagged 'n' Tagged" above, and consequently doesn't work quite as well. Viewed strictly as horror though, it's effective.

"Deep Space Adventure #32" by Jeffrey Ford. See above.

"The Wild Girls" by Pat Murphy. The new girl in school and the class outcast outsmart what can only be called the forces of mediocrity.

"Jumping" by Ray Vukcevich. A brief story about having absolute faith in someone.

"Kapuzine and the Wolf: A Hortatory Tale" by Laurent McAllister. A Little Red Riding Hood story that combines some of the more gruesome sainthood stories and underground resistance tales. I'm not certain that this, ultimately about betrayal, belongs in this anthology either, but it's still a good story.

With a few exceptions, most of the stories are good, and some are excellent. The outstanding ones are "Savage Breasts", "Bagged 'n' Tagged", "Is That Hard Science, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?", and "The Wild Girls", with "The Seven-Day Itch", "The Lights of Armageddon", "Amanda and the Alien", and "Tales from the Breast" in a close second. Only the Ford and Morrow stories were disappointing, and the others are certainly worth reading. All in all, a good anthology.