Visions: Short Fantasy & SF
This diverse collection, spanning Connolly's 30-year career, offers old-school fantasy and SF replete with twist endings and familiar tropes. Step on a Crack, Flashback, Cockroaches, Ghosts and Errors are short and snappyTwilight Zone–esque gimmick stories. The novella Great Heart Rising mixes Native American folklore with a dash of science fictional spores. The Beowulf saga inspires the alien-slaying hijinks of Daughters of Prime and The Others as well as Beerwulf (a much better story than its title suggests), while Greek myth and Stephen King'sChristineinform the closing tale, Strands. From the cheerful vampire romp of Buckeye and Spitball and the unusual battle against grief in On the Brink to the noirish sci-fi of Julie of the Shadows and far-future threats of Flow, Connolly (Veins) provides plenty of entertaining and satisfying reads.(Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.