Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic

by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo (Editor), Chris N. Brown (Editor), Óscar de la Borbolla

A huge, energetic, and ambitious groundbreaking anthology from emerging and established Mexican authors which showcases all-new supernatural folktales, alien incursions, ghost stories, apocalyptic narratives, and more. Stereotypes of Mexican identities and fictions are identified and transcended. Traditional tales rub shoulders with mindbending new worlds. Welcome to the new Mexican fantastic.

Eduardo Jiménez Mayo's translations include books by Bruno Estañol, Rafael Pérez Gay, and José María Pérez Gay.
Chris N. Brown lives in Austin, Texas. He is a contributor to the blog No Fear of the Future.
Bruce Sterling lives in Turin, Italy, and blogs at Wired's Beyond the Beyond.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror

300 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2011

Reviews

[Marie-Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

There's a great deal of variety in this anthology of contemporary Mexican fantastic and horror fiction but too little quality. It's difficult to tell if the poor overall result is due to amateurish, even incompetent translation or to a lack of fresh ideas and vivid prose. There are too many really short pieces here and most feel underdeveloped and not thought through. Their impact is superficial-forgotten the moment the page is turned and another brief tale appears. When an idea is exciting, the execution is often markedly feeble, hampered by clunky prose and cliched turns of phrase (again, I wonder a bit if this is more an issue of translation than original literary failure).

The latter half of the book is somewhat stronger than the first and I do recommend the stories by Amparo Dávila, Liliana Blum, Anna Clavel, Óscar de la Borbolla, Gabriela Damián Miravete, Bernardo Fernández and René Roquet

I'll admit to being not just disappointed but really perplexed by this volume. Some of the best writers in the world today are Mexican or make their homes in Mexico. The Mexican literary scene is thriving and exciting new work is published all the time. How did this anthology miss most of it? It's a mystery to me.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Liz Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd love to read some of these stories in the original Spanish. Not that I felt the translations were clunky but I feel that with 'lo fantastico' the ambiguities present in the Spanish language are used to advantage. "Lo fantastico" is one of my favourite genres. You often never know until the end how things are and what was really going on. Not science fiction nor fantasy nor a mix of the two. Cortazar is maybe the best known of the writers who often use this genre and China Mieville's work is also reminiscent of lo fantastico. There were a lot of stories in here I loved, some I liked but none that I didn't enjoy. I'll definitely look out for many of these authors down the line. I'm grateful this anthology was put out.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving 4 stars not because the collection is full of stunners (though there are a few) but because almost every story here is enjoyable and surprising. An anthology I got from the library (yay, my library!) and one which I wouldn't mind owning.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

With many of the stories I felt like I just wasn’t the target audience, and that I’d be more likely to “get” the story and all its subtleties if I was from Mexico. Lots of cultural references went over my head, from music and folklore to colonial history and contemporary politics. But some of the stories were excellent, and the ideas and images from them will stick with me for a long time.

[Arinn Dembo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of short stories edited by Chris N. Brown and Eduardo Jiménez-Mayo. It's a ton of content in one place: 33 pieces of short fiction, all of them highly restricted in length. The whole collection fits into 235 pages of the trade paperback.

The brevity of the tales is definitely a characteristic that struck me repeatedly. The rules of what constitutes "fiction" or "story" are nicely flexible, so the authors are not constrained by the expectations that seem to govern most of the stories I read by English-language authors. You get to read some beautiful stuff that would probably never sell to most English-language magazines, precisely because it is weird and not "plotty" enough. It widens the notion of what constitutes a "story" in interesting ways.

Personal favorites from this collection include a few that would fit nicely in an issue of a literary or genre mag. "Trompe-L'Oeil" by Monica Lavin and "Future Nereid" by Gabriela Damian Miravete could fit in any sci-fi or fantasy magazine. The titular story "Three Messages and a Warning in One Email" by Ana Clavell and "Luck Has Its Limits" by Beatriz Escalante could both make excellent additions to any issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

I also enjoyed the stories that seemed to serve as commentary om sexual politics, like "The Guest" by Amparo Davila, or "A Pile of Bland Desserts" by Yussel Dardon.

A few stories definitely felt like political satire, particularly "Lions" by Bernardo Fernandez and "The President Without Organs" by Pepe Rojo.

I think the stories that may stick with me the longest, though, are the really strange ones, which reach into the metaphysical. "The Return of Night" by Rene Roquet and "Wolves" by Jose Luis Zarate had a mystical feel, as did "You Walk A Narrow Path" by Maria Isabel Aguirre.

"Photophobia" by Mauricio Montiel Figueiras, "The Last Witness to Creation" by Jesus Ramirez Bermudez, "Future Perfect" by Gerardo Sifuentes and "The Nahual Offering" by Carmen Rioja all feel like tales of existential horror. The images of those stories will stick with me for a long time, even if the plot details fade.

At any rate, an interesting collection to read, especially if you're interested in story-telling as a craft, or the concept of a national "voice" for speculative literature.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

all in all a solid collection, though amateurish, of sci fi or sci fiy anyway short stories from mostly very young or not-even-published-yet mexican authors. has a nice author bio section that lists what they are up to. breaks lots of stereotypes in that there is hardly a whiff of peyote, plateaus at night, going back to visit gramdma and seeing stray dogs in the street etc of some kinds of mexican fiction tropes. the book itself much of the intro and first stories (pages are blank) and while funny hahahaha, i feel the intro was maybe the best part. come on small beer press with the QC. but small beer has some great titles and they are pretty damn inyourface to do mexican sci fi. hah.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent if unspectacular collection of Mexican fantasy/sci-fi short stories. They are in the vein of myths and legends, ghost stories, oddities and freak occurrences, and other tales to tell at night by a crackling fire. All of them are very short. Many are enjoyable, although none really stood out to me either, which is unusual for a volume of this many entrants, and there are a handful of bad ones as well. The ones I did like were entertaining but not deep and brain-lodging in the way that really great writing is.

Good: "Future Nereid," by Gabriela Damián Miravete (tr. Michael J. Deluca), "1965," by Edmée Pardo (tr. Lesly Betancourt-González).

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I normally love short stories, I found this collection to be dull and unremarkable. The stories covered a wide range of standard fantasy/sci-fi fare such as ghosts, aliens, apocalyptic/dystopian societies, and even mermaids. But they were hampered by predictable twists (he was dead all along!), clunky prose (perhaps due to translation), and quite a lot of gimmicky second person point of view. There were a few stories that caught my interest, but most were quickly read and quickly forgotten.

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the tradition of the Fantastic and magical realism, this short story collection presents a collection of primarily new voices that deliver fresh, haunting stories. They're not what a Western reader would recognize immediately as Horror or SFF--rather, they're closer to 'weird fiction' or 'magical realism' and bring to mind such writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. Often quiet and unassuming (until they are not), the stories offer up a Mexico and a literature that is as gorgeous and deep as it is unfamiliar. In most of the stories, the prose is luscious and careful, whether in the flash fiction or the longer stories, and the collection has introduced me to a number of names that I can't wait to look up.

Absolutely recommended.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any anthology of short stories is bound to be uneven. What I liked about this one is that all of the writers are unknown to me. There are parts magical realism and parts science fiction. There are parts folk tales.

The short story Photophobia, by Mauricio Montiel Figueiras, translated by Jen Hofer and The Return of Night by René Roquet, translated by Armando García were two of my favorites.

Is writing in Mexico different than writing in other countries? In many ways, it doesn't feel like it. We are living in a global world now, as someone pointed out recently.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had this out of the library several times, but never made it all the way through all the stories, and quite frankly as giving up. There’s more to read! Enjoyed some, others less, as is always the way with collections of short stories, but unfortunately didn’t feel that as a whole the collection lived up to the promises in the introductions by the editors.

[Josh Iden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting magical realism featuring many authors translated to English for the first time. My personal favorites in this collection are Jesús Ramírez Bermúdez's "The Last Witness to Creation" and Gabriela Damián Miravete's "Nereid Future".

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wide range in style and quality, all touches with the unreal but handling it very differently. My favorites were the title story and the story by Amparo Davila.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a book of short stories, so some were fantastic and memorable, some were weird, and some were just bad. I still think it's worth a read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had wanted a bit more fantastical to these stories but there were some gems in this collection - ones that I will go back to and revisit in my mind.

[F Gato · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Amparo Davila and Agustin Cadena’s stories. Others, I hardly remember.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in return for a review, via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

And so, perhaps urged on by the official indifference, the lions left their refuges to cynically strut their manes down our streets.

Without hunger, they are as tame as a little cat. But they eat all day, which is why it was impossible to know at which moment they would bite off the arm of a balloon salesman or swallow a kid.

This book contains thirty-three short stories (some very short indeed) and one poem. They are a mixture of fantasy, horror, ghost stories, magical realism and folk tales plus a fair few non-genre stories, and whatever the editors may claim in the introduction, I would only count three or four stories, "The Hour of the Fireflies", "1965", "Pink Lemonade" and maybe "Photophobia", as being science fiction.

A couple of the stories were quite predictable, but there is a lot of variety and most were very atmospheric, and I enjoyed most of them. Those I liked least were the stories about obsession, including "The President without Organs", a strange tale of freedom of information and national fixation with the president's body, and "The Transformist" and "The Drop".

My favourites were "Photophobia", "Lions", "Wittgenstein's Umbrella" and "Pink Lemonade".

[Tyrannosaurus regina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most books of short stories, the quality was variable, perhaps more highly variable than usual for me. I tended to like the stories more as I went on, though I'm not sure whether that's because the stories got stronger, or because I got more used to the nuances of the way they were being told. There was overall a kind of gentleness to the style, and the stories were often (though not universally) neither violent nor intense; they also tended to have a very specific voice and point of view. Overall I'm not sure it was a strong collection, but for me it was an interesting one.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating collection of stories from a number of Mexican writers, in what would probably be classed as a speculative fiction anthology. There were some stunning stories in the collection, such as the title story, as well as Fireflies, Hunting Iguanas, the story about UFOs, and the stories about wolves and lions. Unfortunately, a large number of the stories seemed to end abruptly, giving a feeling like they were incomplete. Perhaps this is a stylistic approach that I am not used to though.

[World Literature Today]

"So bravo, Small Beer Press and editors Mayo and Brown, for bringing us Three Messages and a Warning, a landmark collection of the Mexican fantastic." - Michael A. Morrison, The University of Oklahoma

This book was reviewed in the May/June 2012 issue of World Literature Today. You can read the full review by visiting our website: http://worldliteraturetoday.com/2012/...

[Tasula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of mystical or supernatural stories from Mexican writers. Interesting in many ways- shows people are similar in emotional needs/fears, no matter where they come from; gives us glimpses of Mexican life; and has a few real gems of insight. I liked most of the stories a lot- a few I just didn't get.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read it, but I found very few of the short stories here very interesting. "Stories of the fantastic" in this case mostly means some form of light fantasy or magical realism. Only one story ("Pink Lemonade") was solidly in a Sci-Fi genre.

Took me forever to finish because I prefer reading long-form fiction than short stories, so I would just dip into this from time to time.

[Martinique · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fabulous book. Both my son and I read this and we both found several stories that appealed to us and others that were good but not necessarily our "cup of tea". I loved the magical realism that runs through all of these stories. A wonderful read that really highlights the old style of fairytales and folk tales. Highly recommend this book.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

i thought it would be better than it was, in truth i think it wouldve been better in spanish.... the english translation felt long winded.... i counted a bunch of sentences that were like forty words long....

[Graeme Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of very varied short stories. This may sound stranger, but in general I found the short stories too short. I liked almost everything in the book, but nothing blew me away.

[Carma Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read my review of this book at The New York Journal of Books here: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/revie...

[Pamster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven, but with several really lovely or creepy stories. Super glad I read it, all new writers to me. I kept wondering about the translations, like maybe I was missing a lot?

[Alex MacFarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cross-genre grab-bag of fiction from Mexican writers, varying in quality but with enough good stories to make this a worthwhile read.

[Caitlin Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though only a handful of stories will work for my class, it was delightful to read!