Mobius Blvd: Stories from the Byway Between Reality and Dream No. 1: November 2023

by Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Gale Huxley, Wil Magness

There is a byway between reality and dream. A transit we call Möbius Blvd …Inspired by the enigmatic Möbius strip, a mathematical construct that defies conventional notions of linearity and infinity, Möbius Blvd has no beginning or end but exists in a place where reality and dream have fused … coalesced … merged. With each turn of the page, you'll encounter a unique blend of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction—fiction that will challenge your perceptions and leave you in awe of the infinite possibilities that exist within the written word.Indeed, Möbius Blvd is far more than a magazine; it's an experience. It's an exploration of the infinite, a passage through dimensions where the only constant is storytelling at its most daring, a kaleidoscope of wonder and terror. Join us on this winding, never-ending journey of speculative fiction that will keep you entranced from the first twist to the last loop. Open your mind to the limitless worlds of Möbius Blvd … and discover that the boundary between fiction and reality is as thin as a strip of paper with a twist.

165 pages, Paperback

Published October 27, 2023

About the author

Wayne Kyle Spitzer (born July 15, 1966) is an American author and low-budget horror filmmaker from Spokane, Washington. He is the writer/director of the short horror film, Shadows in the Garden, as well as the author of Flashback, an SF/horror novel published in 1993. Spitzer's non-genre writing has appeared in subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History. His recent fiction includes The Ferryman Pentalogy, consisting of Comes a Ferryman, The Tempter and the Taker, The Pierced Veil, Black Hole, White Fountain, and To the End of Ursathrax, as well as The X-Ray Rider Trilogy and a screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.

Reviews

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inaugural issue of an indie anthology of science fiction and fantasy, bearing the cryptic name Möbius Boulevard. Ignore the entry by Joseph Hirsch—notorious from his appearance in a “News of the Weird” item detailing how he circumcised himself with a seven blade vegetable spiralizer—and you have an interesting collection.
The “eyes” seem to have it this time, with tales about peepers appearing in strange places bookending the collection. Is this why it’s called Möbius? The way the beginning and end appear to loop back on each other, at least thematically? Clearly someone has given this some thought. At any rate, eyes appearing from within the calyxes of flowers or randomly along the lifelines of a person’s palm are quite disturbing. It has been this way since John Polidori, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley met to smoke opium one weekend, resulting in a vision of a pair of breasts with eyes for nipples. The aforementioned willy spiralizer Joseph Hirsch even wrote a book, Touch No One, which features an image inspired by this nightmare on its cover. I urge you not to read it.
Also worth mentioning is Wil Magness’s First Name, Last Name, which can best be described as about sentient AI based in a smart toilet basically engaging in echolalic babbling after the Apocalypse. On the Bus by Matthew Spence, while dealing with a well-overworked trope, still managed to elicit some goosebumps. No less a luminary of the field than Bruce Sterling urged young writers in his Turkey City Lexicon to steer clear of the “Flying Dutchman” plot, and all its various iterations: i.e., ghostly interstellar arks lost in the vastness of space or pilotless ferryboats making their way down the Mississippi. Here’s proof again, that an old song sung well, can be reinvigorated by a new voice, if it’s earnest enough in its approach to make what was stale fresh again.

[Choyang · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Möbius Blvd: Stories from the Byway Between Reality and Dream' (No.1) multiple authors

Quote from this graphic magazine:
"There is a byway between reality and dream. A transit we call Möbius Blvd …

Inspired by the enigmatic Möbius strip, a mathematical construct that defies conventional notions of linearity and infinity, Möbius Blvd has no beginning or end but exists in a place where reality and dream have fused … coalesced … merged. With each turn of the page, you'll encounter a unique blend of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction—fiction that will challenge your perceptions and leave you in awe of the infinite possibilities that exist within the written word."

I initially thought this would be right in my wheelhouse of weird and macabre tales, but having read some of them, although not all, I've come to the conclusion that this book is really not all that interesting to me after all. Good cover though!

At this point it's a DNF for me, and although I may revise my opinion at a later date, I probably won't as there are too many more books I'd rather spend my time reading. The graphics look good though.