Strangelet: Issue 0

by Strangelet Press (Publisher), Casey Brown (Editor)

Strangelet is a new journal of speculative fiction, publishing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, graphic stories/comics, and artwork that showcase the point where genre and the literary collide. Issue 0 is our debut.

Fiction:
Colin Wolcott, “The Summoner,”
Biff Mitchell, “These Eyes,”
Brendan Tynan Buck, “A Messenger Will Soon Bring Good Tidings,”
Shannon Norland, “Down,”
Sean Monaghan, “Man with Fountain Fingers,”
Joseph Lucido, “The Floating,”
Curtis James McConnell, “Evolution,”
Rebecca Ann Jordan, “Emily Nerese, 81, Dies,”
Christa Pagliei, “The Girl Underwater,”
Darius Jones, “The Ghul of Yazd,”

Poetry:
Gregory Crosby, “#after,” “For Frank O’Hara,” “DOOM,”
John Grey, “We Explorers,”

Artwork:
Eleanor Leonne Bennett,
J.D. Donnelly,
Denny E. Marshall,

Cover Art:
Emily Lubanko

168 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2014

Reviews

[LynthePen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of lit journals mostly because you get such an amalgamation of stories from so many different styles and writers, I sometimes lose sense of the journal as a comprehensive work. Strangelet is not most lit journals. It delivered a variety of quality stories that still shared a similar tone and feel of "pieces that situate the gravity of living amid the high energy of imagination." The prose, poems, and graphic art offered here are both fun and dark, serious and unequivocally weird.

My favorite pieces were probably the very first two, "The Summoner" and "The Floating" followed closely by "The Girl Underwater." There was only one story I didn't love, but even it was beautifully written and if the decision had fallen to me, I don't think I would have excluded it either. If I have one suggestion, it's that I'd like to see more graphic pieces in future issues. And yes, I will be reading future issues.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take one of the editor's ratings as you will, but I would challenge you to look Emily Lubanko's cover art, "Tornado Dawn," then read Colin Wolcott's debut story, "The Summoner," and THEN not want to finish all of this.

[Jacob Seifert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short fiction is hard for me to get into. Genre short fiction is even harder. All of these stories were written well and had interesting ideas, but they were all too short for my tastes. I don't think they were long enough to really dig into the issues they were presenting, which is a shame because they were all so original and haunting. If you like short genre fiction then this is probably a publication for you.