Lesley’s Comments (group member since May 30, 2012)

Lesley’s comments from the Apex Publications group.

I thought this was a very interesting story idea, but it felt a little cramped within a short story word limit. I wanted to explore Megumi and her motivations more. I wanted to know more about why her drawings were coming to life. When did she figure out that they were? I'd love to see this as a novella or novel.

This is a heart wrenching story. I love the way that Kyle slowly revealed exactly what was happening. At the beginning of the story I thought Tokki was in an imaginary world, but having it set it a very real setting, though very foreign from the one I live in, makes it that much more powerful.

This story was a nice change of pace for me. I found the characters very interesting, especially how Hassan thinks of his brother-in-law as his best friend, but their wives, who are sisters, seem to have such animosity towards each other despite the fact that when push comes to shove they do seem to care.

I feel like there's a lot more going on than could be fit within a short story. I'd like to know more about Amazu and the woman who bought his tape at the end of the story. I'd like to find out how Hassan, who is from the city, and Anika fell in love. What's up with Mr. Gana Abacha.

This is a story I'd definitely like to read more of.

It didn't hit me until I sat down to start this discussion just how perfect the title is for this story. A prison guard living alone in a trailer and forming a string of relationships with the inmates he's guarding would be considered a strange life by almost anyone asked. The life form growing within the convict's brain and controlling him is literally a strange form of life.

While I really enjoyed this story, how it ties into the overarching theme of faith is a little lost on me. The guard and the convict discuss their beliefs or lack of beliefs of God and demons, and once the convict reveals he's being controlled by the fungus he mentions their gods, but I felt like that was almost peripheral, rather than an important component to the story.

What do you think?

Mark wrote: "I heard Lucy read this at Context (September 2012). It was very, very creepy, and quite enjoyable. To say that she had the undivided attention of the audience would be quite the understatement."

Wow! I wish I'd been there. I bet that was amazing!

"Magdala Amygdala" has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award!

This story has been selected by Ellen Datlow to be included in *The Best Horror of the Year volume 5*!

I loved this story. The idea of living in a world where a disease changes people so dramatically - makes them NEED to devour brains - is terrifying, but Lucy's choice to tell the story through the perspective of someone is in the grip of the disease allows the reader to feel empathy even while disgusted by what is happening.

I think what amazed me the most was the amount of detail held within a few thousand words. An entire culture, including how those effected by the disease are treated is laid out, plus we get an inside look of how the disease physically changes the individuals. The feeding process, the mental breakdown. Lucy gives it all to us.

To me, this was the perfect story.

I had a hard time getting into this story. I don't know if it's because I was trying to read it at the end of the day and I was tired, or if I was just distracted but I actually put the book down and didn't finish it till this morning. I'm glad I came back to it, though. The ending. Wow! It really pulled me back in and made me connect to the story in a way the beginning didn't. After the villagers experience with the Angel Seems, they weren't going to take a chance with God. While a horrific thought - a group of people destroying someone who has done nothing to them - it's completely understandable, and I say realistic, that they reacted the way they did.

I just finished reading through this story for the first time, and I feel like I need to go back and read it all over again. There are so many layers, so many different perspectives going on that I think it's impossible for anyone to digest it all on one read through.

Gustave Knauff is such a tortured soul, with his angel feeding him terrible images continuously. He feels like he can't escape what she's telling him and in the end that's just too much for him.

I'm off to read this story a second and possibly third time. In the mean time, tell me what you think of it.

I was little concerned that I wouldn't enjoy this story because it is a story poem. I was afraid it would be hard to follow and I'd miss all of the little details that you can get with more traditional prose.

Man, was I wrong. LaShawn told a beautiful story full of detail and depth. I'm amazed at her talent to paint such rich scenes with so few words.

This is an absolutely beautiful story. I love the rhythm of the language. The way it flowed.

I also really enjoyed the mythology. The story of how Perseus killed Medusa is one I think everyone has heard. This gave a familiar story an interesting new perspective.

I loved this story. The whole concept of there being a store where you can buy a personal god hooked me from the beginning. I couldn't help wondering what sort of god I would need if I were to purchase one as I read to find out why Alan felt he needed one so badly.

What sort of god do you think you would need?

I like that this story leaves a lot open. The narrator says that God is speaking them, but it He? There's no evidence that He is. The child digs up the backyard for more than two years without finding the present supposedly left by God. It's the whole unreliable narrator, which makes me wonder who is speaking the child. A demon? Insanity? A vengeful god who would want to hurt an innocent child?

Growing up in a small town where everyone knew everyone else and there were lots of churches, this story felt very real to me. It could happen in any small town, the local heads of churches competing for church members. Actually, I'm sure it does happen.

The end of the story was perfect. People will go a long way to protect the status quo.

I found this story very jarring coming directly after "Starter Kit." We went from sci-fi Hallmark moment to water boarding.

We're halfway through the anthology and so far this story has the least religious context. It isn't about God or being a god. It's about having faith in the people your life.

Malmon knows the only way he can possibly survive is to withstand the torture for as long as possible and have faith that Gonzalez will save him. It doesn't hurt to have a little luck, as well.

I also thought of Sea Monkeys or aquariums with the $0.29 goldfish that keep dying and you just replace, rather than being upset that a living creature died.

It's very easy to say that you would give up anything for someone else, be it a child, parent, spouse, or friend, but if actually confronted with the possibility, I wonder how many people would actually do it. Very thought provoking.

This is a delightful story. It isn't as heavy as some of the others in the anthology, which is good for the pacing of the collection as a whole.

I enjoyed the idea that entire galaxies can be contained within a tank, nothing more significant than a living nightlight for a kid. While the father has a moment where he starts to consider that maybe the lifeforms in his son's tank mean something more, can feel and suffer, when it comes down to it it's about pushing a button and starting over when things go wrong.

I really liked this story. It was set in a very real location, with very real characters which made the situation with the vending machine and angel more believable.

The idea that the ability to rebel had been taken away from angels, so they concocted a way to trick humans into rebelling for them was fantastic. The ultimate loophole.

Plus, I loved that David, the one person perceptive enough to figure out what was going on, was morally strong enough to tell the angel that he would not be the person to put them over the top.

This story left me happy and satisfied.

Tim has written a story with an unlikable narrator who lives a terrible, bleak, miserable world. You'd think that I'd be hating this story, but I didn't. He made me love it.

In the world that Tim created in this story, it would be so easy for people to lose all faith. It would be easy to be like the narrator and want to exact revenge, but the foreign woman was the saving grace. I want to know more about her story. How did she know where all of the traps were? How was she able to keep a positive outlook on the world when it's obvious that she also has gone through terrible things, just like the narrator? What gave her the faith in humanity that would be needed to spread the wishflowers everywhere? She was able to save the narrator with her faith.