Derrick Peng’s Reviews > The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1993 > Status Update

The Skeleton Key is another "novella," but closer to novelette. It's about a girl who worships Hermes and, with His help, is turned into a Shade after her kidnapping, torture and sacrifice by Satanists. She spends the rest of the story establishing communications with her family, friends, and law enforcement in order to comfort them and catch the killers. Pretty standard supernatural fiction, not too earthshattering.

Vigil is set in (what was then) the near future, when ghosts suddenly come back to the world en masse and begin to outnumber the living. The events that follow are stated in a matter-of-fact manner, as in a set of journal entries.

I didn't really like it. I thought the consequences wouldn't just be "humans leave for Antarctica/space to escape the dead, Kennedy re-elected president. It was also just kind of soulless.

Mom's Cooking is a witty and creative supernatural low fantasy which imagines ancestors giving the main character unsolicited assistance from beyond the grave. Frankly, delicious!

The Siren Shoals, which is described as a "novella," is probably more accurately called a novelette. It all kinda went by fast. Something about a "bad boy" main character who fucks a hot chick and then blows up some space pirates... Yeah.

The Bone Woman is about some sort of character from Native American tales. I didn't really get it, but it was fine.

Chroncorp was about time travel, but historically inaccurate.