Black glass: a DEA agent in Panama pockets an obsidian toad from a collection and changes his world, for the worse. Carry Nation come to life.

Shimabara: Is the Bible the result of the game of telephone? Another version of Christianity (or Kirishitan).

Go back: Fowler was born in Bloomington, Illinois; she often writes stories that start out the same as her life, but differ in some way. In this story, her father goes fishing on the Wabash, with a sad loss instead of a catch.

The Travails: Gulliver's wife complains in letters of his absence, but when their daughter marries a wife-beater, she changes her tune.

Lieserl: Einstein and his girlfriend from the physics academy conceive a daughter but Einstein is not there when she is born in Hungary; he is in Switzerland. The letters come as she grows up, but he never makes it home to see her.

Letters from home: a young woman's boyfriend is drafted for the Vietnam war, and she writes many letters to him, talking about the efforts the undergrads at Berkeley are making to protest. (My own father would quit his job if the electronics company he worked for took a government contract, moving us from place to place, wherever he could get a six-month contract--a family of 9!)

Duplicity: a frustrating story. 👽s keep two women on a cartography expedition in a Brazilian jungle as prisoners. Alice they take out of the tent everyday, and she is slowly dying. We don't get to know what they do to Alice. Tilly is left, meanwhile, in the tent and gets extra food...?!

The Brew: 🦄 horn saves the life of a boy.

Lily Red: a woman drives past her exit for work on the freeway and ends up in a small town, spending a few days where an immortal Indian seduces her in a cave. 🤔

The view from Venus: a Case Study: pretty funny story about Venusians in a Comparative Romance: Female Viewpoint college course where they are studying a woman and a man in Berkeley in 1969. They come to the conclusion that a romance is a triangle: a man, a woman, and the woman's body. Pretty accurate.

Game Night at the Fox and Goose: a man impregnates a woman and leaves her. She is in a bar trying to drown her sorrow when she meets someone from another universe, where men don't get to lie to women or watch football.

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So amazing! Such a great writer! ( )

Well. As the description so tactfully understates, these stories are indeed often 'puzzling.' I pretty much didn't get them. Or like them enough to want to try to. However, if you're looking for something audacious and creative, give this a shot.

I did like the heartbreaking and wise story of Gulliver's wife, as told through her letters to her usually absent husband. And it was interesting to compare that to the story of Mileva, whom Einstein similarly abandoned (according to Fowler's story - not quite exactly according to history).

I liked the following lines: Some witches were mortally beautiful. The two words go together, mind you, mortal and beautiful. Nothing is so beautiful as that which will fade."

Overall, though, there are not many of you, my friends and followers, to whom I can recommend this." ( )

“I have learned to distrust words, even my own.”

This collection of short stories is nothing if not odd. Some of the stories I really enjoyed, some not so much. “Black Glass,” the first story in the book, falls into the first category. It is strange, disjointed, and wonderfully creepy.

There are no realities. There are too many realities. Time is meaningless. Contradictions are the norm. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it just felt as though the author couldn't decide which storyline she wanted to follow. And there were the ones that had me mentally scratching my head – huh? What does this mean? “Shimabara” was one of those.

It felt like reading fiction after partaking of too much recreational drugs of the LSD bent.

“Letters from Home” was pretty straightforward, and touching too. I loved “The Faithful Companion at Forty” and liked the odd “Duplicity.”

In the last story, “Game Night at the Fox and Goose,” a character says, “I could take you there.”...The universe right next door. Practically walking distance.”

I feel like I have been to the universe next door and back again.

I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review. ( )

Tiptree shortlist 1998. I enjoyed the first story, but all the others were either just ok or dull and all fizzled out. I didn't bother finishing.

Black glass - a DEA agent accidentally summons the spirit of carry Nation to help in the "war on drugs". Unfortunately she's a bit too zealous in her work.Enjoyable, but sort of fizzled out at the end.
Contention - well written but dull
Shimabara - well written but dull
The Elizabeth complex - Elizabeths' through the ages - quite good.
Go back - dull
The travails - dull
Lieserl - dull
Letters from home - very dull
Duplicity - ok
The faithful companion at forty - ok
The brew - ok
Lily red - didn't read
The black fairy's curse --
The view from Venus : A case study - didn't read
Game night at the fox and goose.- didn't read ( )