I love it when short stories creep me out, and go where I least expect them to go. I'm glad this week's topic on BookBabbles was on Underrated Fantasy - I got tons of great recs to add to my TBR.

• This is the tale of a strong, bold and ferocious woman Satyavati from the epic of Mahabharat, and a deeper insight at the matriarchal rule that existed in Kurukshetra. • Satyavati, also called Matsyagandha, was an adopted child who grew up as a commonfolk in a settlement of fishermen. She was a fearful and forceful woman who represented the womanhood in a new light. Her blind ambition to win the kingdom and the insecurities towards anyone aiming for the throne are portrayed through the clever

Uhm, LOL. That was really weird and a bit disturbing but...I really liked it!

I enjoyed this magazine so much that I'm going to request a subscription for my birthday. :-)I think the best way to review it is to review the individual entries individually. In a way, I did this already in my Status Updates, but I'll try to expand on my feelings/impressions. In the order in which they appeared in the book:"The End of the Silk Road" by David D. Levine. 3.5 stars - goodThis was an alternate-history science-fiction tale, set mostly on Venus in 1936 (!!!). I really liked the swam...

Lily is the oldest of three daughters of a Mekong delta fisherman, and as the oldest, at age fifteen, she's become an experienced fishing boat deckhand. Her mother is dead, died too young for even Lily to have any memory of her, but her dad tells a crazy story: the girls' mother was a mermaid.Mermaids are fish. Unambiguously fish, not intelligent, not beautiful, only superficially human-looking. They are the most desirable fish to sell at the fish market, bringing the highest prices, especially

5 • The End of the Silk Road • 30 pages by David D. Levine Very good. Excellent job of narrating in a 1930's PI voice. Hardened PI Mike Drayton takes a job on Venus for an old acquaintance. We end up finding out the back story is integral to the mystery.51 • The Fisher Queen • 13 pages by Alyssa Wong Good. 15 year old Lily goes on a fishing vessel where the primary catch is mermaids, an unspecified species of fish.65 • White Curtain • 10 pages by Pavel Amnuel Very Good. Two old colleagues get to...

A particularly strong issue. Bartleby the Scavenger was very good, as was The End of the Silk Road and The Rook's Hand, but my favorite was The Shadow in the Corner.What can I say. I'm a sucker for the Myth of Cthulu.

Review is for "The Fisher Queen" by Alyssa Wong - this used to be a separate entry but someone on here merged everything. Boo, hiss.The story was conceptually interesting, I guess, but I didn't particularly like the story (abuse! sex! rape! cannibalism! thrill to the transgressiveness/unsubtle messaging of it all!), and as a consequence, wasn't able to suspend disbelief sufficiently to accept the (ridiculous) ending (view spoiler)[the mermaids are sentient and nebulously powerful... so why haven...

This is a beautiful story that takes place on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia.It's short, and I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say that it contains mermaids and disillusionment.You can read it here: http://bit.ly/1CeprBQ

This month’s lead novella is ‘Bartleby The Scavenger’ by Katie Boyer. As ‘Bartleby The Scrivener’ by Herman Melville is one of my favourite classic stories, I was intrigued by the title. This is set in the USA after a disaster of some sort. Bombs were dropped and the small town of Brook has withdrawn into itself and been taken over by Mayor Peighton, a beautiful, ruthless woman who demands productivity from everyone. The narrator gets a job as a scavenger and is soon leading a team. The eponymou...

MY MOTHER WAS A FISH.That's how it starts.I have read another short story by the author, Alyssa Wong, and her writing style is raw and captivating. However, she seems to believe in leaving the end to the imagination of the readers, as both the stories had open endings."THERE ARE MANY VERSIONS of this story, each with a different ending.""After all, mermaids are fish, not people."

yeah i don't think i like mermaids anymore that was preeeetty traumatizingalso, here's an actual synopsis (from the author):''‘The Fisher Queen’’ is about the dark side of the mer­maid fishing industry on the Mekong River, and the painful, personal damage of systematic, multigenerational violence against women. It’s a story about growing up too fast, and about having an intense, deep love for your family, only to find out that they’re the monsters they were supposed to be protecting you from.''

This imaginative story is unusual in its language; its rough slang and cursing are somewhat off-putting in a fairy tale. The premise is similar to that of many in the fantasy-paranormal genre, but the cannibalistic and sexual behaviors depicted here are disturbing in a "The Little Mermaid"-esque tale. The ambiguous ending is rather unclear, and not a favorite, while the "meat" (ha! pun!) of the narrative was enjoyable enough.

"...mermaids are a peculiar, temperamental meat. You have to keep them alive or the flesh goes bad."

Powerful and affecting story. A fairytale allegory about the real-world horror of violence against women told through a horrifying weird-fiction lens. Strongly recommended.

Comment for "The Fisher Queen" by Alyssa Wong: Pretty disturbing but evocative and immersive at the same time.

This story is very impressive: evocative, personal, and beautifully written.Wong is definitely a writer to watch.

Again a good set of stories, tho it seems I always read the book reviews first; Charles de Lint's Books to Look For, and this time James Sallis's Books, and of course at the end of the volume Curiousities which is a short book review of something published in the very early days of Science Fiction, usually before anything written was labeled Science Fiction. Always interesting.

Some exceptional stories in this issue. My faves:* "Bartleby the Scavenger" - Katie Boyer. I want to read her entire backlog, except that I can't find it. No Katie Boyer anywhere, not on Amazon, not on a Google search, not anywhere. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know.* "Rooksnight" - Marc Laidlaw. Fantasy, with some pointed remarks about being overly gung-ho with materialism.* "The Fisher Queen" - Alyssa Wong. "...we keep most of the catch frozen, but mermaids are a peculiar, temperam...

Creepy, captivating, and very strong. Every detail in this story is on point, until the very end. Brr.