John Stevens of SFSignal wrote about “Conjuring Shadows”:

Craig Gidney’s offering in Expanded Horizons, “Conjuring Shadows,” was beautiful and eye-opening. The shift in forms from poetry to reportage to fiction, the nesting of ideas and images that is created, are smoothly synergistic and wonderfully written, and while they make a point, it is one that you must uncover. For me, it delivered a challenge to think about the constraints we put on pleasure and the ways in which identity can be marked and embraced simultaneously. It is a story that compels meditation not just on the meaning of the story and the fantastical tale at its center, but on the way we look at art and sexuality and beauty and power, and the entanglements that can arise between them.

I am also happy to be recommended along side the likes of Kiernan,Walton, and the Vandermeer’s collection.  His column, Fantastika is also well worth following; he writes about fantastic fiction beautifully.

Colorwheel

Editor Brownworth slots this anthology into the Young Adult genre, and, sure, teen characters are the focus of the stories. But there’s an elder sensibility in several that ought to entice older readers as well. That’s certainly the case with Jewelle Gomez’s “Caramelle 1864,” a spin-off from her celebrated 1991 novel, “The Gilda Stories.” Two young girls are at the story’s heart, but the theme of African-Americans defying repression – one that suffuses the collection – touches all ages. Craig Laurance Gidney’s “Bereft,” in which a black scholarship student at a Catholic school defies white bullies, is more youth-focused, as is Becky Birtha’s “Johnnieruth,” in which a tomboy’s sensed sexuality is stirred when she glimpses the shared affection of two women. Each of the 20 stories deals with what it means to be African-American, but the most searing is Lowell Boston’s “Ten to One,” in which a schoolboy, after defending himself from a white boy’s attack, is singled out by his redneck principal as the troublemaker. Asked to write an apology to the school, he scrawls, “I am not a nigger.”

One excerpt:
Craig Laurence Gidney’s new diva worship classic, “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net,” humorously delivers some much needed levity to gay coming-of-age topic that is inherently heavy.

Though it has steampunk flavoring, Mechanique is a hybrid novel, much like the half-human/half-mechanical characters (creatures?) it describes. It’s a New Weird dark fantasy tale set in a dystopian war-torn landscape. The structure of the story and its narrative cogs are very postmodern. The text vacillates between first person narrative (in the voice of Little George, the Circus gofer) and third person points-of-view that range from brief character sketches to omniscient mis en scenes.

The novel tells the story of how the circus came to be. It was created by a former opera singer who discovers she has the power bind living flesh to skeletons made of copper. The process is magic, rather than scientific. She becomes just Boss, a ringmaster and owner of the Circus Tresaulti, which features mechanical aerialists, strongmen and a walking one-man orchestra. The circus travels over a bleak landscape of crumbling cities.

One story-line tells how each of the damaged folk managed to join, and describes the personal politics of the various members, who have all seen horrible things or come from bad backgrounds. Little George’s story has a bildungsroman arc; other characters, such as the prickly aerialist Elena have their own arcs while other circus folk, like the cipher-like Bird, emerge as characters through indirect observation. The other story-line is about a ‘Government Man’—who like Boss has no name save his job title—and his desire to learn Boss’ powers for creating remade people for his own nefarious means.

Valentine employs a variety of techniques, from poetic quasi-fables, to brief anecdotes to full-fledged action sequences. Her world-building is suggestive rather than exhaustive—the Balkanized citystates the circus travels through have a vagueness that is more allegorical than precise. The story is ultimately about finding loyalty and beauty in dark times. Lovers of the work of the Brother Quay or Terry Gilliam, the painter Mark Ryder or the novel Geek Love by Katherine Dunn will find much to admire here.

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Smoketown, the debut novel of Tenea D. Johnson, belongs in a rare subset of speculative fiction novels that examine the relationship between art and society. These books include Pat Murphy’s The City, Not Long After and a number of Samuel R. Delany’s work, most notably Dhalgren. Smoketown, like the aforementioned works, blurs the boundaries between perception, magic and science, and the futuristic/transformed landscape is both a living metaphor and geography.

Anna Armour, an artist, is at the center of the nested narratives that comprise the novel that takes place in a distant, post-climate changed Southern city called Leiodare. A generation ago, the city was overrun with a mysterious epidemic called The Crumble, believed to have been spread by birds. As a result, a force field has been erected around the city that blocks birds from entering the city. Armour moves into the city, awaiting her on-and-off again lover Peru, who lives a nomadic existence as a ‘virtuoso’–a living recorder of experiences for clients.

The cipher-like Peru is also the personal ‘virtuoso’ creator for Rory McClaren, the scion of the wealthy McClaren family, and its sole surviving member of the Crumble. Rory lives sequestered in his penthouse apartment, and has not left it for nearly 25 years, with no real human contact save through Peru’s complex and beautiful ‘virtus’ (virtual reality creations). Rory’s isolation is interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Eugenio Oliveria, a researcher and medical anthropologist at Leiodare’s office of Emergency Management.

Eugenio is also a sometime practitioner of a religion/lifestyle called Mendejano; he is linked by this religion—which focuses on nature and reveres birds as sacred—to his soul sister Lucine, who is more devout. Eugenio is interested in talking to survivors of the Crumble and finds the McClaren family at the center of his research.

Anna is the catalyst for the action that effects the entire city—and she is connected (indirectly, sometimes) to the change that ripples through the character’s lives. The introduction of magic in this mostly science fictional milieu makes perfect emotional sense.

The city of Leiodare is, itself, a character. It is a jungle city filled with many rich subcultures—including the titular Smoketown, a neighborhood of people of color who tend to numerous kilns. There is also an active gang culture—the main gang is called The Starlings.

Johnson weaves together all these strands together with lyrical prose and a thematic eye towards redemption and transformation.

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Speaking of which, I have a couple of ‘gigs’ (i.e., invitations to submit), so I’d better start working on some of them!

All of these literary travels inspired me to grab a book or two as souvenirs….

(Let’s Play White, Chesya Burke; Smoketown, by Tenea D. Johnson; Songs for the Devil and Death, by Hal Duncan)

# ISBN-10: 9781590210666, # ISBN-13: 978-1590210666

From Lethe Press, Sea, Swallow Me is a haunting, heart-breaking and lush collection of short stories. Gidney explores the trials of being African-American, of being gay, of being human. His language is beautiful, his themes are unique, and again, mythology threads beautifully through very modern stories. I don’t think I’ve seen a more lovely blend of old and new.

From: http://wingsliftingwide.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/books-and-music-junejuly-2011/