Puss Reboots: Blog: March 2009: Catalog

Recent posts

Reviews:
Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood
The Best Friend I Ever Had by David Nuffer
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl
Black Rainbow by Barbara Michaels
The Bomb That Followed Me Home by Cevin Soling
Catalog by Eugene Mirabelli
The Chemist by Janson Mancheski
Culture Shock! California by Mark Cramer
The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig
Duck on a Bike by David Shannon
Duck for President by Doreen Cronin
Heechee Rendezvous by Frederik Pohl
How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo
Keeping Hannah Waiting by Dave Clarke
Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Love in 90 Days by Diana Kirschner
The Night We Buried Road Dog by Jack Cady
Of Dreams and Reality by Frank L. Johnson
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Purplicious by Elizabeth and Victoria Kann
School Days by B. G. Hennessy
The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
Sister Margaret by Rhonda Parrish
A Surprise for Rosie by Julia Rawlinson
Texas Bake Sale by Charles Coleman Finlay
There's a Wolf at the Door by Zoë B. Alley
Tiger Burning Bright by Theodora DuBois
Venice by Adrian Stokes and John Piper
Winding Broomcorn by Mario Milosevic
The Whole Shebang by Timothy Ferris

Ulysses:
Episode 2: Nestor: Kif
Episode 3: Proteus: Georgia Nicholson
Episode 4: Calypso: Parasites Lost
Episode 5: The Lotus Eaters: Down to the River to Pray

Miscellaneous:
Historical Fiction

Previous month

Catalog: 03/28/09

Here it is the last week of March and I'm just finishing up the February issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

"Catalog" is the third story by Eugene Mirabelli I've read and by far my favorite. It poses the question of what sort of alternate world an unhappy graphic artist would want to escape to. The answer ends up being a mixture of old short stories and catalog photo spreads.

John flits around from place to place (ad to ad and book to book sort of) much as the characters in "The Nocturnal Adventure of Dr. O and Mr. D" by Tim Sullivan (F&FS April 2008). The world he finds is a mixture of LL Bean, Edgar Allen Poe stories and the reading primers of "Dick and Jane" and "See Spot Run."

I liked the way Mirabelli imagined what life could be like if bodged together from the way we represent ourselves in print. It's fun, lighthearted and silly story. It was the perfect way to end the February issue.