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As such literary movements as interstitial and slipstream gain momentum, more and more authors interweave their traditional stories with gay themes as coming out, homophobia, and self-as-other, with a bit of the strange and weird. Named after one of the founding fathers of gay speculative fiction, Wilde Stories is a new annual anthology that offers readers the best of such stories from the prior year. Editor Steve Berman, a finalist for both the Lambda Literary and Andre Norton Awards, has collected an engaging selection of the fantastical, the strange, and the scary from such notable authors as Victor J. Banis, Hal Duncan and Lee Thomas.
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Based on 0 reviews Editorial Reviews:
From Bitten by Books
Wilde Stories 2008 are all well-written short works, dealing with some sort of supernatural or other-worldy force.
From Eureka Pride
The stories here run the gamut of speculation--some are scary, some are strange and some are fantastic. They all deserve to be read and we are lucky that Steve Berman has gathered some of the finest by some powerful authors such as Jameson Currier, Victor J. Banis, Hal Duncan and eight others.
From Jesse Monteagudo / AfterElton.com
Wilde Stories 2008 would make Oscar proud, since it is a fascinating collection of "the fantastical, the strange and the scary" in gay short fiction. One of the short stories, "Ever So Much More Than Twenty" by Joshua Lewis, is already a winner: the recipient of a Gaylactic Network Spectrum Award for best short fiction.
Excerpt:
Peter Lucas Simon was ordinary—average build, brown hair, clear skin. Nobody's dream of masculine perfection, but I thought he probably made out pretty well; or could, if he chose. There was something of the ascetic about him, though. Or maybe that was the
circumstances, meeting him just after hearing Nate's story.
He seemed not very surprised to see me. "The place is a mess," he said. The living room was cluttered, mostly books, journals, newspapers. It prejudiced me in his favor. Good journalists aren't supposed to entertain prejudices.
"Peter," I began.
"Call me Simon," he said.
I had walked automatically to the window, a San Francisco habit. All those views. This one was modest but pleasant, a glimpse of hills over the housetops. It was near evening. Some of the windows were lighted already.
'Everyone calls you Simon?" I asked.
"I don't know."
Which was an odd answer. I turned back to him. At the door, he had been in shadow. Now, in the light, he was better looking than I had first thought. His complexion was remarkable; it almost seemed to glow. His lips were full, his nose small. A cute face. Except for the eyes, wide, hazel—and utterly lifeless. If eyes are the mirror of the soul, as they say, and I were a little more fanciful, I might have said this was a man without a soul.
"Where are you from, Simon?"
"I don't know," he said again, embarrassed. Understandably.
"You don't know where you're from?"
"Look, I may as well get this over with. I really don't remember. Anything."
"Anything?" I must have looked as astonished as I felt. "You've got amnesia?" I couldn't help sounding skeptical. That was too easy.
"Maybe. I don't know. Sorry. I'm saying that a lot. But, really, I can't—I've tried to recall things, but nothing comes to me. There's this wall. I don't know what’s on the other side."
"How far back can you remember? The Peaks, on Saturday? That was you, wasn't it?"
For a moment, I thought he would deny it; then, red faced, he said, "Yes. The baby, you mean?"
"They say you brought him back to life."
"I don't know." He grinned sheepishly.
The grin transformed him. Really, I had never seen so changeable a face. It seemed different each time that I looked at him. It was the grin, though, that made all the difference. It appeared slowly, hesitated for a moment about his lips and gradually made its way to his eyes.
How could I have thought his eyes dull? They gleamed with something I could only think of as sweetness. It was unbearably appealing. I took him in my arms and kissed him.
He could not have been more surprised by the kiss than I was. Until I found my lips on his, the thought of kissing him hadn't so much as crept into my mind, and, here he was, kissing me back, embracing me tentatively at FIrst and then, increasingly, as violently as I embraced him, until we clung together with an almost desperate ardor.
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