Resumo de Pulp Idol - Harvey, Colin & Others

ABSTRACT ? HARVEY, COLIN & OTHERS ? PULP IDOL ? A free book of winning entries from the SFX science fiction short story competition, issued with their September 2006 SFX Magazine. Colin Harvey?s The Stinker was the winning entry, and deals with a man who simply smells revolting. It is only in the closing lines that we learn that he is born of some demonic forces as a result of a curse on his family. As with many such competitions, it isn?t a bad prizewinner though some of the entries in the collection read better. Wolves At The Door, by Rob Wickings is perhaps my favourite, with a stand off between a fierce robotic wolf/ vampire creature and a man with a futuristic gun, each waiting for the other to make the first move. It reads alas t like a chapter from a longer work. Other stories (given in alphabetical order by title, with the author?s names barely visible in tiny fonts, include; Gavin Broom?s East 77th Street, a basic zombie tale told from the view of a man and his girlfriend watching from a high rise apartment as the dead are taken out by the authorities. The man then has to kill his dying girlfriend before she becomes a zombie too. Paul Daly?s Queue is a dark Twilight Zone worthy story about a man warned not to get in a particular taxi as it is due to cash with tragic circumstances. Thinking he is being warned by a guardian angel for his safety, he obeys and then the taxi runs him over. Mark Dunn?s Sense And Insensibility features an experiment in sensation transference, allowing a man and a woman to feel each other?s sensations. Unfortunately, with predictable results, they virtually become each other. The hero wakes up with the woman?s husband in the end. The stories are not bad, but few really startle or grab. They feel like tried a tested formula material. The editors also do the authors a grammatical injustice in many respects, and fail to really spell out the writer?s names. It all feels a little anonymous. (The closing list of opening lines from about forty runners? up entries provides some really embarrassing inclusions which makes you wonder if much thought really went into the selection from the vast range of material submitted to the competition. A full list of my personal abstracts is online at www.arthurchappell.clara.net/shvoongabstracts.htm

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