"Subterranean" magazine, Fall 2007 issue: 11 stories, 8 read, 2 good

Here is the list of stories, ranked on quality (best first). My rating is in brackets; a short summary follows along with a rough classification of genre of story. Link on title takes you to my commentary article - if I've posted one. Download link is provided here as well as in my commentary article.

Among the 7 I've read are 2 science fiction stories, 1 fantasy, & rest non-genre.

1. Mike Resnick's "Merry Bunta!" (A); download: Non-genre. Humor. Part of Lucifer Jones in South America series. Lucifer falls in love, & goes through a lot of trouble to win his lady love over.
2. Chris Roberson's "Fire in the Lake" (A); download: Non-genre. Politics. Palace intrigue & a Royal's murder investigation in imperial China.
3. John Scalzi's "The Sagan Diary" (B); download: Science fiction. A cyborg warrior woman falls in love & decides to become a normal human.
4. Stephen Gallagher's "The Blackwood Oak" (B); download: Fantasy. Much of the story is of the life of a forest warden, Damien Ryan, & of his chase of an apparantly evil ghost that has escaped.
   
   Ghost is "Sylvanus Roscoe, of the genus Sylvani" - a kind of "nature spirit" & "an Elemental". Roscoe was trapped trapped under water in the stem of an ancient oak tree for a century; the tree stem was buried by a dam, & is now exposed after dam was emptied for repairs - giving Roscoe the chance to escape.
   
   Last third is where we learn the Roscoe's end of the story - how his people were hunted & kidnapped to satisfy a megalomaniac's quest for scientific knowledge, & how the maniac was helped by ancestors of the Damien.
   
   I got a feeling the author was either talking about the fate of animals that end up in labs, or of American Indians killed when Europeans were occupying Americas. This part is essentially about the empathy Damien feels for the wronged, but no one now living was responsible & since nothing can be done about it, it's best to leave buried what was buried till now.
5. Daniel Abraham's "The Support Technician Tango" (B); download: Non-genre. I suppose you could call it science fiction, but you would have to stretch the definition. Key thesis of the story is: few people are immune to superstition.
   
   David Osgood is a computer sysadmin at a law firm. There has been a computer virus outbreak overnight; David spent the night at office patching systems with the result that his firm is operational next day while its competitors' operations are badly affected. There is a rumor that a competitor is looking to hire David. As a defensive move, Mr Elms, a partner at the firm, offers David a week's salary as bonus plus a pat on the back.
   
   But just before David was called to office of Mr Elms, he happened to look at one of those dime-a-dozen self-help books with generic advice indistinguishable from astrology. After hearing of the reward, he is kind of feeling superstitious about the contents of that book - which has vanished from where he left it, & seems to be destined to infect many minds in the office.
6. Jay Lake's "The Fly and Die Ticket" (B); download: Science fiction. "Rajamurtha drive" aka "r-drive" is a spaceship engine that can move vessels faster than light - making interstellar travel possible for humans.
   
   Only it sometimes does something to matter surrounding it - including the vessel itself & the human tissue. This something makes the affected matter extremely dangerous to normal matter - means all matter infected, including infected humans, needs to be dumped to some secret sterile world where no normal human will ever go.
   
   Story is about the fate of Manny - a veteran of many voyages who has now caught this matter sickness. He is now isolated & banished from humanity forever - to die on this secret world.
   
   I found the plot utterly flimsy, & narrative rather casual.
7. David Prill's "Show of Hands" (C); download: Non-genre. One of those unfathomable stories!
   
   A farmer in US in mid twentieth century follows an annual ritual - of watching the annual passage of a circus train through his small community! Develops a fetish for clean hands. Loses one of his hand in an accident. Ends up envying everyone's hands.
8. Kealan Patrick Burke's "The Acquaintance" (C); download: Non-genre. A violent criminal returns to his home town in small town Ireland after spending many years away - in prison & hanging out at many places.
   
   Most of the story is set in a bar he stops over before going home. Ends up in a hospital with paralyzed legs after being hit by a speeding car when finally walking home drunk at night.
9. Caitlín R Kiernan's "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection"; download: Not read. I seem to have either missed it out when I originally downloaded this issue, or this story was posted after my download.
   
10. Livia Llewellyn's "The Four Hundred Thousand"; download: Not read.
11. Charles de Lint's "Promises to Keep"; read by Yanni Kuznia; download: Not read because it's MP3 audio & I'm not very comfortable with US accent.