A collection of short stories where the humour runs dark and the slipstream bubbles up.
...imagine if Raymond Carver called up George Saunders and Joe Lansdale, and they all went drinking with Neil Gaiman.
“… it's clear that Terlson is way ahead of the curve in terms of crafting an engaging premise that reaches for elevated territory and reinvents enduring archetypes of action and suspense.” J. Schoenfelder
"Sometimes brutal, often demanding and always complex, this novel will repay the reader who likes their assumptions challenged and is happy to walk away from a book with minor questions unanswered but the big ones definitely dealt with! It’s likely to satisfy those who enjoy Hammet and/or Philip K Dick and who like their fiction very noir indeed." Kay Sexton
"I love a novel that you can't put down, and this is one of them." L. Cihlar
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 12:25PM I added another fiction link to a favorite story of mine (oh, aren't they all favorites). You can go to the terlson fiction links over to the right there.
Or just click here if you haven't read my story on obsession.
The Days are Numbered at Cezanne's Carrot.
Great mag, Cezanne's Carrot, celebrating their one year anniversary, I believe.
Reader Comments (2)
First off, good story. Second off, how would you describe this story, if you had to stuff it into a genre? Seems like something magical, slipstreamy, is going on. How did it feel to write it? You've mentioned that you find the path a little twisty when you contemplate writing a fantasy. How did you feel about writing this? Did you think of it as fantasy?
Hey Mark - I thought you may have read that one already.
I guess the term slipstream fits better into this sort of story than fantasy. How did I feel? Well, when I include an element of the fantastical sort (if I can call it that), I really focus on everything else being very rooted in reality. I guess that is a way of "selling" the idea to the reader. I do believe it was you who taught me this.
In this story the element is very subtle and could be seen as simple obsession - I like that. What I mean by twisty, is if I have to go too far out on a fictional limb. I am not fully sure what that means. Maybe beings from other planets or dimensions, zombies, wizards, that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good zombie story, but I don't think I read enough in those sort of genres to feel comfortable in writing them.
Of course, this genres is more than Zombies and pan-dimensional beings, I am over simplifiying. As I often say, I straddle the realist fiction of Carver and Ford with the storytelling of people like Philip K. Dick, Lansdale, or even Tolkien whose books I devoured in my youth.
To answer that final question - no, I don't think I think of it as fantasy, but that is more of a marketing term than anything. And like most things, I could be wrong.