Reviewed by Roelof Goudriaan in Albedo 1 #27 (May 2003)
Book of the issue
Angel Body collects 25 short works (mostly stories but a few poems and graphic stories) by authors who've published with the US West Coast publisher Wordcraft. It's an exceptionally fine selection, combining insight into human personalities and motives with red-hot innovative and inspiring ideas.
 In the title story written by Thomas Kennedy, someone's dead angel is discretely removed. But what good's a dead angel? You'll find out – "Angel Body" is a magnificent bittersweet concoction filled with whispers from the closet. It deserves to make it to the various Best of the Year anthologies.
"Afterward" by Don Webb is another bittersweet story, about an office worker found out to be a witch. Starting off with familiar office and small town gossip that will suck you into the story and blessed with an adorably reasonable main character, events turn nasty, 'afterward'...
Conger Beasley's "The Man Who Adopted Dead Children" not only offers a wonderful story title, but also a sad, deeply disturbing personal portrait.
Juxtapose to this Brian Evenson's absurdist "Lupe Varga, Deceased", with the most paranoid fictional president since George W. Bush, and a sick sick artist... darkly manic and ever so funny, because it is fictional!
Lance Olsen's featured with "Moving", a personal anti-capitalist fable, and at the same time an intimate love story. I'm willing to bet you'll re-inspect your view of what 'happiness' means for you. Another 'best of' anthology candidate.
"Metamorphosis at the End of Time" is a strong dystopian story by Andrew Darlington. It's an effective tension builder, combining the familiar attempted escape from oppression with an unresolved metamorphosis.
Many of the other works reach a similarly outstanding standard: Mark Rich's contemplative "Festival of the River", Nathan Whiting's eerie poem "The Rope Dress", Ernest Hogan's hot action "Burrito Meltdown", Bruce Boston's, etc. etc. Angel Body is a quilt of creative genius: no other anthology in the past few years has packed so much originality between its covers.
Reproduced by kind permission of Roelof Goudriaan and Albedo 1.
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