ADAM WAS by Alan Marshfield - £4
Abraxas Press, 13 Copthall Gardens, Mill Hill, London, NW7 2NG  email
Self-pub'd chapbk of poetry & prose on vari po-mo themes, incl views on verse as art form + copious endnotes (½ bklet!) 2 poet's own stuff pres here.

AGNI - $8.95
236 Bat State Rd, Boston, MA 02215, USA  email
Twice-yrly Lit mag in 300+ pg p/b form, pub'd by Boston Univ. # 51 has short fic by Ilan Stavans, James Whitfield Thomson, Julia Thacker, Maxim D Shrayer. Poems by Robert Pinsky, Amy Thomas, John Peck, Peter Viereck, ED Reeve, Thomas Bolt & many others + xert from Tiepolo's Hound by Derek Walcott, Joseph Brodsky i/v (circa '60s), nonfic on Southern Gnostic, Russian poet Michael B Kreps (1940-94), more & select bk rev'ws. Evocative, potent, not all dry & funless as U may expect from this type mag.

AIR WARRIORS by Noel K Hannan & Derek Gray - £1.50 [NK Hannan]
Bad To The Bone, 18 Lansdowne Rd, Sydney, Crewe, Ches CW1 5JY  website
Indie pub'd comic, b&w art, alt world F genre tale of kilted paratroops, blimps, dragons, in whole mess of drama & battle scenes. Nifty imagino tale.
   Also avail: bunch of A5 illo's fic bklets by NKH: The Amazing Adventures Of Captain Cadwallader, Divide By Zero, The Fugazi Virus (art by Alwyn Talbot), Magic Box, A Night On The Town, Parlour Games, Bad Jihad offer healthy mix of SF-H themes - only £1 ea. Also rec'vd copies of prev'sly seen & rev Streetmeat comix # 1 & 2, with Rik Rawling's dynamic b&w art. These R grt SFnal noir action tales of Seattle future-cop, violent vixen Melanoma Solo - £1.50 ea. Check out Noel's smart Ankh site 4 latest news info.

AMON HEN - £20 for 6 [Tolkien Society]
8 Park Hill Rd, Croydon CR0 5NA  website
Bi-mthly bulletin of Tolkien Society, ed by Andrew Butler. Ish 164 incl reports on recent Tolkien-related events, statem't re 4thcom'g LotR film, nonfic on evil in T's tales, club news updates + rev pgs. Well worth look if U R into trad F fic, but mag's dear 4 only 36pp A5.

THE ANTAGONISH REVIEW - $8 / $24 for 4
PO Box 5000, St Francis Xavier Univ, Antagonish, Nova Scotia, B2G 2W5, Canada  website
Trade p/b size Lit mag ed by George Sanderson. No.120 (Win '00 ish) fields heady mix of stories: Ursula Pflug, Maureen Lennon, Rabindranath Maharaj, Jay Ruzesy, George Little, others. Poetry by Bridget Wayland, Sue Wheeler, Colin Carberry, Virgil Suarez, Helen Zisimatos, Eric Hill, Donna Langevin, Andy Brown & many more. Fascinat'g article on film-VR overlap, Judith maclean Miller i/v'd. Atypical of such journals TAR incl orig text/ lang versions of verse trans (from Chi, Fr, Rus) 4 print here. Zine Kat's fave piece is Amy Shepherd's wry Ham Sandwich Eulogy.

ARTISTS ON COMIC ART by Mark Salisbury - £12.99
Titan Books, 144 Southwark St, London SE1 OUP  email  Mail order: 01858 433169
Illo'd coll of i/v's wi' top comics honchos like Brian Bolland, Alex Ross, Frank Miller, Dave McKean, Steve Gibbons, etc. Insider info on how scripts turn into strips. Reveals techniq of layout, pencils + inks, exams vari approaches & styles of this often ignored craft. Incl some eg's of panel art 2 mesh wi' quiz'd artists' Q&A replies so developm't from sketch 2 result is clear. Partic intrig is Ross' use of photo'd models as aid, but bk's major flaw is lack of col art 2 demo final stage of comic B4 print. Still, excel read tho' ROCKS

THE ART OF ROWENA - £20 / $29.95
Paper Tiger, Collins & Brown, London Ho, Great Eastern Wharf, Parkgate Rd, London SW11 4NQ  website
Grt XL h/b coll of F illos by Rowena Morrill, incl biog + main text by Doris Vallejo, intro by Greg & Tim Hildebrandt. Cloud 9 dark angel, bride of serpent, fish & flower girls, astro-pioneers, trad wizard, dragon riders, spacer heroes, Egyptian priestess, Oriental princess, regulo sword'n'sorcery, alien encounters, lotsa acton, genre metaphors, arcane symbolism, magical illos for bk wraps, calendars, trad'g cards etc. Gen'rly Rowena's visions charm & delight but portraits R not so hot. Tho' qual std's high, range bit Ltd & slighty twee. BOSS

AWEN - sae
38 Pierrot Steps, 71 Kursaal Way, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS1 2UY  email
DJ Tyrer's verse & news zine is 4pp A4 wi' poems by Steve Sneyd, Vicky Coffey, AC Evans + others. Qual aside, incl of 3 pieces by ed lowers value, while vari col text (blue, red, green) & alt fonts show thru flipside 2 make parts illegible.

BEYOND THE VOID by Mark Marsay - £5.99 / £8.50 (USA/Can)
Great Northern Publishing, PO Box 202, Scarborough, N Yorks YO11 3GE  website
Smutty jokey 'Trek spoof p/b nov. Capt Custer & crew of Erasmus take nonPC sci-fi 2 alien stars wi' lusty rage 4 mucho silly hi-jinks at cost 2 genre. No help that robot's called Dweeb but does give U idea of humour level. Where Harrison's slip'ry Jim ain't allowed & Dave Garnett heroes fear 2 tread, Marsay's spacer mob roam free. MUTANT

BIG BROTHER: The Unseen Story by Jean Ritchie - £9.99
Channel 4 Books, Macmillan, 25 Eccleston Pl, London SW1W 9NF  website
Here's p/b tie-in 2 voyeurs' webcast style TV show abt exploits of housemates, incl diary notes, psych profiles, info & pix off-air events 2 detail 64 days in seedy limelight. New chpt of media mad public life? Nadir of crap docu on box?

BLACK KNIGHTS AT THE END OF TIME by JPV Stewart - £2.49 / $6 [S Sneyd]
Hilltop Press, 4 Nowell Pl, Almondbury, Huddersfield, West Yorks HD5 8PB
Coll of genre verse by "hard-SF poet" incl stuff from JPV showcase in early The ZONE. Sharp text, eclectic themes. U prob'ly won't find better player at this partic word game than Stewart. This neat prod chapbk back-2-back wi' long poem Hey, He's A Fish by Russian bard Andrei Lubensky, less magic than JPV, but worth look.
   Also avail: DATA DUMP # 50 handwrit info on genre poetry - 70p / $2

BLACK ROSE - £2.50 / $4 [D Dunning]
10 St Malachy's Dr, Greenhills, Dublin 12, Ireland  email
5th ish Dave D's "ghost horror & dark fantasy" fic mag, adults-only tag warns. Tales spun by Nancy Bennett, Mark Leon Collins, Paul Walther, Lyn McConchie, Seán Russell Friend, others. Nonfic abt Shirley Jackson, top H bks, art of Dallas Goffin. Clear text, nifty b&w illos marks BR out as fine genre stories mag. Here's 56pp A4 keen spooky dreams, gory chills, scary thrills, stuff of cold nights alone just as...
   Also avail: Beyond The Rose # 2 - £1.50 has poor qual but ed makes apology 2 reveal sml press prob of lousy print biz ripoffs. Here's some decent fic by Martin Owton, Bruce Boston, Ash Miller, Bobbi Sinha-Morey + others in 68pp A5.

THE BLACK ROSE - £2.50 [B Hall]
56 Marlescroft Way, Loughton, Essex IG10 3NA  website
Nowt 2 do wi' above, Oct ish (# 4) of this poetry mag incl verse by John S Mercer, Vicky Stevens, Andrew Detheridge, Michael K Moore, RL Cook, David McLintock, Ian Sawicki, Bernard M Jackson, Richard Q King, CJ Heyworth & others. Chock wi' neat pres fresh stuff on brd range matters fr' social anxiety 2 arty moods. U also get insert rev'ws extra.

BOGG - $4.50
422 N Cleveland St, Arlington, VA 22201, USA
Long run int'nal Lit mag (est. 1968), ed by John Elisberg. # 70 incl poems, fic & prose texts by Charles Bukowski, Thomas Wiloch, Ann Menebroker, Catfish McDaris, David Wright, Lyn Lifshin, Laurel Speer, Richard M West, Blair Ewing, Jane Downing, Dan Lenihan, William Viant, Kyle Laws, Steve Sneyd & many more. Boasts creme choice contempo writers, vari themes, meaty 70+ pgs read. BOSS
   Avail in UK - £3 via George Cairncross, 31 Belle Vue St, Filey, N Yorks YO14 9HU

THE BORIS VALLEJO PORTFOLIO - £12.99
Paper Tiger (see above)
Archetypal trad fantasy artist, back catalog well plundered here. Olympian dream physique, fierce green dragon, zodiacal figures, slave harem, barbarian warriors, Amazon babes, SFnal athletes, superheroes, spectres, demon statues, mythic icons + monsters. 28 pieces, worthy items 2 frame in affordable p/b format. BOSS

BOSTON REVIEW - $3.50
MIT # E53-407, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139-9481, USA  website
Political & Lit forum of 25 yrs. Oct-Nov ish exams US democracy re basic wage in salvo views (incl "Why Pay Bill Gates?"), finds up rise Haitian "militant, prophetic" Lit, hears music of Milton Babbitt & John Cage, covers Michael Almereyda's jazzy Hamlet movie, poems by Christopher Edgar, Miranda Field, Paul Celan, Richard Greenfeld, Laurie Sheck + others, essays, wodge of rev'w cols of mostly poetry bks in 64pp tabloid-size mag. Stuffy as night sea breeze.

BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: The Monster Book - £10.99 / $16.95
Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, Africa Ho, 64-78 Kingsway, London WC2B 6AH   website
This nonfic illo'd p/b by Christopher Golden, Stephen R Bissette + Thomas E Sniegoski is kosher guide 2 myths magic & yup, monsters of Joss Weldon's phenom hor lite TV show. Does 4 pop gothic teen babe hero's enemies what similar rogues gallery bks prev done 4 Carter's X-Files. Hellspawn, bloodsuckers, witches, spooks, zombies & other evil ilk. Incl 32 pgs of col photos + assorted plenty b&w pix form ace decor 2 nifty pop quiz demonology 101.
   Also avail: Buffy (TVS) orig p/b nvls Doomsday Deck by Diana G Gallagher, Ghoul Trouble by John Passarella, £5.99 ea. Orig p/b novel Angel: Shakedown by Don DeBrandt, £5.99 + Spike & Dru: Pretty Maids All In A Row by Christopher Golden, orig h/b fic £12.99 / $22.95 & XL format p/b Buffy TV script bks in 2 vols, 6 episodes per title, £10 ea. R these ultimo Buf stuff must-haves?

BUFFY... Crash Test Demons - £8.99
Titan Books (see above)
Pop gothic g/n sequel 2 Bad Blood, writ by Andi Watson, drawn by Cliff Richards (no, t'other 1, silly), based on TV show pits 3rd season Sunnydale scooby gang against supermodel vamp, weirdo magic at Cordy's quiz, dark slayer threat + Spike & Dru, 2. Fun p/b comicbk, incl i/v wi' artist.

BURNING SKY - $4 / $5 o/s [GF Gifune]
Thievin' Kitty Publications, PO Box 341, Marion, MA 02738, USA  website
Rec'vd 3 ish pack of Greg's nifty digest mag of adv in SF terror. # 5 incl tales by Tim Curran, Carlton Mellick, Douglas M Stokes & others. # 6 has Stefano Donati, Phil Locascio, BR Bearden + more. # 7 Brian Pedersen, G Durant Haire, Suzanne Donahue, etc. Tho' slim vols, boasts excel std of print pres & gen'rly hi qual fic wi' tail rev'w item per ish. If U liked Tony Lee's Premonitions here's fine form Yankee alt. COOL

CANADIAN WRITER'S JOURNAL - Can$4
PO Box 5180, New Liskeard, Ontario, P0J 1P0, Canada  website
Bi-mthly Lit & crit mag ed by Deborah Ranchuk. Fall '00 ish has stories by Peter Schafrick, Lyle Nichol. Verse fr' John Alan Douglas, Carol A Adams, Richard Smith, David Chirko + others. Nonfic: markets, stanzas, email i/v, haiku quiz, hints & tips, vari mag GLs, etc. Solid, useful info wi' plenty advice 4 both new & semi-pro.

CHALLENGING DESTINY - Can$7.50 / o/s US$7 [Crystalline Sphere Publishing]
R.R. #6, St Marys, Ontario, N4X 1C8, Canada  website
Classy p/b SF/F mag, ed by Dave & Bob Switzer. 10th ish line-up incl stories by Hugh Cook, David Chato, Nye Marnach, Matthew J Reynolds + debut fic by Karina Sumner-Smith. U also get Candas Jane Dorsey i/v'd, nonfic retro col on New Wave, gd illos by Dave Fode, Craig Jennion, Heather McGee, Jeff Ward + others. The Kat's fave piece is Chris Webb's witty The Dragon Laureate. Fine genre tales, excel pres & print. ROCKS

THE CHEROTIC (r)EVOLUTIONARY - $5 [Inter-Relations]
PO Box 11445, Berkeley, CA 94712, USA  website
Get pervy & intel fun off Frank Moore's live-joy subcult mag. No # on rec'vd sample (but ed's dateline Apr '99) & ish incl nonfic: disability pov, "assembling" mags, India + more odd items. Poems by Janet Kuypers, Anthony Lecero, Dorothy Jesse Beagle, Ray Heinrich, Jim DeWitt, Mark Senkus, Giovanni Moro & others. Fic: SFnal Monica Seles obit circa 2050. Lotsa spiky wild art by Brian Viveros, Blair Wilson, David Aronson. Sexy b&w pix by Tony Ryan, Michael Alan Grapin. Weirdo toons & clever doodles. Inventive stuff 2 amuse & surprise U. COOL

CINEASTE - $6
PO Box 2242, New York, NY 10009-8917, USA  website
Top'o'range intel movie mag tackles scr media as art fr' political angle, wi' serio film crit & no fluff or waffle. Est. '67, pub'd ¼ly. Vol.25 # 1, 2 & 3 rec'vd, chock fulla grt stuff like i/v's wi' Edward Fight Club Norton, dir of Romance Catherine Breillat, Atom Felicia's Journey Egoyan, critic Pauline Kael, Mike Topsy-Turvy Leigh, Errol Mr Death Morris, Julie Titus Taymor + articles on law in cinema, Luis Buñuel, Orson Wells, Ida Lupino, Montreal fest report, making-of The Battle of Algiers, A Fistful of Dollars, retros, select rev'ws, artful vari b&w pix, even few info ads 4 film study bks, etc. Plenty intrigo read 4 gen fan & partic genre buff. MONSTER

COMBO - $3
31 Perrin Ave, Pawtucket, RI 02861, USA  website
Poetry & prose mag, est Sum '98, pub'd ¼ly. #1 had verse by Jessica Chiu, Andrew Epstein, Katherine Steele, Matt Hart, others. Harryette Mullen i/v'd. Also rec'vd # 5 contribs Anselm Berrigan, David Koppisch, Brian Kim Stefans, Ray Di Palma + others, i/v wi' Bill Berkson. Latest # 7 incl poems by Carl Martin, Mark McMorris, Eugene Ostashevsky, Dmitry Prigov, Prageeta Sharma. Prose fr' Bill Friend, Fran Carlen, Summi Kaipa, more. Tho' mostly US source, ed demos multicult bias, leans 2 non-std texts, but some cheery wit Lit incl all same. Print gd, wi' smart card cov designs. Nifty stuff.

COMICBOOK CULTURE: An Illustrated History - $49.95
Collectors Press, Inc. PO Box 230986, Portland, OR 97281, USA  website
Ron Goulart's XL h/b traces orig of comics from funnies 2 super stuff & beyond. Grt coll of 4-col cov art repro'd here, many if not most prev unseen by the Kat. Jokey visual puns, ambush of DC in Golden Age fantasy, Nazi bash era thrills, Marvel & SF type heroism but B4 brand lead lotsa other pub/s tried, failed, died. Gd read 4 sure, yet bk's true value prob'ly in its wealth of artwk as proof of genre/form life long B4 ol' Supes flew in. MONSTER

COMICS INTERNATIONAL - £1.25 / $1.95
8 Trinity Rd, London N2 8JJ  website
No.124 (Sep '00 ish) of Dez Skinn's mthly mag kicks off wi' range of news items: DC imps, Wildstorm, Daredevil, Elite, etc + Simpsons spinoff prev'w. Nonfic cols on Bongo, Sable, Judge Dredd, Wizard, lotsa others. Intrigo info in fulsome adv lists incl Chaos pub'd M Myers orig in Halloween. Q&A pg + LOCcol, spec & rumour stuff, tons of capsule rev'ws, closes wi' yellow pgs dir list. Absolute req read if U R into comics.

THE COMPLETE ACCURSED WIVES by Bruce Boston - $9.95
Dark Regions Press, PO Box 6301, Concord, CA 94524, USA /
Talisman, PO Box 565572, Miami, FL 33256, USA
Well handy p/b chapbk colls Mr B's genre prose fic & excel poems on unique spouse theme, cul'd fr' mags Amazing - The Zone. Vari form brides, lady loves & her indoors R plagued, upset, careworn, foiled, slain, etc. Image wed bliss turn 2 life of dismay wi' alien, berserker, clone, devil, mad scientist, satyr, shapeshifter, snowman, telepath, troll, werewolf + many more. Fears & fun in nuptial nightmares, smart illo'd by Allen Koszowski (best man 4 job). Enjoy while the Kat awaits death or divorce sequel. TCAW is superb anthol & U don't have 2 get engaged, so buy it. ROCKS

CRIMEWAVE 4: Mood Indigo - £5.99 [TTA Press]
5 Martins La, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB  website
Lavish design & print marks Andy Cox's cri-fi L p/b mag out fr' any rivals in field. Stories by Cliff Burns, Sean Doolittle, Chaz Brenchley, Sten Westgard, Brian Hodge, Simon Avery + others, crackle abuzz wi' risky lures, hi drama beat, droll dialog. Zine Kat unsure what # 4 subtitle means but CW evokes Joe Lansdale 2 Elmore Leonard + all pts between & beyond. Mag's fic puts wry twist on everyday, upends, redefines, fixates genre mysterio tropes & players, fr' smalltown US dark lands 2 Euro noir 'polis zeitgeist. 4 best fx, read CW wi' just 1 bedside light on. It's what shadows were invented 4. MONSTER

DARK TERRORS 5 - £9.99
Gollancz, Orion Publishing, Orion Ho, 5 Upper St Martin's La, London WC2H 9EA
Fat trade p/b vol of H fic, ed by Stephen Jones & David Sutton. Here 30+ "masters of macabre" posit creeps, crawls, haunts, beasts & all manner evil doings, goings-on 2 scare U silly. In bk's 570pp find tales well told by Christopher Fowler, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Peter Straub, Mick Garris, Joel Lane, Lisa Tuttle, Michael Marshall Smith, Gwyneth Jones, Graham Masterson, Richard Chrustian Matheson, Cherry Wilder, Eric Brown, Nicholas Royle + others. True who's who of genre scene. Zine Kat's faves here incl Nancy Kilpatrick's eerie Necromimicos, Honeysuckle by William R Trotter, + Mary A Turzillo's fab Bottle Babies. If U buy only 1 story bk this yr, pick this & revel in it.

DARKWËRKS: The Art Of Brom - £14.99 / $21.95
Paper Tiger (see above)
Fantasy art p/b coll by painter weirdo fighter figs, characters hi on style low on fault. Bril use of col & texture in dyna-pose mix. Very much genre inspired by film imagery, contribs 2 comix etc. Hunters, jungle queen, cyber-knights, crab aliens, girls & guns, slayer pirates, sexy vampires, sharpshooter, ghouls, magicians, hell spawn, femme fatales, goblins, creepers, devils & creatures. Card + game art among fields. Partic gd at mottled scared flesh.

THE DARWIN AWARDS - £5.99
Orion (see above)  website
Trade p/b coll of true story stupidity, ed by Wendy Northcutt, tamed infamy of pop cult black comedy website. Idea is if U ain't fit 2 survive life's rigor it's mortis. Strict rules apply: validity checks on death at own hand by idiocy, no retards, more bizarre win urban myth status. Fun lucky dip 4 keen laughs & arched eyebrow gags. After 4 mil yrs evolution H movie victims still seem like regulo folk compared 2 reality here.

THE DEAD WALK by Andy Black - £11.99 / $19.95
Noir Publishing, PO Box 28, Hereford HR1 1YT  email
Illo'd survey of zombie films by ed of Necronomicon mag & bks. Exams rise of undead fr' weird voodoo 2 genre icons as man-eaters in evermore lurid & gory H movies. Incl 8 pgs col pix in slick 164pp L p/b format, filmog, index. BOSS

DISCWORLD Fools' Guild Yearbook & Diary 2001 - £10.99
Gollancz (see above)
Comedy fights humdrum times in this h/b, writ by Terry Pratchett (?) & Stephen Briggs, wi' Paul Kidby illos. Young mimes, jesters, clowns + ilk, take heart thru real mil'nium.
   Also avail: DISCWORLD Collector's Edition 2001 Calendar, art by John Kirby, Graham Higgins, Colin MacNeil + others. Big format pix of silver horde, pyramids, small gods, 4 horsemen, hogfather Death on m/c + other col'ful wks. Tho' gd qual prod, sense here that TP likely 2 slap brand name on owt 4 easy dosh.

DOCTOR WHO: Regeneration - £17.99
HarperCollins, 77-85 Fulham Palace Rd, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
Companion guide & making-of bk, by Philip Segal wi' Gary Russell, focus on US backed '96 revival (1-off TV film) of famed pop BBC sci-fi show, wi' new star Paul McGann. Charts pain, probs & ult'mte success of overlong script 2 scr process. Wealth prod art, info & media trivia exams vari stages on/off proj thru story, cast & crew changes. Plenty pics 2 illo insider text in smart design of 170pp XL h/b. ROCKS

THE DRAGON CHRONICLE - £2.50 [Dragonslair]
TDC c/o 106 Oakridge Rd, High Wycombe, Bucks HP11 2PL  website
Once mighty wings of this dragon lore mag beat sml pr air, but now under new ed'ship # 18 shrunk down 32 x A5, yet still has lively mix of study items, F tales, prose & poetry, art, illos, ads, web & contacts info, etc. While thrifty boss makes gd 1st impr'sn wi' tighter rein on pg layout. Intrigo 4 new agers & ilk but overpriced.

DREAM CATCHER - £3.25 + 75p P&P
14 Garth Terrace, York YO30 6D 
Slick prod chapbk mag of northern Lit, ed by Paul Sutherland, Ian Parks, Helen Burke. # 7 incl prose & poetry by David Grubb, Gloria Grove-Stephensen, T Anders Carson, Albert Herranz, Anna McNamara, Neil Farrell, Barry Tebb, Siobhan Harvey, Glen Perry, Ruth Beckett, Chanje Kunda, Kath Murphy, Seán Body, Jackie Kay + many others. Ian Parks i/v'd. Art (local statue fotos) by Milladdio. Part fund by Yorks arts. Well polish design & print, gen'rly hi std writ'g, yet can't avoid odd luvvie spot among contempo pieces.

EDINBURGH REVIEW - £5.99
22a Buccleuch Pl, Edinburgh EH8 9LN  email
Lit & crit p/b mag, ed by Alex Thomson, pub'd by "Centre for the History of Ideas in Scotland" Univ E. ER # 103 incl nov extract by Christine Wolter, Zoë Strachan, Elizabeth Reeder. Poetry by Graham Higgin, David Kinloch. Alan Warner i/v, more nonfic: Eire/Brit politic, Scot geog, Welsh ethno, Euro & global state risks, Lit compo, sml pr bks rev'wd. #104 has memoir notes by scupltor Eduardo Paolozzi + writ'g abt his life & wks. Haiku by Alan Spence, poems by Brian Johnstone. Tales by Drew Milne, Hannah McGill, Michael Faber, others. Mostly lofty hi-brow stuff, wi' only few story items 2 draw attn of gen reader. Unlike title suggests, ER goes 4 macro POV not merely Scot eye.

EUROSHIMA MON AMOUR by Andrew Darlington - £3.99 / $8 [S Sneyd]
Hilltop Press (see above)
Long overdue coll of poetry by Yorks' scribe/journo pulls off more subtle wordplay skits & fewer punches than most. Bravo mix SFnal + rural/urban themes. Brain fever, timeline infinite across dreamscape twists. Next stanza may kill U in knots of weird spell phrased thru windows 2 solo. Taste: "through the barbs/ beneath the cortex" + "...out beyond/ the mystery of language,/ he licks the moon". Grt verse, not cheap but worth it. ROCKS

FANTASTIC LITERATURE - free
35 The Ramparts, Rayleigh, Essex SS6 8PY  website
Simon Gosden's mail order catalog list of qual 2nd hand genre bks, also avail online. Serv rec'mnd by Pigasus Press.

FANTASY COMMENTATOR - $5
48 Highland Circle, Bronxville, NY 10708-5909, USA
Long-run'g genre nonfic + poetry mag (est. '43) ed by A Langley Searles. # 52 has profiles of Robert W Lowndes, i/v wi' EF Bleiler, tribs 2 Sam Moskowitz, pro biog Hugo Gernsback cont'd. Verse by Bruce Boston, Andrew Darlington, Steve Sneyd, Darrell Schweitzer. Def 1 of best US SFnal fnz abt. On-going articles & rev'w cols make this req read 4 hardcore pulp buffs.

FANZINE FANATIQUE - usual
6 Vine St, Greaves, Lancaster, Lancs LA1 4UF  email
Lively capsule rev'w sheet much like print version of db but sans Zine Kat's wit, charm, smarts, gravitas...or modesty. Among stuff gets once over in Fall '00 ish: Alien Worlds, Dark Shadows Journal, Marginalia & Twink. 4 x A4, crucial that covers some stuff not rec'vd by the Kat!

THE FILMFOUR BOOK OF FILM QUOTES - £4.99
Macmillan (see above)
FilmFour  website
Slick pub'd neat sized h/b, illo'd wi' color stills + vari fonts 4 dialog. Haphazard, almost random select quotes fr' cult faves Rocky Horror..., Get Carter, Barton Fink, Life Of Brian, Taxi Driver, Jaws, etc - recent hits Matrix, Austin Powers..., Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Blair Witch... & blah. Hardly definitive of type. Promo 4 films on TV, perhaps?

FREAKNEST by Lance Olsen - $12
Wordcraft, PO Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850, USA  website
Spec fic genre nov by author of Tonguing The Zeitgeist, pub'd in trade p/b by David Memmott's Oregon-based Wordcraft pres. Olsen's SFnal scry scan of bleak po-mo cyber-mutant London, wild of mind & deeply weird in its alt world-view tone. Mucho poetic otherness pursues bad ideas on loose thru dystopic sprawl. If U wanna know what fears & grt sad human truth Gibson & Co missed target on, here it is. ROCKS

THE GOOD WEB SITE GUIDE 2001 by Graham Edmonds - £2.99
Orion (see above)  website
Back pocket size p/b, A-Z Internet trawl, aimed family surfers. It is more than new way 2 shop (says here) & can enhance life if U indulge little but often. Skim thru 225pp finds vari sites: free ads,  Open Univ,  Scrabble,  legal aid,  UK property database,  TV's Brookside,  motorbike mag,  UK tourism.  Rates all sites 4 speed, ease, info + value if online store. Art - zoos incl so ok if U get PC 4 Xmas.

GRAIN - Can$7.95
PO Box 1154, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4P 3B4, Canada  website
Smart pres Can Lit trade p/b mag, pub'd ¼ly by SK writ guild (est. '73). Vol. 28 # 3 (Win '00 ish) has fic by Janet Kieffer, RW Gray, Kevin Armstrong, Mary Hagley, Elizabeth Moret Ross, Martin West & others + poems fr' Gerald Hill, Nancy Holmes, Lorna Crozier, Jocko Benoit, Bert Almon, Kim Dawn, Russell Thornton, etc. Wide range of themes & styles, esp'ly wi' verse here. Also runs story/poem/nonfic compo.

GUARDS! GUARDS! by Stephen Briggs & Graham Higgins - £9.99
Gollancz (see above)
V smart glos col g/n based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld nov. Script by Briggs, art by Higgins. Here's where dragons go 2 blow off steam, perhaps...

A HALLOWEEN STORY by Peter Tennant - £4 [P Tennant]
Ugly Duckling Press, 9 Henry Cross Cl, Shipdham, Thetford, Norfolk IP25 7LQ
Self-pub'd novella was due (says cover note) 2 B an Enigmatic chapbk from Maynard & Sims, but since that sml pres folded, author chose not 2 waste prep wk ready done. Result? Dynamo swatch generic H tale fr' humbug spooky, gothic Lit refs, classic monster movie riffs, SFnal caution, as protag Scragg gets visits by pre-Xmas spirits: "Help dig me up," said the voice. Likeable enuf of its type, despite minor frenzy grab of sources.

HANDSHAKE - sae / IRC
5 Cross Farm, Station Rd, Padgate, Warrington, Ches WA2 0QG
NL of SF poets org, 8-hand gang, ed & pub'd by JF Haines in anarchic cut 'n' paste xerox style. Std ish A4, 1 side news items, 1 of genre poems. # 42 incl verse by Andrew Darlington, Eric Ratcliffe. # 43 has Giovanni Malito, Elaine Day, Bruce Boston, John Light + others.

IN CAMERA - unpriced
Kodak Ho, PO Box 66, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP1 1JU  
Trade mag 4 movie lensmen. Oct '00 ish focus on Coen bros' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Wenders' Million Dollar Hotel, f/x shots on The Patriot, tech notes on Kodak's Ektachrome, NYC ballet prod fitness DVD, latest photo awds + prod news, events calendar.

INTERCHANGE - £3
Dept of English, Hugh Owen Bldg, Penglais, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DY  email
Lit poetry mag, pub'd yrly by Univ of Wales. # 3 incl new verse by Rupert Loydell, Sheenagh Pugh, Annemarie Austin, Sean O'Brien, Stephen Smith, Wayne Burrows, Barry Tebb, Merryn Williams + many others. Sml rev'w section. Neat but plain pres wi' v tiny print size & lotsa white space on 68pp A5, glos card cover. Gd vari of themes, tho'.

IOTA Poetry Quarterly - £2 [D Holliday]
67 Hady Cres, Chesterfield, Derbyshire S41 0EB
Title says all, honestly. # 51 line-up of verse-mongers incl Alun Rees, Trish O'Brien, Oliver Andrew, Robin Hamilton, Isabella Strachan, Graham High, Richard Cooper, RL Cook, Brian Louis Pearce, Bernard M Jackson, Tony Grist + others. # 52 incl: Andrew Mayne, James Arthur, Peter Wyton, Lee Freeman, June Portlock, David HW Grubb, Paul Murphy, Elizabeth Barrett, Mike Hoy, Andrew Detheridge, Simon Fletcher & many more. Indie pub'd bks rev'w, sml pres list'gs in ea ish. Excel value 4 money 52pp A5 & fine dip-in read. If U enjoy poetry, buy this!

THE KENYON REVIEW - $12
Kenyon College, Gambier, OH 43022, USA  website
Int'l journal Lit, culture & arts, pub'd 3x yr, ed by David H Lynn. Vol.12 double-ish # 3/4, co-prod wi' Stand mag. Big p/b 240pp incl qual contempo fic by Anesa Miller, Corinne Demas, Michael Dahlie, Yvonne A Jackson. Poetry by Robert Gibb, Carl Phillips, Mary Jo Bang, Claire Malroux, Khaled Mattawa, KE Allen, Thomas Lux + others. In-depth Lit crit rev'ws, all v smart pro pres std but tends 2 B intel stuffy, sans life.

KIMOTA - £2.50 [G Hurry]
52 Cadley Causeway, Preston, Lancs PR2 3RX  website
1 of smartest UK genre sml pres fnz, linked 2 local SF club. # 13 incl fic by Neal Asher, Ceri Jordan, Hugh Cook, Cherith Baldry, John Travis + others. U also get mini-biog of Thomas Harris, select bk revs. Illos by Poppy Alexander, Dave Windett, T23. Zine Kat's fave story this ish, hi imagino curio The Fungas Communion by Alexander Glass. Hope Graeme H's success wi' this mag's cont'd thru 2001. BOSS

KONFLUENCE - £3
Bath Ho, Bath Rd, Nailsworth, Glos GL6 0JB
2nd ish of poetry mag fr' Stroud val'ys. Verse by Geoff Stevens, Mary Maher, Giovanni Malito, Joanna Ashwell, Timothy Hodor, Richard Stone, Elizabeth Howkins, MA Bottomley, Bonnie Yuill, John Hawkhead + others sprawls over 48 un-no'd A4 pgs wi' no design or illos & at least 5 blanks. Altho' it's gd 2 C poetry rec'vg space 2 breathe like this, un-named ed shd note that pres makes big dif. Why not get help wi' DTP wk if U dunno how? KIPPLE

KRAX - £3.50 / $7 [A Robson]
63 Dixon La, Leeds LS12 4RR
# 37 of Andy R's poetry & fic mag cld teach Konfluence thing or 2. Here's how 2 do it right, tho' it also lacks pg no's. Verse, prose & tales by JPV Stewart, Jim Sullivan, Dee Rimbaud, Phil Emery, Dave Pruckner, Betty J Silconas, Geoff Tomlinson, David Starkey, Bill Broady + many more. Art by J Joneski, Marcel Ruijters, Alan Hunter. Nonfic incl Gerard Manley Hopkins i/v & oodles rev'ws fr' audio-fnzs, free NLs, poetry mags, sml pres genre stuff - vast in scope so excel as info source. COOL

THE LAYABOUT - £2.65 / $5
139 St Bedes Cres, Cambridge CB1 3UA  email
Irregulo pub'd fun fic mag ed by H Ramsager. 3rd ish has tales by Geoff Jackson, Mitchel Greig + others. Witty verse by Anjana Basu, Jan Oscar Hansen, Stewart Cawkwell, etc. Quirky Baron Butcher com'strip, offbeat olde world illos make 4 curio pack'o'levity. No many sml pres markets exist 4 humour so this 1 v welcome. MUTANT

LEGEND: Worlds of Possibility - £3 / $6 [T Denyer]
Immediate Direction, 7 Mountview, Church La W, Aldershot, Hants GU11 3LN  website
New F genre fic mag (Aut '00) fr' Trevor D, ed of Roadworks. Meaty 60pp A4 gets off 2 fine start wi' tales fr' Marni Scofidio Griffin, Andrew Brown, RJ Krijnen-Kemp, Nicola Caines, Hugh Cook (who's also i/v'd) + others. Poetry by Allen Ashley, Corrine De Winter, Dee Rimbaud. Com'strip by Barbara Tarn. Nonfic: ghost of Bodmin, UK secret society article. Gd qual illos by Gerald Gaubert, Russell Dickerson, Matthew Robertson, Gak. Overdoes vari fonts in DTP design tad but, gen'rly, Legend offers leg up 4 trad F in UK so deserves much praise. BOSS

THE LITERARY REVIEW - $5
285 Madison Ave, Madison, NJ 07940, USA  website
Yet another p/b fic mag, wi' Univ links. TLR pub'd ¼ly since '57 by Fairleigh Dickinson U. Sum '00 ish boasts wave of names prev ukn 2 the Kat. Fic is by Robin Braudwell, Mildred Verba Morris, Cathy Mellett, Becky Bradway-Hesse, Mark A Smith & others. Wealth of poetry fr' Diane Lockward, James Doyle, Árpád Farkas, Robert Wexelblatt, BA St Andrews, Jeffrey Dye, Lane Dunlop, Dale M Kusher, Kevin Prufer + grt many more. Also has Ilan Stavans memoir, essays on Adrienne Rich, new nov'lst x3. Only trouble wi' these big mags is elite academe feel & lack of enuf texts like Allen C Fisher's quiz'cal Frankenstein that nails cyber-weird spot on.

THE MALAHAT REVIEW - $10
Univ of Victoria, PO Box 1700, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada  website
Arts cncl fund, contempo Lit mag, ed by Marlene Cookshaw. Incl story by Mary Swan + verse fr' John Steffler, Eric Miller, Sina Queyras, Anne Simpson, John B Lee, Michael Crummey, Margo Button, Aislinn Hunter, Emily Koehn & others. Bk rev'ws. Mostly, as wi' so many "Review" titles, it lacks pt beyond dreary textual sausage line.

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR - £6.99
Constable & Robinson, 3 The Lanchesters, 162 Fulham Palace Rd, London W6 9ER  website
Robinson's annual fic coll, ed by Stephen Jones, now part of genre lore as regulo must-buy p/b. 11th ed'tn fields usual suspects: Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Peter Straub, Michael Marshall Smith, James Herbert, F Paul Wilson, Graham Masterson et al + notable sml pres folk Tim Lebbon, Caitlín R Kiernan, Gemma Files, while Steve Rasnic Tem gets 2 stories thru Steve's qual filter. Brief biogs tell of scribes. Jones & Newman wrap whole yr up wi' their "Necrology" almanac of '99. Zine Kat's fave dark tales: David J Schow's Unhasped, Thomas Tessier's Lulu, Naming The Dead by Paul J McAuley. Fine coll of creepy, scary, fearsome, oddly sleazy at times, chills aplenty.

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW SCIENCE FICTION - £9.99
Robinson (see above)
An even gtr p/b than "Best New Horror", this bulky anthol brags ¼ mil wds SF, ed by Gardner Dozois. Summary of genre fr' post-Y2K view launch 13th coll incl fic fix by giants: Stephen Baxter, Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova, Robert Silverberg, Greg Egan, Kim Stanley Robinson, etc + nrly-big names like Robert Reed, Walter Jon Williams, M John Harrison, Geoff Ryman & new talent nutured Sage Walker, David Marusek, Karl Schroeder, Richard Wadholm, Kage Baker. Zine Kat's wryly ironic choices: Mike Resnick's Hothouse Flowers, Charles Sheffield's Phallicide & Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance by Eleanor Arnason. If think U can find better SF bk than this... No chance! MONSTER

MANIFOLD - £2.50
99 Vera Ave, Grange Park, London N21 1RP  website
Mag of "new poetry", ed by Vera Rich. # 36 incl verse by Andrew Detheridge, Lesley Harrison, Kevin Murray, Andrew Shillam, Edward Lucie-Smith, Helen Clare, Michael Hatwell, DA Prince, Susan Glyn, Bob Newman, Elizabeth Kay, Ray Ford + others. Bks rev'd, view of Tate Mod. Nifty mixed bag of stuff here. Well abv average 4 its type.

MASS: The Art Of John Harris - £20 / £29.95
Paper Tiger (see above)
Excel pres h/b of SFnal illos, flamboyant Chris Foss mode with grainy look 2 emphasise immensity of scope & scale up scenes. Sky cities, starship wrecks, planetoid views, alien nature spots, ancient roads, world-breaker dreadnaughts, god-like machines & techno-epiphany, burnt bridges, cracked towers, aged works of future man. Main text - Ron Tiner. Superb visionary. ROCKS