Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (Paperback)

~ Delia Sherman (Editor), (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This anthology celebrates its cross-genre concept as much as its content, with a lengthy introduction, contributor notes, and afterword. Will Ludwigsen's lovely, melancholy "Remembrance is Something Like a House" combines paranormal and true crime elements. Alaya Dawn Johnson's dystopian "The Score" reads like a post-9/11 Twilight Zone episode. A scientist tries to prevent a world war in Elizabeth Ziemska's winsome "Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken." Stephanie Shaw's strong and earthy writing grounds her story of dragons and a four-headed obstetrician in "Afterbirth." Less successful, Lionel Davoust's Arthurian "L'Ile Close" works better in theory than in execution, Alan DeNiro's "(*_*?) ~~~~ (-_-) : The Warp and the Woof" combines brilliance with incomprehensible gobbledegook, and Lavie Tidhar's "Shoes" is simply muddled. Fans of the first Interfictions anthology will dig it; those not already familiar with the interstitial arts movement will be left scratching their heads.
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Product Description

Selected as one of the Best Books of the Year in science fiction and fantasy by Amazon.com.

Delving deeper into the genre-spanning territory explored in Interfictions, the Interstitial Arts Foundation’s first groundbreaking anthology, Interfictions 2 showcases twenty-one original and innovative writers. It includes contributions from authors from six countries, including the United States, Poland, Norway, Australia, France, and Great Britain.

Newcomers such as Alaya Dawn Johnson, Theodora Goss, and Alan DeNiro rub shoulders with established visionaries such as Jeffrey Ford (The Drowned Life), Brian Francis Slattery (Liberation), Nin Andrews (The Book of Orgasms), and M. Rickert (Map of Dreams). Also featured are works by Will Ludwigsen, Cecil Castellucci, Ray Vukcevich, Carlos Hernandez, Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Ziemska, Peter M. Ball, Camilla Bruce, Amelia Beamer, William Alexander, Shira Lipkin, Lionel Davoust, Stephanie Shaw, and David J. Schwartz.

Colleen Mondor, of the well-known blog Chasing Ray, interviews the editors for the afterword.

Henry Jenkins, ex-director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program and now a member of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and School of Cinematic Arts, provides a fantastic introduction sure to set readers’ imaginations alight.

Interfictions 2 is here and ready to be read, discussed, taught, blogged, taken apart, and re-interpreted.

Delia Sherman was born in Tokyo, Japan, and brought up in New York City. She earned a PhD in Renaissance Studies at Brown University and taught at Boston University and Northeastern University. She is the author of the novels Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, Changeling, and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. A co-founder of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, she lives in New York City.

Christopher Barzak is the author of the novels One for Sorrow and The Love We Share Without Knowing. His stories have appeared in Nerve.com, Pindeldyboz, Strange Horizons, Descant, and the first volume of Interfictions. He teaches writing at Youngstown State University.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Small Beer Press (November 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931520615
• ISBN-13: 978-1931520614
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #171,943 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good collection of the hard-to-classify, January 31, 2010

By	David A. Beamer (Clawson, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When you see a book and don't understand what the title means, it is often a signal that the book won't be very enjoyable. That's not the case here (at least for this reader). "Interstitial Writing" is a relatively new category -- or at least a new categorization -- of fiction. It's not exactly plain old science fiction, not fantasy, not horror, not...well...not easy to categorize. All these genres, and others, mixed together with "mainstream" fictional writing are the tools used by this group of authors. The meaning of the word "interstitial" itself (basically, referring to the gap between other things that are close together) hints at the "not-this-and-not-quite-that" nature of these stories. Text on the book's back cover say that it's all about "working between, across, at, and through the edges and borders of literary genres".

The book goes to great lengths to attempt to explain itself and its contents. The book itself is a product of the "Interstitial Arts Foundation", so one gathers that there is some self-explaining required. There is an introduction which includes, as one of its main premises, that "the contributors do not belong in this book". One lengthy quote in the intro consists of someone defining the field as "prickly, tricky, ornery...It should defy expectations, work against them...".

Each story is accompanied by a short afterword from each author, who was asked to describe (roughly speaking) how the story came about, and how it "fits" in this non-category category. It is telling that the authors themselves have sometimes wildly divergent views of this quasi-genre. There is also a lengthy interview of the anthology's editors at the end of the book, wherein they continue to come to try to come grips with the "not-this-and-not-quite-that" nature of the stories.

It is not surprising, then, that probably more so than most anthologies, this collection is rather uneven. Some of the stories are real gems, striking in their originality, but not so "out there" as to be completely incomprehensible. The ones that worked the best for me included "Afterbirth" (about the birth of twin boys, from the mother's perspective), which includes a pair of metaphoric dragons in the birthing room. At least, some of the time they're metaphoric; some of the time they seem very real indeed. "Valentines" is a marvelous miniature having to do with the author's possible confusion of three waiters with the same name...or maybe they are different versions of the same waiter. The author mentions in her afterword that she is an epileptic, and that the story is something of a description of how life happens to her. She says she herself "became interstitial" with the onset of her illness, so the story has an added bite of realism amid the confusion.

Others which I thoroughly enjoyed included the following: "The Score", told in a multitude of voices, something like reading a series of semi-related blog posts; "Interviews After the Revolution", also told in a multitude of voices, but this time as a series of interviews which gradually spin out the tale of an intriguingly-devised scam that got out of hand; and "Morton Goes to the Hospital", wherein an uncertain number of ghosts/spirits function as characters in an otherwise almost-straightforward sci-fi/fantasy kind of story. The number of ghost characters is uncertain because it gradually dawns on the reader that the author's voice is that of a ghost, and perhaps also the *reader* is one of the ghosts in the story. (Full disclosure: yes, "Morton..." was written by my daughter...I like her writing...so sue me... :)

There are some other stories which don't work as well (again, for this reader). I still don't really understand what "Shoes" is about, or what the author was trying to accomplish. The author of the opening story, "The War Between Heaven and Hell Wallpaper" declares in his afterword that it is a completely true story. But the "truth" is made of that wispy, transient stuff that are our thoughts in that time right before we drift off to sleep. In "The Two of Me", the author tells of the "birth" his sister, who gradually (over a period of years) grows out of his shoulder.

Like this quasi-genre itself, it is difficult for this reviewer to explain why I liked some of the stories and not others. Perhaps it's what about each that made it memorable (or not). The intent of the book is to throw the reader off balance. Sometimes falling over is fun (like into a snowbank), but losing your balance also can be quite disconcerting. To the extent that each author succeeds with the literary equivalent of something like a judo move inside a magic trick, the result is at least refreshing.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An anthology about edges, January 10, 2010

A Kid's Review

Slipstream fiction is a curious beast.

On one hand, it provides a place for stories that might not be either mainstream fiction or speculative fiction to live. Then again, it also provides a category for writers who are attracted to speculative fiction but are afraid that if they dive into it they might be tarred with the brush of genre, and it'll never quite come off.

I can't decide quite which way I feel about Interfictions 2. I am definitely a speculative fiction reader, and so a lot of the stories leave me unsatisfied. The best stories in this collection are the ones that spill right over into genre: "Remembrance Is Something Like a House", "Black Dog: A Biography", "After Verona", and "L'elle Close" (which is a delightful deconstruction of Arthurian myth) being the real standouts for me. Other stories don't quite satisfy, such as "The Two of Me". While the story has an interesting premise (a boy has his sister growing out of his shoulder), the story reads like a setup for something longer, and stops just short of what I would consider the meat of the story--how these two cope once they're separated.

I have to put in here special kudos to "Valentines", by Shira Lipkin, as my favorite story in the collection. This is what I would consider slipstream at its best. It has so many interpretations that it could be read as either speculative fiction or literary fiction, and it's a lovely accomplishment.
I could not shake the feeling, though, that much of the collection consisted of writers playing in the shallow end of speculative fiction, unwilling to commit all the way. As a lit-fic reader, I might really enjoy this collection. As a spec-fic reader, it left me a little cold.

Overall, though, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who likes work that sits uneasily on the borderlines between categories.