(Horror) Around 1990, the narrator drives a train on the subway line where ghosts of people (famous and otherwise) hang out and sometimes talk to him. (2,974 words; Time: 09m)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average
"Riding the Blue Line With Jack Kerouac," by Sandra McDonald [bio] (edited by Sheila Williams), appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction issue 09-10|17, published on August 17, 2017 by Penny Publications.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: What’s really haunting the narrator isn’t the ghosts and it isn't the wife and child he lost in Vietnam; it’s his feeling that he should be writing. By the end of the story, he’s begun to do just that, and the ghosts (except Jack, for some reason), are all gone.
Con: There are a lot of pieces to this story that never seem to come together. We learn a lot about the narrator’s family (e.g. the gay brother, the questionable paternity of him and his siblings, the risk of allowing Jack to drive the subway train) but nothing ever comes of it. Even the ghosts seem more like background decorations than anything else.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 09-10|17)
Sandra McDonald Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Con: There are a lot of pieces to this story that never seem to come together. We learn a lot about the narrator’s family (e.g. the gay brother, the questionable paternity of him and his siblings, the risk of allowing Jack to drive the subway train) but nothing ever comes of it. Even the ghosts seem more like background decorations than anything else.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 09-10|17)
Sandra McDonald Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
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