★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention
(Horror) Little Dallas goes looking in the coal mine for lost bits of her father’s spirit that she’s sure would make him a better man again if she can only find them and bring them back to him. (6,029 words; Time: 20m)
"Hainted," by Ashley Blooms [bio] (edited by C.C. Finlay), appeared in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction issue 07-08|18, published on June 26, 2018 by Spilogale Inc.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: Dallas finds the truth and leaves her childhood behind. The little-girl haint trying to build a home with three people represents that very clearly.
The story does an excellent job of making both the mine and the lives of the miners real. The haints are a great metaphor for the way the job grinds people down.
Con: It’s all a bit too easy. She goes down, gets her answer, comes back poorer but wiser.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 07-08|18)
Ashley Blooms Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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The story does an excellent job of making both the mine and the lives of the miners real. The haints are a great metaphor for the way the job grinds people down.
Con: It’s all a bit too easy. She goes down, gets her answer, comes back poorer but wiser.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 07-08|18)
Ashley Blooms Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
She literally gets her soul broken after failing to restore her father and learning that everything was even worse than she knew and won't get better. That's too easy? I'd hate to see the story that went hard for her. ;)
ReplyDeleteShe had no trouble getting there and giving it a try. It says she lost a bit of her soul, but it doesn't imply that that has any bad side effects, so that's pretty much zero cost. She accepted the answers as final, so she just gave up and went home. Except for the fact that she didn't get the answer she wanted, the story is linear.
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