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Synopsis / Contents:
The second in our series of PS Showcase mini-collections of short stories from some of genre fiction's best up-and-coming writers."Break all rules, including these." So advises Nancy Jane Moore in one of the stories in this collection.
Moore tends to break rules. As these stories demonstrate, she doesn't confine herself to any one genre or style. The stories jump among fantasy, science fiction, and slipstream - sometimes in the same story - and subvert history, the present, the future, and readers' expectations of gender roles.
The fantasy (science fiction? slipstream?) story 'Three O'Clock in the Morning' (a tale of strange and indestructible walls) was described by Charles Coleman Finlay on Tangent Online as an "emotionally affecting story of the relationship between love, loneliness, marriage, and society."
'A Mere Scutcheon' plays with the world of Alexandre Dumas, where swordswomen guard the queen and swordsmen guard the king, while 'Homesteading' provides a glimpse into future history. 'The First Condition of Immortality' slides into that uneasy realm between fantasy and real life, where death takes an unexpected form.
One story even breaks the basic rules of storytelling. 'Thirty-One Rules for Fulfilling Your Destiny' is an epic fantasy (or maybe a space opera) told in a list of aphorisms.
However, this collection shows consistency in one area: the protagonists in these stories are women. Moore has written stories about men, and is noted for stories in which the main character is a combination of male and female, but she remains an unapologetic feminist who explores gender issues even when she's writing fight scenes...