Bete Noire #16 (2014)

Bete Noire #16. A. W. Gifford and Jennifer Gifford, rds. Dark Opus Press, 2014.

Bete Noire #16 at Goodreads

Overall Rating:     6/10

[NOTE. This blog entry was flagged for its content, specifically for containing malware. I believe it was the link to the Bête Noire website which appears to have been compromised. I have removed the link and hopefully all is now well.]

Issue sixteen of Bête Noire includes, along with four short stories, visual art by Eleanor Leonne Bennett ("Shot Down 225"), Denny E. Marshall ("The Last Promise"), Wojciech Wolinski ("2") and two by Luke Spooner ("Backseat Driver" and "Group"), who is currently a finalist for the Spark Anthology cover contest.

There is poetry from James Frederick William Rowe ("Bristlecone"), Marge Simon ("Rock On"), J. J. Steinfeld ("The Art of Becoming Invisible") and Carol Hornak ("House").

For the short stories...

The Devils of Somerset, Mississippi by Jeremy Lloyd Beck     6/10
An atheist moves to small town Somerset to teach high school English, and his ideology quickly conflicts with the churchgoing townsfolk, particularly with their culturally ingrained racism. Well written for the most part, and a promising two-thirds is unfortunately capped off with an ending that does not address the author's most interesting ideas. I would elaborate, and am dying too, but as the publication was just released I shouldn't. Good concrete images and ideas that are well woven into the story body.


Transient Number Five by Christian Riley     5/10
A disgruntled man stalks a transient. A little flat.


Eyes of the Dog by Tobacco Jones     7/10
In a future totalitarian society, where children are raised in vast orphanages, one mother struggles to keep her two children at home. Divided into five sections, each with a separate character point of view, the story develops nicely, and the title eventually reveals itself, The strongest, darkest piece in the collection. What I like best about the story is not the cold society it depicts, but that citizens are each looking out for their own selves. This points to the true bleakness of this world, for since there is no one to challenge the system, the system will not only remain unchanged, but will strengthen in its resolve.


Blood Debt by J.D. Cano     5/10
Our narrator awaits his turn in a line-up of Aztec blood sacrifices. This piece is a scene that does not quite make a story.

Aside: Funding Publications

Without the various publications now available, the struggling writer concept would quickly metamorphose into the incidental writer, a writer who writes for self but has utterly given up on the dream of print. Publications need support, often financial, and the best way to support any publication is to purchase or subscribe.

At the age of thirteen I asked my parents, near Christmas, to gift me a subscription to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, which they happily did. That excitement each month of receiving a collection of stories has remained with me ever since, though I've long since stopped that subscription. Since then I've held subscriptions to Prairie Fire, Riddle Fence, Prism International, Exile Quarterly, Grain Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, Glimmer Train, current favourite The Fiction Desk, and many others. Receiving a package from any publication, whether a journal, an advanced copy for review or a book via Book Depository or Bookmooch is a treat equalled by little else. In return for a subscription I receive not only fiction and articles, but  excitement and pleasure. Also, I am happy to know I am helping to keep the publication in print and the writers employed.

There are also funding projects available at times for both journals and one-off publications, and there are terrific ways in which readers can feel as though they are in some small way part of the publication. The first actual donation I gave was to Riddle Fence through a Rockethub campaign granting special subscription offers to those generous enough to support financially, and just the other day I was enticed to support Dark Regions Press for a shared world anthology project titled Madhouse. This particular campaign was attractively set up via indiegogo, and promised additional artwork and authors by offering "perks" to those helping fund the project. These perks range from copied of the final product to having a character named after the funder, or having a particular author kill off the funder in some creative way. I happily purchased a Madhouse Grab Bag, and having done so am suddenly quite excited about the project, which is to be delivered April 2015. (Though I'll likely forget about the entire thing until I receive a package from DRP.)

The recent publication Pulp Literature recently launched a kickstarter campaign in order to fund their second year as a paying print publication. I will soon familiarize myself with the publication (beginning tonight) and will likely make a donation/purchase to help them out as well.

There is still plenty of time to help fund Madhouse or Pulp Literature, if you're so inclined. Otherwise I would urge any reader and writer to support a publication with a subscription. A year subscription to most journals is equivalent to a meal or two (or three, depending on how you like your meals). They make excellent and unique gift ideas and generally look nice on a bookshelf. Moreover, in this age of electronic communication, it gives us something to look forward to in our mailboxes.

If you do decide to support a publication via a new subscription, let me know which one you've selected. Or let me know of others campaigns currently underway.

Casual Shorts: Frank Scott York, The Magic Boondockers (1957)

York, Frank Scott, "The Magic Boondockers," Leathernecks: Magazine of the Marines, Volume 40, issue 4, April 1957

Rating: 5/10

For this week's Friday's Forgotten Books, please visit Patti Abbott's blog.


Among the most obscure short stories I have encountered is this little tale of military and the supernatural by someone named Frank Scott York. Until recently I haven't been able to even identify its original publication space and date.

For four years in high school I had the same English teacher. I liked her quite a bit and she helped introduce me to many authors and stories. One of her practices was to bring seemingly random short stories to the class in the form of photocopied pages, even though we normally had some kind of anthology we were working through. One of these stories was the obscure piece titled "The Magic Boondockers" by Frank Scott York, and it came in the form of a mimeograph, twelve pages with illustrations. (Apologies for the poor reproduction; I will upload a better shot soon.)

Private Andrew Bonner, a man who has never liked wearing shoes, receives a pair of military boondockers that make him feel good and light, and soon he discovers that while wearing them he can fly. This ability soon alters his personality from shy mountain boy to hot-shot, and both the military officers and his best friend, our first person narrator, grow concerned. Together they solve the issue of the magic boondockers and of Andy's arrogance by setting up a flight performance for their mates, while our narrator has replaced the shoes with ordinary ones, causing Andy to fall flat on his face.

The story is simple and simply written, with glaring faults. In reality, the military would no doubt confiscate the shoes and attempt to discover their secret; they certainly wouldn't allow a private to wear them, especially one so keen on using them. Military brass are concerned that Andy might be flying around, worried he and the shoes would fall into enemy hands who might uncover their secret, yet the colonel says taking the shoes away won't solve any problems. Moreover, part of the problem solving is to confiscate the shoes, contradicting the colonel's earlier statement. The story employs a light tone and the military officers are presented as kindly, simple and even naive, so we can't expect a more realistic approach where both shoes and trooper would be confined for intense scrutiny. Besides, the unlisted speak to the officers is too casual tones so that one might wonder if this is not instead a story of Boy Scouts.

For the story to work, however, it is important that the military be unusually lenient toward Andy; any X-Files cover-up wouldn't allow the narrative to survive the opening scene. Moreover, army intelligence must be relegated to idiocy in dealing with the boondockers mystery since our narrator must be readily involved in order for that final twist to exist. Finally, the story is not about the flying as much as it is about Andy's persona alteration. York is writing a tale of warning to anyone who might grow too big for their own boondockers when they find themselves with some kind of benefit or advantage, and clearly his intention was to bring Andy's arrogance down from the clouds. The relief his army buddies express at the end is not that the magic has disappeared, but that nice guy Andy can be just another normal trooper among a platoon of normal troopers.

Which is why I was so surprised to learn where the story was first published.

Originally I suspected my English teacher found it in some anthology for young people; never would I have guessed that it was aimed at a military readership. A search on Google elicits only two results, both of which are for Leathernecks: Magazine of the Marines. The issue is dated April 1957, Volume 40, Issue 4. On the site the story is titled with a slight alteration, "The Magical Boondockers." If this is the original publication source, it is likely not where my teacher found her copy; it's unlikely she was a member of the Marine Corps. The different titles also indicates she discovered the story as a reprint somewhere.

Any information on this story and its publication history is welcome.

Aside: 100,000+ visitors

A little over four years and a hundred thousand visitors, humans and bots alike. Perhaps other creatures as well.

At a young age I started taking notes on my readings, writing synopses and collecting publication data. I started reading serious short stories at the age of ten, and quickly developed a compulsive need to record. This has stayed with me in varying degrees, and a blog was just a part of the evolution of my compulsion. Having an avid reader as a mother, who introduced my to Alfred Hitchcock at an early age and other story-telling influences, not to mention a house full of books, has helped feed this inclination.

Thank you for encouraging this irrational need, with your comments, emails and simply by reading or even just glancing at the semi-random thoughts I've jotted down on this site.