Black Fire, Tanith Lee

Image by Danacea via FlickrThis is another story from Lightspeed Magazine. Tanith Lee is a name I recognize. I am pretty sure I've seen her name and wondered if reading one of her books would be a worthwhile expenditure of finance and time. However, if this story is anything to go by at all, I would say her works are both a waste of time and money.

Really, it was just so awful. It's about some trailer trash couple. While the man is off doing whatever it is he does outside of the home, an alien visits his wife and has sex with it. How does a story like this make it into a science fiction magazine? It's a poorly written drama with a barely discernible link to science fiction that certainly does not belong all by itself. Really, I expect more than this.

Perhaps I'm a bit spoilt, having been engaging my reading habits with elite writers of what is now classical literature. But this trash is really hard to stomach. I'd say that the concept of a black fire is brilliant. And, really, it is, but she reveals (to her credit, she's honest) it is a concept she found from Milton. Milton, of course, being one of the greatest weights in the English canon.