by Harriet Klausner
The Mystery Gazette
December 12, 2011
This
eighteen story anthology pulls no punches or switchblades as the
compilation focuses on rebellion by rebels with and without a cause.
Fifteen of the entries are new while one of the reprints is actually a
first time translation into English (“Bizco’s Memories” by Paco Ignacio
Talbo II starring soccer played under the underground convict rules of a
prison). The other previously published contributions, “Gold Diggers
of 1977” by Michael Moorcock is one of the Cornelius tales looking at
the Sex Pistols mythos (may not survive the test of time), and “I Love
Paree” by Cory Doctorow and Michael Skeet in which Old Paree is in
trouble due to the foreign invasion. In “Nickels and Dimes” by John A
Imani, riots come to UCLA in 1972 but not daring to disturb the Wooden
NCAA run. Kim Stanley Robinson looks at a slave revolt on the moon in
“The Lunatics.” In “Murder … Then and Now” by Penny Micklebury, he
claims to be X at the Black Student Union. This is a gripping timely
collection in which people past and present across the spectrum rebel
against those they believe are their oppressors.
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