Review

Let's first hit the theme pieces before checking out the other aspects of the magazine, extreme weather Aussie style folks! Well okay After the Flood is by a Scottish writer, and okay if we wanted to be pedantic it's also a poem, hence dubious reviewing skills by yours truly. At least Author Brian G. Ross keeps with the theme party going down and has a few things to say that sort of relate to floods. Do we need to define floods simply in terms of weather extremes? Ross clearly doesn't think so, and grudgingly I have to admit I quite liked this one. Dianne M. Dean had me on sounder footing with her short story When the Fire Dances, Aussie bushfire survivors and what have you. Unfortunately I've read a few too many stories recently out of Oz that venture an opinion that the flames in major conflagrations have almost animated qualities, so probably didn't get the full impact Dean intended. I was also somewhat confused as to which genre she intended the story to rest in. I assume not horror, as it doesn't work as a scary yarn in the least. And finally Syd Monkhouse delivers the interesting Black Sunday that either works as a lyrical short story or an epic poem depending on viewpoint. I actually didn't last the distance on this one, no fault of the Author, simply not my thing, must admit to nodding off a couple of times while trying to get through it.

I got to say the winners in this Issue were the stories that didn't concern themselves about the theme going down, where's the horror Writers hitting post apocalyptic splendour I ask myself! Simon James offers up the cautionary tale One Rule that goes Dating the Enemy on us and piles on the suicidal drag queens like a Friday night at a Darlinghurst nightclub. I actually quite dug this yarn, and had a wry grin as James delivered a tongue in cheek yarn that takes a hell of a twist on the old Bluebeard fable. However the story that is likely to talked about for quite sometime yet was Ben Kooyman's Lord Byron and His Amazing Singing Dancing Penis, a tale that is so bizarre that I'm not sure I can describe it adequately. Issue 3 of Eclecticism is certainly worth dialling into for this yarn alone. Give it a go and then try and explain exactly what it was about. There's clearly more going down than meets the eye, but I must confess to simply not getting the twists and turns in the theme.

Not sure if I have mention this previously, but Eclecticism, as the name might imply, is not so concerned about a story falling into any one genre, but is more concerned about how the story is told or what it might contain. Hence if looking for a purely dark genre magazine you might be cutting into the wrong corpse here, though I would still urge you to have at least a cursory look at Eclecticism as it has surprised me on more than one occasion.

As normal Craig Bezant has taken up valuable real estate with a fistful of poems that probably not a lot of people are going to bother reading. Well at least I flicked past them, and since my opinion is the only one that counts here, that's all she wrote friends and neighbours. Maybe one of these days we'll get someone who is more adept at poetry interpretation to have a look.

Eclecticism goes all Euro styling in Issue 3 with Dutch Artist Lois Van Baarle featuring via her richly textured, almost cartoon like art. The piece presented is the vibrant Loish, reproduced here, which I personal loved. The actual work style transcends the colours in use to give an almost schizophrenic feel to the presentation.

[Editor Note: Please note we include the odd bit of art for review purposes only, please do not reproduce without the copyright owner's permission.]

Along with the excellent work by Ms Van Baarle, we also have the rather strange drawings of Sarah Mitchell, and Brian Andrews reprising from Issue 2. However Eclecticism reinforces it's art cred with a wonderful collection of background artwork that appears on about every page of the magazine, making for a rich visual experience once again. Is Craig Bezant going for the most artistic e-zine award of the year or something? If you are simply into art then dial on in Kids as Bezant has your back, though if simply into art you might be on the wrong site yo.

Issue 2 of Eclecticism is available to download free, you can get your copy right here. Actually all fifteen Issues of the magazine are available, check the official site for information.

An Eclectic Slice of Life story nomination, unfortunately none from this issue.