Edited by Nancy Holder & Nancy Kilpatrick Outsiders

Outsiders

Edited by Nancy Holder & Nancy Kilpatrick

Roc, Oct 2005, $14.95, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0451460448

This twenty-two collection anthology focuses on the OUTSIDERS of society; those individuals who seem either beneath the food chain or scarred, as if they were flushed down the toilet of life. These are pariahs and loners who survive on the edge, or beyond the boundary of the so called acceptable norm. These freaks brood, and some seem suicidal as only the maladjusted can, but make readers ponder what does adjusted truly mean beyond relativity theory.

Though there are some name contributors like Gaiman, Little, Tanith lee, Lansdale, and Brite, many of the authors are just as good, but not as widely known writers. The tales run the speculative fiction gamut from fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, and even poetry. Overall the fine compilation is funky, way out, and different due to the wacko cast, who make the abnormal seem like the normal. The Nancy's have provides a fun compilation.

Harriet Klausner