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Boogieman in Lavender

Toasting Thomas M. Disch – Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender

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Jeff Baker

Lives are short. Literary lives even shorter. When a writer dies, of course, their output stops; there are no new books or stories being produced. Their memory fades from public consciousness. Prolific writers like L. Sprague De Camp, Edward D. Hoch, even Isaac Asimov to a degree are in the process of being forgotten; their novels not reprinted, their stories not anthologized in favor of newer, trendier writers. Such is the case with one of our own, Thomas  M. Disch, writer of science fiction and fantasy; creator of The Brave Little Toaster, and a man who would possibly rather be … Read more

Musing on Endings – Boogieman In Lavender

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                                         “All Good Things…” By Jeff Baker For this month, a brief rumination on the state of the Queer Speculative Fiction short-story. Word has reached us that the upcoming edition of Lethe Press’ fine “Wilde Stories” will be the last. Likewise, “Heiresses of Russ,” the edition reviewed in this column June 12, 2017 will be its last. This is sad news for followers of short fiction, for while there have been and will be Queer-themed short stories published in online, independent … Read more

“Transcendent 2,” review. Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender.

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Transcendent 2

                                       Transcendent 2 a Review By Jeff Baker               As this column was going to press, (read; as I was getting off my lazy behind and typing it up) word came that “Transcendent 2” won for best Transgender Fiction at the 2018 Lambda Literary Awards. Congratulations to all involved, starting with editor, Bogi Takacs. Those who want some specifics about just how good this book is, read on. —J.S. Baker “Transcendent 2,” Lethe Press’ second annual collection of Transgender themed speculative … Read more

Thomas Tryon, Dark Secrets – Boogieman In Lavender

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egg-shaped skulls

by Jeff Baker The strangers find themselves in a small town in the country. A town where the older, quieter, simpler ways are important. A town where religion is important and the people are close to nature, to the land, to the tall, growing corn. By the end of the tale, the strangers realize (too late) that religion and the corn have blended in horrific ways. Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn,” right? No. Thomas Tryon’s 1973 novel “Harvest Home,” which predates King’s 1977 short story. Thomas Tryon broke into the literary scene with his novel “The Other,” in the … Read more

A Testament Against Hate; Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender

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I Am The Night; Rod Serling’s Testament Against Hatred By Jeff Baker The fifth season of the original Twilight Zone gets unjustly maligned. The show was showing its age and while there were some classics (“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”) there were some clunkers (“The Encounter”). One of those episodes deserves a re-examination. “I Am the Night, Color Me Black” aired March 27, 1964, and I have agreed with many that it is a heavy-handed and obvious diatribe against racial injustice and prejudice. Valid concerns in the country in 1964, but Zone had done it better earlier, for example in the … Read more

Shadows of the Night: Remembering “Dark Shadows” – Boogieman In Lavender

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It all started with a dream. A woman on a train on her way to a place unfamiliar and strange to her with the voiceover narration beginning with the words; “My name is Victoria Winters.” The understated beginning (from a dream by producer/creator Dan Curtis) of the cult T.V. series Dark Shadows which started out as a soap opera with gothic elements and morphed into something different, darker and some people insist, gayer. Remembered today as “the show with the vampire in it,” way before Twilight, Forever Knight or even Lestat and co., Dark Shadows added supernatural elements in a … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender; Reading Tom Reamy

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Jeff Baker

Somewhere in my files is the beginning of a bad story called “Summer Job.” It’s wordy and takes an overly long time getting started. It has a small-town Kansas setting, an adolescent protagonist and an element of dark fantasy—all things that appear regularly in stories I’ve written. But I wasn’t trying to be Jeff Baker; I was trying to be Tom Reamy. I first stumbled across Tom Reamy’s short fiction in an anthology of horror stories from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story, “Insects in Amber” grabbed me right off with its setting in an old (and … Read more

Boogieman in Lavender: Back to 1962

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Jeff Baker

                                                                            They Also Serve  First, a nod to the fine blog “Galactic Journey,” http://galacticjourney.org/ which posts entries on sci-fi and pop culture from 55 years ago, and is where I first heard of the story in the September 1962 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A little bit of our literary history. The September 1962 issue included the story “They Also … Read more

An Imaginary Anthology of the Imagination – Boogieman In Lavender

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Jeff Baker

                                                               Just call this one an early/late Christmas idea for the LGBT writer/reader on your list. The only hitch to this is the anthology I’m talking about doesn’t exist. (At least, not yet!) I’m a big fan of the “Mammoth Books Of…” series. 500 plus page collections of fiction on various themes: Egyptian Whodunits, Comic Fantasy, Extreme Science Fiction to name a few. Also, several volumes on non-fictional subjects as … Read more

Boogieman in Lavender – Wilde Stories 2017

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Jeff Baker

Yes, there’s a gay version of Ronald Reagan in here, in one of the stories of Lethe Press’ Wilde Stories. The alternate history version of the former President is only one of the surprises in the 2017 edition of the year’s best gay speculative fiction edited by Steve Berman. “Frost,” by ‘Nathan Burgoine borrows from “Frosty the Snowman” but in subtle ways (the mention of the broomstick was worth a smile!) and adds another origin story, as well as a poignant statement about the nature of magical transformations. “Where’s The Rest Of Me?” by Matthew Cheney (the aforementioned alternate Ronald … Read more