Steve Berman's Lair

Second Thoughts:

In his second collection of thirteen gay-themed speculative fiction and essays, author Steve Berman once more guides readers through the dark paths of his imagination with such tales as a nursery rhyme tempting a young lover, the scent of loneliness enticing children to eat away a caretaker's historic house, and a pair of Victorian-era burglars seek their fortune in a dangerous fey-filled London.

"This collection is excellent for readers of the lesser-found gay supernatural fiction, or anyone appreciative of twisted tales in their many forms." -- CHROMA


Trysts:

Cut and paste a voodoo doll made of magazine clippings…watch as a ouija board spells out your deepest secret…mourn the loss of your boyfriend while awaiting his ghost… listen to the ancient whisperings of a threadbare flapper dress…gamble for more than money on a Southern riverboat…renounce your citizenship to walk through a restricted area, rife with magic. Experience passion and loss, all within the pages of this triskaidecollection — thirteen stories where the supernatural is as likely to doom as to save those that are drawn to its power.

 
"Subtitled A Triskadeicollection of Queer and Weird Stories," Steve Berman's Trysts delivers dark fantasy of varying degrees of gay eroticism. His prose somber, melancholy, and polished, Berman achieves subtle effects in a nighted palette reminiscent of this description from the opening story: "The shades of dark gray and black were all new, perhaps had never even been named before." From the Poesque "The Ressurectionist" to the Lovecraftian "Path of Corruption," Berman reinvigorates old tropes with a modern queer sensibility. Several stories take place in a deracinated urban venue known as the Fallen Area, and this homage to the Bellona of Delany's Dhalgren proves effective and enticing." -- Paul Di Filippo for Asimov's