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On Spec: The Canadian Magazine Of The Fantastic vol 17 no. 2 # 61 Summer 2005
01/02/2006 . Source: Donna Jones 
magazine: Copper Pig Writers Society. Price: $ 5.95 (CAN). ISSN: 0843-476X. Distributed in Canada by CMPA and the UK by BAR). Buy On Spec in the USA - or Buy On Spec in the UK  check out website: www.onspec.ca
I've always been a great advocate for 'On Spec' with good reason, this is not your run of the mill commercial beast! It always has a wide varied range of fiction that has on all accounts fulfilled on merging genres.
This one is no exception, the poetry mystifies me at times, but finds a way to make me think differently about the medium. But again the short fiction was outstanding, some of which not in the way you would assume!
My personal favourite in this edition was a short story entitled 'The Land' by Patrick Lestewka. I had my doubts as I started to read it. A family settling on land to farm and manage with a small boy who was a bit 'slow'. Their life is good, seemingly without too many worries, until a harsh winter arrives and each of the family becomes skin and bones. A stranger appears and tells Caleb, the man of the house, that the land is not without an end to its charity and the debt must be repaid. When he suggests that it should be 'fed', little tiny alarm bells start ringing in your head.
In the circumstances, frostbite has virtually taken Caleb's toe anyway so its removal isn't much of a sacrifice. The land then delivers on its promise, for a period of years until the next winter season that it gets hungry and by this stage there is a baby in the house. The story really does deliver a punchy, horrific tale that seems wholly credible. The thing that struck me with this story was it was simply told in an unassuming manner, which really in the end creeps you out far more than a graphic depiction of slaughtering loved ones for the sake of fertile land.
Hayden Trenholm's 'Like Monsters Of The Deep' had a cracking line that tugged at my curiosity. 'Being naked in front of Captain Kohl was one thing; Lillian Grozoskywas a whole different kettle of borscht.' A Science Fiction short which uses all the elements that space horror implements to full effect in a mission to find out what happened to a space station that has gone silent a year ago. The plan is to get humans from Earth further into the reaches of space and the Rickards Station is a stop-off point. You get a feeling that the system of space sleep in sacks isn't infallible and that it is tied up with the current developing events. The actuality of the climax wasn't one I saw coming, but I liked it so much that I thought this short was brilliant. A fine twist on an over-used 'Monster'!
'Woman Born Fully Formed' by Marlene Wurfel was just plain weird with a capital 'W'. A woman who dies in the peak of orgasm roams around as a lost soul for five hundred and twenty-eight years. Until she finds the lover who was there during her death. He completes his duty to 'Get her off' and she is reborn, 'Fully Formed' from a tree. Suffice it to say I was mystified but intrigued by this tale as it kept me reading until the end. I still wonder if there was a folk-tale element hidden in its lines?
Following the simple is best rule, 'Search' by Ceri Young follows the search for a family object. I've been in that situation before. You know what you are looking for but don't know where it is. The only thing is it's not the kind of family heirloom that most of us keep round the house! From the great folklore of seal-men coming onto land, this little short rolls along at its own pace and delivers a final knowing blow.
One story stuck out in my mind as being not quite fully formed. 'Rat Patrol' by Kevin
Cockle was along the lines of a zombie story mixed with a diseased land and the way the rat patrol man was constantly in danger of being called to the land and becoming like those that had needed to be exterminated. The story was good, but it just seemed to lack cohesion in places.
Overall, another fine serving of 'On Spec' fayre, with it's usual smattering of gems to delight over.
Donna Jones
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