STRANGE CHANGES anthology Ed. Jean Goldstrom

softcover, anthology, 22 short stories on title theme.
Reviewed by Steve Johnson.
Another nice offering from Whortleberry Press. Some great stories in this one with one of my favourites only three in. Blue Grass Dreams Aren’t For Free by Gerri Leen is a very good tale of human/horse reversal, although not perhaps as you’d expect. Lyn McConchie’s Sisters too wasn’t what I’d expected, but I really liked it, and The Food Chain by Edward Ahern sent shivers down my spine. I also really enjoyed Tom Howard’s The Last Man, (a creepy little piece) Survival of the Fittest by Jack Hillman, (also creepy) and The Man Who Was Only History by J.J. Steinfeld which acts rather like a punch in the guts. (I don’t like that version of the future, but boy is it powerful.)
I found that the two stories I didn’t enjoy as much were both set very solidly in American backgrounds, (so much so that I doubt someone not that conversant with such backgrounds may, as I did, not quite understand or appreciate them. This is not the author’s fault, it’s merely a fact. Nor is it a mistake for an editor to use the works, since she is American and the anhtology would primarily be sold there. But as someone on the other side of the world, I didn’t get a lot of the nuances and was aware of it. That said, with 22 stories, and only two that didn’t do it for me, that’s an excellent result. Chuck’s tag lines put a nice cap on the anthology too. How to sum up a story in a phrase – and he’s good at it. Recommended.