Tangent Online

“The Black Orophant” by Daniel Braum

“Head on a Stick” by Charles Richard Laing

“Chaos Theory” by Rick Novy

“Final Report” by B. A. Barnett

“The Black Orophant” by Daniel Braum reminds me of a twisted SF version of—well, any talking animal show you can name. Except this one’s with talking elephants and lions and involves animal deities, a floating city, alien crystal spiders, and something about…time? Since it’s all from the viewpoint of an elephant, the reader is left filling in the blanks, but in many ways that’s what makes it so enjoyable.

This story has much less infodump than the remaining tales, and Braum handles a balanced blend of telling and showing in the manner that gives stories of this style a fairy tale/mythic feel. Overall, an enjoyable read, and the best of the four presented in this issue of Darker Matter.

I'm not sure what I can say about “Head on a Stick” by Charles Richard Laing that won’t make me sound like a mean grouch. The story reads like a summary instead of an actual story, contains almost every symptom of infodump-itis there is, has a plot with an ending that’s obvious from the first paragraph, and dialogue that reads as flat as the characters speaking them. Ah, and plausible motivation for character actions? Forget about it!

Disintegrated people, if saved in time (because they get disintegrated very slowly by the enemy’s disintegration beams), can continue to live as heads on a stick. No plausible explanation behind how that’s possible beyond an assumption that medicine has progressed to that level (whatever that level would be), but I suppose some readers will be willing to skirt their suspension of disbelief. Suffice it to say, nobody likes living as heads on a stick. I’d tell you more, but doing so will give everything away. I’d recommend this story only as an example of how not to write, but that’s just my opinion.

“Chaos Theory” by Rick Novy is a little better than “Head on a Stick.” But unfortunately it suffers from an infodump at the very start combined with an implausible “love at first sight” romance and a Groundhog Day plotline without the humor. Sympathy for the main character is the only saving grace, but the sympathy I felt wasn't toward the character in general (I can't even remember his name), but I felt bad at just how dense this so-called “genius” was.

“Final Report” by B. A. Barnett consists of several pages of infodump in dialogue form. The idea behind the story is good, but the execution needed to be better. 

Darker Matter is an interesting webzine but still in the early stages of getting its feet wet. While I enjoyed the nonfiction articles far more than I did the fiction, I look forward to seeing the new market improve and mature.