The Newsletter of
The Council for the Literature of the Fantastic
Volume 1, Number 4 (1997)
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Nobodaddies

Fall/Winter 94/95 issue, published by Doug Rice,
P.O. Box 95094 Pittsburgh PA 15223-0694,
8 1/2 x 11, 59 pages, $11.00 US/$18.00 overseas for one year (2 issues).

Reviewed by Sarah Holmes.
Copyright 1996 Sarah Holmes

This is a difficult review to write. I am supposed to reveal what NOBODADDIES is all about, but that's not really possible since it essentially breaks all the conventional rules that would categorize it into genres like "erotica, " "fiction," or "poetry." I guess I could simply say it's "postmodern," but that's a bit too easy. Let me explain. The first story in this issue, "CRISIS in the overSEXed society," by Raymond Federman, is an interesting bit of social commentary. However, together with the story that sits in the side bars, "The Black Sheep," by Italo Calvino, the two pieces become a work of metafiction. Some of the other highlights of this periodical include a re-writing of folklore in Robert Appelbaum's "Hansel and Gretel," which also works as a piece of literary criticism via the voices of the characters; a piece of transsexual erotica which breaks the conventions of prose; another piece which eroticizes fruits and vegetables; and what I read as an interesting ecofeminist work, "TWO TWO," by Belinda Subraman.

There are some things about NOBODADDIES I don't like. I am not crazy about the art, but that could be my personal bias. Also, one of the book reviews, on Larry McCaffery's Storming the Reality Studio, is somewhat off-track. Overlooking McCaffery's argument that punk and cyberpunk are similar because they are in and about urban environments, the reviewer tries to say that Whitman could be labeled as punk also. As far as I know, however, Walt Whitman never wrote in a 20th-century industrialized city. But, in general, I must say that NOBODADDIES is . . . very interesting. Let me put it this way, if you're looking for confusion, try NOBODADDIES; if you're looking for something safe, try The New Yorker.