Strangers and Beggars
$17.99
Ships in an Average of 5.0 Mailing Days

Miss Hathaway's Spider
Finding Orson
Home
Nor a Lender Be
Happy Ending
Shark Attack: A Love Story
The Infodict
The Diorama
Nine Fingers on the Flute
The Yard God
The Death Dwarves
Eight Words
Parallel Highways
What Weena Knew
Voices
The Comeback
Resurrection

ProjectPulp.com Review      It is written in the Odyssey, "all strangers and beggars are from Zeus, and a gift, though small, is precious." James Van Pelt’s new short story collection Strangers and Beggars contains seventeen small gifts, each one of them precious to speculative fiction readers.      Gardner Dozois once called James Van Pelt "ubiquitous," and a brief glance at the Van Pelt bibliography supports that. The stories collected in Strangers and Beggars have previously appeared in nearly a dozen magazines. A single story, "Finding Orson" is published here for the first time.      Van Pelt has organized the stories under several themes that are common in his work: Teaching, Love, Death, and Time. Of special note in each theme are "Nor a Lender Be" in Teaching, "The Infodict" in Love, "Parallel Highways" in Death, and "What Weena Knew" in Time. "Nor a Lender Be" addresses the commercialization of learning through the story of a great teacher convinced to sell his style. In "The Infodict," Van Pelt tackles the idea of universal information access and the idea of a transparent society, and how such a society will affect relationships. "Parallel Highways" is my personal favorite in the collection: a creepy, sometimes terrifying story on a hellish freeway. "What Weena Knew" addresses the poor Eloi from H.G. Wells's Time Machine after the Time Traveler has left.      Van Pelt’s short stories are elegantly penned, written in an easy style, and very approachable. He sticks to the basics with few exceptions, but his knowledge of the basics is secure. Van Pelt tells a solid, hearty short story that rarely disappoints. Some of Van Pelt’s best work, "Flock of Birds" and "Last of the O-Forms," are yet to appear in a collected format, but I have a feeling we won’t have long to wait.      What impresses me most about Van Pelt’s work is that he is not afraid to give his characters hope in even the direst situations. Where some writers would leave their protagonist with no way out of their predicaments, Van Pelt decidedly gives his happy endings, even in his most horrific tales. This hope and happiness is a warm comfort in these days of uncertainty.                 ::Jeremiah Tolbert::      Have you read this title? Rate it for other customers here.