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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Dark Annie (Web Zine)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Other:
Dark Annie (Web Zine)
Author: Dr. Frederick Walker
Thursday, 19 November 1998 - 09:10 pm |        | Dark Annie, issue 1
reviewed by Dr. Frederick Walker
This is a new zine (cybermag) dedicated to JTR short stories.It can be found at: http://members.aol.com/darkannie. Issue 1 has a wide variety of tales, in a wide variety of genres.The story of the Whitechapel fiend is told as occult horror,sci-fi, stream of consciousness, spy fiction (those nastynogoodniks, the Tsarist secret police, are at it again),epistolary and even a western! Inevitably, several authors choseto write "diaries," few as compelling as the"real" one. Writing is at a consistently high level,and characters are realistic and vivid. I'm continuallyastonished at how few "serious" writers are interestedin JTR as a mystery. None of these 12 stories show a detectiveinterrogating witnesses, examining clues and deducing theidentity of the killer. Maybe next issue. Few of these writersknow much about the case. The biggest howler is Maybrick writingto Chief Inspector Lusk in "his own handwriting." Solutions are wide-ranging, from Jack the Copper to Jill theRipper. One disturbing element is that nobody seems to thinkmurder is wrong. The killer is sympathetically portrayedthroughout, his victims dismissed as so much trash. The Jillstories seem to celebrate the fact that a woman can "doit" just like the boys. If you're a woman yourself, murderisn't murder, it's feminism. Another problem is the narrow focus.Even by the end of the first issue, the idea that every villainturns out to be, gasp, Jack the Ripper is starting to get old. 2stories, a western called "The Badlands" and atime-travel epic called "At the Playground By the Swings,With Big Chuck," are ruined by completely gratuitousreferences to the Whitechapel murders, tacked on so that goodstories could meet the specs and get published. Writers shouldn'thave to do this. Dark Annie will have to open it up a little,perhaps accepting stories about modern serial killers, or otherVictorian crimes.
But certainly, as a one-shot anthology, Dark Annie is wellworth reading.
Best Story: "A Perfect Match." Modern-day Ripperbuffs find an alleged Diary of Catherine Eddowes, naming Dr.Chapman as the Man in Henage Court. DNA testing is done toconfirm its authenticity, and the shocking results provide thebest surprise ending I've read in years! |
Author: Dekker Falconetti
Friday, 14 May 1999 - 01:13 pm | | just to clear up...the above link won't get you there...click here:
http://members.aol.com/darkannie/
to visit the zine |
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