Three Messages and a Warning
Read Three Messages and a Warning Online
Authors: Eduardo Jiménez Mayo,Chris. N. Brown,editors
Introduction: Better Than a Mirror
Today, You Walk Along a Narrow Path
Variation on a Theme of Coleridge
Three Messages and a Warning in the Same Email
Three Messages and a Warning
Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic
Edited by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo
and Chris N. Brown
Small Beer Press
Easthampton, MA
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic copyright © 2011 by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown. All rights reserved. Introduction copyright © 2011 by Bruce Sterling. All rights reserved. Page 241 of the print edition constitutes an extension of the copyright page.
Small Beer Press
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Easthampton, MA 01027
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Distributed to the trade by Consortium.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Three messages and a warning : contemporary Mexican short stories of the fantastic / edited by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-931520-31-7 (trade pbk. : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-931520-37-9 (ebook)
1. Fantasy fiction, Mexican. 2. Short stories, Mexican. I. Jiménez Mayo, Eduardo, 1976- II. Brown, Chris N.
PQ7276.5.F35T47 2011
863’.087608972—dc23
2011016192
ISBN 978-1-931520-31-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-931520-37-9 (ebook)
Paper edition printed on 50# Natures Natural 30% PCR recycled paper by Cushing-Malloy, Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Cover design by Jamie Stolarski (j-sto.com).
Text design and composition by India Amos.
Ebook edition text set in Minion.
Introduction: Better Than a Mirror
Bruce Sterling
When Fixed Ideas Take Flight
Eduardo Jim
é
nez Mayo
Code and Recode
Chris N. Brown
Today, You Walk Along a Narrow Path
María Isabel Aguirre
The Guest
Amparo Dávila
Murillo Park
Agustín Cadena
The Hour of the Fireflies
Karen Chacek
Waiting
Iliana Estañol
Hunting Iguanas
Hernán Lara Zavala
1965
Edmée Pardo
Variation on a Theme of Coleridge
Alberto Chimal
Photophobia
Mauricio Montiel Figueiras
The Last Witness to Creation
Jesús Ramírez Bermúdez
Rebellion
Queta Navagómez
Future Perfect
Gerardo Sifuentes
Luck Has Its Limits
Beatriz Escalante
The Stone
Donají Olmedo
Trompe-l’œil
Mónica Lavín
Lions
Bernardo Fernández
A Pile of Bland Desserts
Yussel Dardón
Amalgam
Amélie Olaiz
The Nahual Offering
Carmen Rioja
Pachuca Second Street
Lucía Abdó
Wittgenstein’s Umbrella
Óscar De La Borbolla
Mannequin
Esther M. Garcia
Mr. Strogoff
Guillermo Samperio
The Mediator
Ana Gloria Álvarez Pedrajo
The Pin
Leo Mendoza
Future Nereid
Gabriela Damián Miravete
Pink Lemonade
Liliana V. Blum
The Return of Night
René Roquet
Three Messages and a Warning
in the Same Email
Ana Clavel
The President without Organs
Pepe Rojo
The Transformist
Horacio Sentíes Madrid
The Drop
Claudia Guillén
Wolves
José Luis Zárate
The Infamous Juan Manuel
Bruno Estañol
Copyrights
About the Authors
About the Editors
Bruce Sterling
When one talks to Mexican science fiction writers, the subject of “Mexican national content” commonly comes up. Mexican science fiction writers all know what that is, or they claim to know, anyway. They commonly proclaim that their work needs more national flavor.
This book has got that. Plenty. The interesting part is that this “Mexican national content” bears so little resemblance to content that most Americans would consider “Mexican.”
Americans, being the neighbors of Mexico, have a pretty fair idea of what Mexicans are up to. Some people would deny that, and claim that the norteamericanos only know the tourist-shop cliches, but that does Americans a disservice. Americans know about as much as any other non-Mexicans: they get it about Mexican food, Mexican music, the Fifth of May, hats and ponchos and serapes, snake and eagle flags, masked wrestlers, wealthy families, the oil business, seaside tourism, tequila, pulque and beer, cactus, jungles, fiestas, histrionic soap operas. . . .