The current issue of Las Vegas Weekly focusing on the Book Festival is pretty terrific. A big bonus is their coverage of Brian Francis Slattery, whom they have supported a lot- starting with their glowing review of his novel "Spaceman Blues". His publisher Tor is offering an e-book version for FREE on their site, so there's no reason not to read it.
That attractive cover to your left is bordered by a short-short story by Slattery called "Low End of the Dial". For those of you non-locals (and locals that haven't checked it out) I'll transcribe it here:
"They did not know where they were going. In New Mexico and Arizona, there had been parties and gunshots, a night in jail. Now they were in Las Vegas, where Hangdog did not want to be, but Fan Belt insisted. He ran through th daylit night cackling, lost $20,000 he didn't have in less than an hour, laughed when they told him what kind of trouble he was in. Why did you do that? Hangdog said. We had a plan.
Don't you understand? Fan Belt said. This is the plan.
Later, in the desert, Hangdog understood, lying side by side with a girl he'd just met, staring skyward, into the exploding greens an purples and oranges of distant nebulae, an infinity of neon. As if a signal were being sent, words written in the ether. Hello universe, this is America calling. Can you hear us?"
If you need even MORE Slattery (and you do, even if you don't know it right at this moment) they have another glowing review of Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America. Even better, an excerpt from the Vegas portion of the book is read by T.R. Witcher, that audio clip can be accessed on the same page as the review.
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