This is a charming collection of stories. I don't remember how I got pointed at it - just noticed it has a recommendation blurb by Doctorow, that's prolly where I got it from. I don't remember running across Goss, who has had stories published since 2002, before this.
Reading these stories, it is the unreal being recounted as if it were real. Like the auto-biograpical story where she leaves Hungary with her mother as a child, but leaves behind a copy of herself, with whom she has a lifelong relationship. No explanation, just told as if this were a matter-of-fact occurrence - in fact, narrated by a 3rd version who knows both their minds.
Or the story "Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology": friends create a history of an imaginary country, with much supporting evidence - wikipedia articles, etc. - & go figure, the country pops into existence!
i had forgotten the word "slipstream". I was reminded of it when I was looking at Bruce Sterling's wikipedia page - he's 3 years younger than me & apparently still living in Italy - & he was credited with coining the word in 1989. I searched for in this blog & only found 3 references to "slipstream", but I went on and created a label for it.
I also tagged this post with "feminism": the stories I think have a nice feminist bent, particularly "Lost Girls of Oz".
One suggestion I might make: there is some overlap in the stories: several imaginary countries, Mina Harker appears twice, the author appears at least 3 times. I think I might have enjoyed the book even more if I had read half, then read something else, and then read the 2nd half.
Note, I was also reading "Calling Bullshit" (review/summary pending) while I was reading this book. Non-fiction books seem harder for me to digest, so I often read a chapter or 3 and then read something else lighter, i.e., fiction.
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