Pilot Light

SF vets Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock present a lost short story by their fictional poet, William Ashbless, with Powers providing a pseudo-scholarly introduction and Blaylock an afterword. Ashbless himself gets the last word in a postscript. Humorous annotations often occupy more of the page than the actual text of the fairly cryptic story, which alternates between narrator Sikorski's recollections of childhood and a failed romance in the past and his current encounter with the enigmatic Colonel Wick. This slight, entertaining diversion is enhanced by Gahan Wilson's illustrations, particularly one of a sturgeon.