J.K. POTTER'S EMBRACE THE MUTATION

Editors Schafer and Sheehan have assembled a dream team of 13 dark fantasists to "literate" a folio of horror artist Potter's photorealistic nightmare visions and elaborate the thoughts and feelings of his "changelings who have bid farewell to their former selves in order to populate a brave new world of beautiful mutations and sensuous freaks." Some contributors are more receptive than others to Potter's aesthetic and pursue it down a variety of refreshingly divergent avenues. Lucius Shepard's "Radiant Green Star" is an affecting coming-of-age tale whose many individual elements—genetically-engineered circus performers, Amerasian identity, emerging teenage sexuality—express a worldview founded on malleable truths and reality in flux. In James Morrow's delightfully wacky dystopia, "The Cat's Pajamas," a modern Frankenstein attempts ham-handedly to mold not just the body but the body politic. There's no fantasy to speak of in Elizabeth Hand's "Pavane for a Prince of the Air," yet its poignant account of a funeral for a friend vividly evokes a sense of the soul and its transmigration. More horror-oriented fare by Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison and Michael Marshall Smith stresses the mood of their illustrations over its content, but suggest as the artwork does that horror is not an inappropriate response to a world where body piercing, cosmetic surgery and prosthetic enhancements have become de rigeur. Overall, the writing quality here is exceptional, and Potter's artwork unforgettable. (Apr. 1)

FYI:The special limited edition ($100; ISBN 1-892284-57-X) includes additional Potter illustrations.