Breath of Life

Moore explores the geologic past and the distant future in her eclectic debut collection of nine short stories, two essays, and two poems. Most of the stories are historical horror, including “A Little Not Music,” about a tap dancer in 1939 Washington, D.C., who can’t shake a persistent mentor; “Empty Vessel,” a terrifying glimpse into the brutality of slavery in 1821 Louisiana; and “Peregrination,” cowritten with Chesya Burke, in which a mother in 1919 Chicago tries to save her precocious nine-year-old from an ominous entity known as Red Summer. Standouts include “Breath of Life,” in which Sufi mystic Oumar’s hunt for a rogue djinn goes terribly wrong, and “Here, Kitty,” which puts a spooky twist on the search for a missing cat. Less successful are the suspenseless “A Clink of Crystal Glasses Heard,” and the two poems, “Vox” and “Hidden,” which feel out of place. The essays, “What was THAT?!” and “On Vision and Audacity,” focus on Moore’s experience working as a ghost hunter and a speculative fiction writer, respectively. Taken together, the entries oddly feel like a career retrospective for a relative unknown. Still, there’s plenty to enjoy, and those who have followed Moore’s work through various SFF lit mags will be glad to find it collected in one place. (Dec.)