Pocketsful of Diamonds

Adam Stephanides · 17 Oct 2001, 22:16 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: (urth) Pocketsful of Diamonds
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 22:16:19
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0717 at digest.urth.net>
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On the subject of new, or at least newish, Wolfe stories, there's a story by
Wolfe entitled "Pocketsful of Diamonds" which I don't recall seeing
discussed here; it was published in 2000, but I only saw it recently.  The
story is a fantasy story involving two children, living at a foster home,
who visit a mysterious carnival.  It's a bit like "And When They Appear": at
the carnival the children meet figures who offer them knowledge and at the
end they leave their quasi-parental home and go off into the wider world.
The ending is more hopeful than was "Appears," though.  It's a good story, I
think, though a cryptic one.

The story appears in an anthology entitled STRANGE ATTRACTION, edited by
Edward E. Kramer (Shadowlands Press, ISBN 1-930595-00-x; there's also a
limited edition).  The anthology is a rather peculiar theme anthology: it's
based around a sculpture of some sort of supernatural carnival ride, a
ferris wheel iirc (I don't recall the details well), and each author was
requested to incorporate it into his or her story.  Wolfe wisely downplays
it.

Incidentally, does anyone else think it's odd that a writer of Wolfe's
stature seems so ready to contribute to this sort of project?  There were
also the SANDMAN and CROW anthologies, and the Liavek stories he wrote.

--Adam

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