Pocketsful of Diamonds

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

I mentioned "Pocketsful of Diamonds" onlist last year, very briefly. A good story--I tend to be guided in assessing these short Wolfe tales by the strength of their style; "The Walking Sticks" is written in that annoying quasi-folksy voice that Wolfe too often affects these days, whereas "Pocketsful" shows off his rich, mythic diction rather well. We need more of that from him... --Nick Gevers.