The Queen of Heads
by Ignatius Fischer (7/09/99)
“Down, down, down you fall — come and see the show
… a-screaming, screaming, caterwaul — in the chains you go!”
I’ve been searching for this story for years and I FINALLY found it. It is a very wonderfull Alice In Wonderland like story, you guys should read it.
If any of you do read it, please come back and tell me what you think.
Wow. That was weird, yet also captivating. I have to say, the unresolved ending bothers me a bit- do you know if there is a sequel story written. All-in-all, however, I must say that I enjoyed the story.
I just finished it. For the most part, the imagery was good. Very descriptive wording that allowed for succinct recognition of what was going on.
But oftentimes the description was lacking. It tried to capture too much and spent so many adjectives on greens and reds and blacks and yellows and who cares what the colors are? I want a better understanding of the world they’re in. I want more to fill in the blanks between where the words leave off and our imagination must kick in. There’s a gap there that oftentimes makes it difficult to fully capture what it is the author wants us to see.
The characterization needs more work too. The daughter shouts out “daddy” every other word and that’s really all she is. A floating 4 year old who says “daddy.”
The wife isn’t even a character, she’s just the wife. A characterization. The love interest. We accept that he needs to go after her because she’s the wife. But…is this enough?
I liked the ending. Tied up all the loose ends nicely while giving the story an unexpected twist.
Overall I liked the story and thought it was extremely creative. It’s just that I felt the author was so overwhelmed with ideas it was ultimately impossible to get them all down on the page.
Well, its been a LONG time since I corrasponded with the writer, and he isn’t answering his old email anymore. I first came across this story in Critters.org (a critique website) so I’ve been involved with this story since pretty much the beginning. The first version IMHO was much better than the released version, but tended to go very deep into the imagery and rambled.
This story was a ‘teaser’ for a full length novel he was writing and he said at the time that he already had a publisher. I’m currently trying to track the full length novel down.
As for the writer IIRC he was on governmental disability pay for extreme schizophrenia, and writing was a hobby of his (its hard to be sure I was corresponding with so many writers at the time).
I’ll keep ypu guys informed.
I was wrong about the schizophrenia thing, that was a different writer. This guy used to be in the SFX biz, he’s the one that made the front of the earth battleship in fifth element.
He still hasn’t emailed me back, I sent an email to every one he has…
Ill keep you guys informed.