The Journal of Unlikely Entomology
Issue 7 — November 2013

Table of Contents

The Psammophile by Maria Dahvana Headley
The Years of the Tarantella by Sarah Brooks
Strange Invasion by Darren O. Godfrey
The Wall Garden by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
A Superfluity by Helen Anderson
Pompilid by Nghi Vo
The New World by Dennis Tafoya
Found Items -- Notes and Tapes (Evidence Bag Two) by Mark Rigney

Editors’ Note:

Welcome, Dear Readers, to another issue of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. That’s right — after our brief foray into the realm of Unlikely Architecture, we return to the land of things that skitter and crawl. Are you comforted to find yourself on familiar ground? Don’t get too comfortable; we mean to instill at least a little unease. After all, isn’t that what good art is meant to do?

Fear not, Gentle Reader, it isn’t all unsettling. There’s humor to be found in our pages, in the form of a very strange invasion indeed. There’s beauty in the catalogued artifacts of improbable civilizations, and in the slow-unfolding dreams of wasps and nuns. But there is also darkness. Of course, there is always darkness. Unseen shadows lurk behind rapturous music, and the world just might come to an end — or worse yet, a beginning. History extends behind us in elaborate, repeating patterns of violence and beauty and love and death, casting shadows into the future. It’s the circle of life, and often something must die in order for something else to live. And while they say hell is other people, people don’t always remain human.

As in life, our pixilated pages mix darkness and light in this issue, one always sweetening and tempering the other. We leave it to you to determine which does which.

Whatever your tastes, for the shadows or that which casts them, we hope you enjoy these tales.

Cover Art by Maarten Wydooghe.