Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
McCrumb, Sharyn
Tagged: Author.
(1948- ) US writer, mostly of detections, two satirizing sf fandom and fantasy Game-playing: Bimbos of the Death Sun: Murder Most Fun at the Ultimate Fantasy Con (1987) and Zombies of the Gene Pool (1992); neither novel, though amply Recursive, strays into the fantastic. Some of McCrumb's other tales are Supernatural Fiction: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1992) – the title is taken from the Incredible String Band album (1968) – is set in a richly envisioned Appalachian Tennessee (see Landscape), where a family tragedy precipitates a complex American Gothic drama involving funerals, slow deaths, routine Magic among women – prefiguring some of the subject matter of Rebecca Ore's Slow Funeral (1994) – and a general sense that contemporary events replay Stories out of Folklore. She Walks These Hills (1994), whose title quotes an Appalachian ballad, generates a similar ambience, with the significant addition of Ghosts. In her fantasy work, McCrumb proves a skilled evoker of mood and teller of tales. [JC]
Sharyn McCrumb
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