It’s dark, but kind of refreshingly so. There’s a point of view and a perspective and I like how it all seems to fit together. Too few anthologies seem to do that.

Anyway, a few words on No Formula. It is indeed a shame that you can’t check out more work from The Chemistry Set, as there was a far greater range of material at the site than is represented in the book. However, the publisher (Joe Pruett of Desperado, who was a mensch for publishing this book in the first place) requested only self-contained stories, and as editor, my goal was to present a book that was as thematically consistent as possible, as opposed to the kitchen sink anthology approach, which can work, but IMO not very often. I’d like to think the book works whether you read it front to back or just dip into it a story at a time. Your mileage may vary, of course.

There’s a lot of great stuff that didn’t make the cut reasons of fit or theme, though, and for reasons unrelated to quality as such. In the end it did end up a bit dark, but hopefully enjoyable nevertheless.

Oh, and I love “Red”, too.