The long awaited fourth issue of Andrew Cheverton's small press anthology Synchrony has recently slithered out into the world and it's an enticing bag of genre-leaping shorts, beginning with Auto-Lolita, the story of a pleasure-droid with an attitude that goes beyond sexy. Then Chev teams up with West colleague Tim Keable for a flower picking, rooftop swinging, zombie-avoiding adventure called The Scent Of Coriander. Chev loves him some zombies, but he's about far more than the head-shooting action, as this touching tale shows. There's more heart to be found in the breakdown fable Cracks, and Moon, a self-illustrated 1-pager that manages to say so much with so little. Finally Chev teams up with artist Dan Lester and takes aim for your funny bone with Rod Hull & Emo, of which Lee & Herring fans would surely approve.
I admire Chev's ability to tell such tales in so few pages - I struggle so much to keep my own PJANG page counts to single figures to satisfy those busy, busy small press artists who don't have all day to be drawing other people's scripts... Chev makes it look easy in this excellent, diverse and enthralling collection. Check out Synchrony #4 and some of Chev's other still-in-print books here. They're well worth your time and your pennies.
