Fading Away
by E.W. Pierce
Marooned on a skyland that crashed to the sea, young Joha Mender is slowly starving to death. His food stores exhausted, he must face his greatest fear and brave the deep waters. But the sky-peoples harbor old superstitions about the sea for a reason, and as Joha enters this alien world, he discovers that myths often contain an element of truth.This is a platypus of a piece; there is no denying it. The TV Monsters is part sci-fi tale, part poem, part elegy for a more innocent, vanished time. More than anything else, it's a clear-eyed analysis of what television has done to human civilization.The story (told mainly in verse) is about a young boy who lives an idyllic country life with his grandfather in mid-twentieth century America. One night the boy has a strange experience in which he believes he has seen aliens who have come for some malevolent purpose. The story takes some twists and turns, but in the end our hero figures out who the real foes of peace, justice and enlightenment are.