Trail of Indiscretion is a small speculative fiction magazine (50 pgs) produced by Fortress Press. I got to read issue #4. Visually, the magazine is appealing. The cover is some interesting fantasy art and the quality of the paper is good, plus it’s perfect bound.

One interesting feature they have is a short intro to every story. The intro is just two or three lines that try to hook you into the story. Here’s an example:

We all know the legends of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, right? Well, John Bruni is here to tell us that we don’t know anything about them…

They’re basically right on in terms of describing what’s going on in the story, but in some ways that made me less satisfied. There were a few stories where I wished I hadn’t read the intro because knowing the background took something away from the story.

The stories varied in type. The stories included a sci-fi conspiracy, a creepy horror story about the criminally minded, a fantastic romantic comedy set in hell, a western with a magical twist, a fantastical look at the writer/editor relationship, and a mythic telling of the origin of death and chaos. This didn’t have the blood and gore variety horror; it focused more on the psychological.

It was an interesting read. I must say though, the blind date set in Hell was my favorite J