I read Sirenia this morning, and it gave me great pleasure. Writing to the alphabet has always struck me as a gimmick, a disaster in most writers' hands and best suited in good hands for dark-humorous things like Gorey's. But "The Black Alphabet" is amazing.

You set the reader up with that subtle “Absinthe” vignette, then keep changing style and genre letter to letter, sf in “Biomechanoid,” classical in “Circe,” etc. "Dragon" is a favorite. It reminds me of Blake, with just a twist of Thomas Harris. “Dragon,” “Ink,” and “Mannequin” would make an interesting core for a longer story about people trying to re-shape their own images and bodies. “Kiss in the Glass” is genuinely erotic. I can’t wait to see the rest of the alphabet.

I was also quite taken with "Ode to Edvard Munch." The story has an interesting (and erotic) "human" relationship at its core, and I instantly felt involved. I’m fond of intimate but gritty moods, and I was afraid for a moment that switching to the dream might break the spell. But I needn't have worried. The dream is creepy, scary, and lovely all at once, with elements of the Mythos (e.g., the great blocks of reddish limestone set in place without mortar) mixed with Lilith...and a great sense of smell, something one doesn't often, uh, see in fiction.