To Be Continued...

Gathered in this collection are the stories of 11 lesbian writers who succumbed to a major marketing ploy. Each short narrative ends with a teaser meant to sell the sequel: ""to be continued...."" Surprisingly, in spite of this manipulative premise and ill-conceived constraint on the narrative arc, some of these stories work. The humid spookiness of Nisa Donnelly's ""Road Maps"" calls Flannery O'Connor to mind. Kris and Shelly, on their way to California, pause in Devil's Landing, Ky., and find that it was founded by ""The Devil"" himself--in the form of ""a cross-dressing old dyke."" Cecilia Tan's fantasy, ""Dragon's Daughter,"" travels through time and space to reunite the narrator with the porcelain-skinned Jin Jin. Jewelle Gomez, always remarkable, excerpts a portion of her Gilda Stories, an unusual African American tale of the supernatural. The remaining tales are disappointingly sophomoric, often relying on poorly rendered dialect to spice up flat characters. They suffer most from their incomplete, undeveloped plots. Refreshing, however, is the departure in lesbian fiction from strictly ""lesbian feminist"" topics and gratuitous sex. (Nov.) FYI: The ""sequel"" collection is planned for publication next year.