mostly harmless books

Picking up where I had left off… Part 1 here.

Laird Barron - Proboscis. “The most common usage is to refer to the tubular feeding and sucking organ of certain invertebrates like insects, worms (including proboscis worms) and molluscs.” That’s what wikipedia has to say about the title of this story. If I had known what a proboscis was, I might have gotten this story. I didn’t, so I didn’t. A group of bounty hunters get a pair of fugitives who are then let go. Then I think the strange things are supposed to start happening, something about an X chromosome and the proboscis, but I was so lost I missed the point. Something takes over some of the characters? Some sort of being who sucks their souls out? I might re-read it one day, but if anyone’s willing to explain the plot to me now I’ll appreciate it. (I first read Laird Barron in The Del Rey Book of SF&F and I liked the story in there, The Lagerstätte, better. He does seem to have a penchant for naming his stories with weird/foreign words.)

Elizabeth Hand - Kronia. I don’t think this is a story per se. It doesn’t seem to have a beginning, an end or a plot. “Alternative personal histories”, the short intro says. Maybe it’s a dream, maybe it’s people with bad memories, maybe denial. I liked it, and yet I missed something. I’ll love it if it turns out the apparently disjointed memories make something coherent. To reread. It mentions the short movie La Jetée, which I’ve had for years and never watched to the end, so I’d better get to that.

Elizabeth Bear - Follow Me Light. Elizabeth Bear seems to be in all the anthologies I read lately :) She has a story in Wastelands, and then in The Del Rey Book of SF&F. I liked the first one, the second was about a topic that doesn’t interest me one bit (boxing). This third one is great, again. Not to give the plot away - because, even though at some point you start to get it, it’s more fun putting the clues together - I’ll just say it’s about running away from something (water/the ocean, in this case) and the cost it comes with.

Jeffrey Ford - Boatman’s Holiday. I’d read it in Ford’s Empire of Ice Cream and I remembered it, which is rare for me, so it impressed me a lot back then. Charon is a very interesting character and I’ve liked most interpretations of his story I read. So, here he decides to take a holiday to an island resort. Well, not really a resort, but an island which might or might not exist. Making the ferryman of Hades into a likeable guy is not easy, but Ford does it perfectly.

Howard Waldrop - The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode in On). It’s a story about vaudeville, and this is something very out of my culture. I’m starting to understand things a bit only now, with my friend Wikipedia’s help. The Horse… is written in the form of an interview with Manny Marks (as the reporter says the interviewee likes to spell his name) who is Manfred Marx of the famous brothers, who in our world died as an infant. But however interesting this tidbit is, I never saw the Marx Brothers, I’ve never read about them (until now), I have no clue about vaudeville in general and frankly I don’t really care. There is an interesting plot twist at the end, but you have to understand the world to enjoy this fully.

Adam L. G. Nevill - Where Angels Come In. Scariest story in here, tied with Northwest Passage. Maybe even a bit scarier. It’s the classic “haunted house on the hill” tale - the local kids decide to explore it, feel there’s something wrong but pride doesn’t let them back off, and then bad things start to happen. The plot is not new or important. The things in the dark are. The atmosphere is. And their combination makes you jump at every noise and start seeing white faces in the dark corners. Taking an age-old “cliche” story and making it exciting (as in “heart beating faster”) and damn frightening takes skill, so congratulations.

Albert E. Cowdrey - Twilight States. Confusing (in a good way). You read and you feel things make sense, even though there’s obviously something strange in the other room. Things start making even more sense… until the authors goes “haha, it’s actually the other way around!” and you have to rearrange everything in your head again. But if you pay attention while you read, all the hints are there.

To conclude: judging by the hit/miss ratio, the best antho I’ve read so far. Actually, because I don’t think you can apply good/bad notions to literature, the anthology I liked best. If you’ve got similar tastes to mine, run to get it.
(Actually, one or two friends have already said they’re getting it based on my review, so go me!)

I’m sorry to start like this, but I’ve hated this cover since the first moment I saw it. The original is a digital painting and for a non-artist like me it’s amazing a man can paint something so realistic. Unfortunately, on the cover it just looks like a bad “let’s make a goth chick” photoshop, and the fact that it’s printed on silvery glossy paper makes it even worse.

But, seeing as the editors are Ellen Datlow (’nuff said) and Kelly Link (one of my favorite short story writers) [sorry, didn't know anything in particular about Gavin Grant] and the names inside include some very very interesting authors, plus I knew the translator… I went ahead and ordered it. And I haven’t regretted one moment.

This particular book is actually the first half of the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 19th Edition, 2006, so it doesn’t include some of the things I was looking forward to, such as Charles de Lint’s essay. Alas, I hope the 2nd volume is out soon. On with the show… after an apology: poetry is not my thing (at all. really.) so I won’t mention the poems. I’ve only read one of them, anyway, and didn’t get it.
(more…)

[Part 1]
I stopped just before this story for a reason: it was the reason I got this anthology and, like I suspected, it turned out to be my favorite. It started out (for me) on Larry’s blog, where I learned of another reviewer who had a… let’s say “less than positive” opinion of Margo Lanagan’s The Goosle. Apparently the anthology was aimed at a young public (why? just because some stories feature kids?) and a retelling of Hansel and Gretel with some gay forced relations in it makes it somehow not worthy.

Personally, I thought the story was very well done. I have a soft spot for retold fairy tales, I admit it, and this was a particularly good one. Hansel and Gretel gone bad, without Gretel but with an abusive (older?) man, plus a grim realization concerning the “real” fate of Gretel (what reality means when we’re comparing make-believe stories… I don’t know). One of the “complaints” was that, in one particular fragment, the author supposedly suggests sexual abuse might be ok, or that it was put there purely for shock value. The quote is over on Larry’s blog so I won’t paste it here again. Shock value? Well, it is shocking, but it does add to the story. A lot. Sexual abuse ok? Uh, if a person questions whether the abuse might be a normal thing it’s not saying it is normal. What about all those battered women who think it’s “a part of life”? Does that make it ok in any way?

So, long story short, since I have a bunch of other stories I want to write about: The Goosle rocks and everything fits perfectly.

Lavie Tidhar - Shira. Seeing as it’s been a month or so since I read the book, the details are fading. I do rememeber that the story didn’t impress me that much, though. It wasn’t a bad tale by any means, just… it didn’t stay with me. I did read it in a fitting moment, though. A story about travel read while traveling.

Barry N. Malzberg - The Passion of Azazel. One word: weird. Since I don’t know much about golems (the only related book I read was a Discworld novel…) or anything else Jewish for that matter… I won’t comment much. It was interesting but I failed to see the point, in the end.

Laird Barron - The Lagerstätte. One of the best stories in the antho, even if it might not even be speculative fiction, depending on how you look at it: woman delusional from grief or woman who can perceive more than other people? The story is half-told through the therapist sessions of Danni, who lost her husband and child in a plane crash and starts to believe there is a way she could be reunited with them. There’s no end, so we never do find out what ultimately happens. And that’s alright.

Anna Tambour - Gladiolus Exposed. Fantasy? Science fiction? No. What’s it doing in this book? Don’t know. A good enough story about a failing relationship, but I kept expecting the supernatural occurence and it didn’t show up. The gladiolus is a bone, by the way. And the writer has a beautiful name.

Jeffrey Ford - Daltharee. Ford is one of the few writers in here I had read before, so I knew what to expect. Naturally, my hopes were met: Daltharee is science fiction with a fantasy feel, and it’s damn good. Ships built in bottles are fascinating, but Ford builds a city inside one. Or rather his scientists do. Then they screw it up a bit. One of the best parts of the story are the fragments where we get to see the lives of the people in Daltharee. Almost like us, but not quite.

Pat Cadigan - Jimmy. This is probably my second favorite, even though I can’t put my finger on the “why”. Maybe because I wasn’t expecting to like it. Pat Cadigan says “cyberpunk” to me, and I don’t like that. Jimmy, however, isn’t even remotely close to cyberpunk. It’s about one of those kids who go from foster family to foster family and never quite fit in, and the one person who is his friend. But here the explanation isn’t the environment or abuse or education: it’s supernatural and it’s very cool.

Paul McAuley and Kim Newman - Prisoners of the Action. The best way to describe this is “fun”. It’s got the Army and aliens and tinfoil hats and a main character who never seems to get enough sleep and lots of bullets. It doesn’t take itself seriously and it’s just awesome.

A friend was saying that judging by the first part of my not-really-review it didn’t look like I enjoyed the book so much… well, it’s because all the best stories were at the end.

Lots of thanks go to Ellen Datlow who sent a book to some girl on the internet and impressed the hell out of her :)

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy almost missed its encounter with me, thanks to the incompetents at the post office. Fortunately, after postponing a trip and pleading with a lady, my precious envelope was rescued from the “to be returned” pile.. and boy, was it good timing. I was about to embark on a long train ride, so any book would’ve been welcome; but this proved to be more than “any book”.

I haven’t exactly read many anthologies, but most have been half-hit, half-miss. In this case, the misses were just a few.

The customary story by story review/opinions follows.

Jason Stoddard - The Elephant Ironclads. This seemed to require some knowledge of US history and geography, so I don’t think I got it all, and since I don’t want to give the plot away I won’t say much. Dinetah is a small country (?) somewhere on the border between the US and Mexico, which became independent with the aid of the legendary Elephant Ironclads. Two local (Native American) boys want to make a better life for themselves. I liked the glimpses of culture you could get - for example, the Dine gods live in the earth and look to the sky.

Lucy Sussex - Ardent Clouds. Not really fantasy, unless you consider two events connected; nevertheless, I enjoyed the story very much. My favorite aspect was probably the new love the main character (almost) finds (although it might shock some people, I think it’s very well potrayed). Plus, chasing volcanos sounds like a very interesting job.

Christopher Rowe - Gather. This is a weird one. I’m not sure I liked it. It’s incomplete. I read it twice and found new clues. It’s frustrating to not learn any answer. But… it’s part of a series of stories of a reconfigured Kentucky; I am dying to read more and I haven’t been able to find any. The story itself didn’t impress me that much, but the world seems absolutely fascinating. When Rowe publishes a collection of stories set in this world, I am so buying it.

Elizabeth Bear - Sonny Liston Takes the Fall. I don’t care about boxing, I’d never heard of Sonny Liston before, I don’t feel like re-reading the story. Not my cup of tea at all.

Nathan Ballingrud - North American Lake Monsters. Even though it does have a supposed monster, it’s a tale of relationships - father-daughter, husband-wife. I didn’t really understand what the monster had to do with anything, and what happened in the end.

Carol Emshwiller - All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World. Weird. In a bad way. I’d read her novel Carmen Dog before and I had the same reaction. I can’t put my finger on it, but I didn’t like any of them - but didn’t dislike them either. It’s probably the unusual mix of the real world with something that looks familiar, but isn’t, with no attempt to explain it. A woman wants to run from her life and go to a remote island, but what she finds there is not what she was expecting. The character acted in ways I just didn’t get.

Maureen F. McHugh - Special Economics. The only story set in China, a country I don’t find particularly interesting. It reminded me of Geoff Ryman’s Air, probably because the Asian setting and two characters that shared a similar profession. This vague resemlance aside, the story is very… rewarding. Two girls screw the system without any special skills. I just wonder how speculative it is… I can see most of the events happening today.

Richard Bowes - Aka St. Mark’s Place. A bit confused about this one. A guy whose work involves tracking down runaways. A boy who can partially see the future. And a girl, of course. Plus the way their lives keep intersecting. Interesting, but something was missing.

[Part 2]