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!)