Wow. This started off reading like a fairly straightforward novelization of The Fall of the House of Usher and then veered off in a direction I TOTALLWow. This started off reading like a fairly straightforward novelization of The Fall of the House of Usher and then veered off in a direction I TOTALLY was not expecting. It's certainly more of an explanation than Poe gave in his original story, hah.
There are some other interesting differences here: more characters, including a non-binary narrator with an intriguing background and unusual personal pronouns (which pronouns actually comes into play in a surprising way much later in the story), a mushroom scholar and artist who appears to be Beatrix Potter's maiden aunt, and the narrator's horse who has personality to spare. Madeleine Usher is a more fully developed character, which is all to the good. And there's a tarn around the Usher mansion with odd lights in the water ...
Excellently creepy.
Full RTC! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Merged review:
Wow. This started off reading like a fairly straightforward novelization of The Fall of the House of Usher and then veered off in a direction I TOTALLY was not expecting. It's certainly more of an explanation than Poe gave in his original story, hah.
There are some other interesting differences here: more characters, including a non-binary narrator with an intriguing background and unusual personal pronouns (which pronouns actually comes into play in a surprising way much later in the story), a mushroom scholar and artist who appears to be Beatrix Potter's maiden aunt, and the narrator's horse who has personality to spare. Madeleine Usher is a more fully developed character, which is all to the good. And there's a tarn around the Usher mansion with odd lights in the water ...
Excellently creepy.
Full RTC! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC....more
I was a fan of Peter Clines’ The Fold a few years ago, so I jumped at the chance to read his latest book, The Broken Room, which comes out in a few weI was a fan of Peter Clines’ The Fold a few years ago, so I jumped at the chance to read his latest book, The Broken Room, which comes out in a few weeks. Hector, a down-and-out ex-Special Ops guy, is approached by a 12 year old girl, Natalie, who has escaped from a top secret facility called the Project. The horrible experiments they’ve done on her and other illegal immigrant children there have changed her in ways that aren’t entirely clear to Hector or even Natalie yet.
But the people who run the Project want Natalie back VERY badly, and they’re sending out their forces to get her back. Natalie calls in a favor Hector owed to a guy named Tim that Hector used to work with. Tim has been dead for a few years, but somehow Natalie seems to be communicating with him. It’s all very odd to Hector, but the marker he owed needs to be honored.
So Hector and Natalie go on the run. And things get more exciting—and more strange—from there.
The Broken Room is a little hard to describe; it combines science fiction with a fair amount of horror and gore, a little social commentary on the treatment of illegal immigrants and minorities, lots of action (slowing down only for flashbacks where Natalie’s past is explained), and some weird spookiness. I would’ve liked a little better explanation of some of the weird parts, like the seed pods: an effective bit of gross horror, but the logic of them escaped me a little.
This one will stick with me for a while. It’s a solid SF thriller adventure.
Full review to come! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC....more
At about a hundred pages (readers of this book will know why) in I was seriously contemplating the wisdom of my life choices and thinking I had made aAt about a hundred pages (readers of this book will know why) in I was seriously contemplating the wisdom of my life choices and thinking I had made a really bad call with this fantasy novel. I thought hard about bailing, but there are So.Many. very enthusiastic reviews that I decided to persevere.
And as you can see, I was won over by the end - I love the twists and turns and the wheels within wheels within wheels. But seriously, this is hardcore gruesome in parts and I can't recommend it to readers who are at all sensitive about child abuse, animal deaths and widespread mayhem and murder. Though murder isn't always what it seems here. :)
Sophia finds life in Arcadia Gardens beautiful and luxurious and wonderful. Certainly,On sale now! Full review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Sophia finds life in Arcadia Gardens beautiful and luxurious and wonderful. Certainly, her husband rarely sleeps next to her nowadays and seems preoccupied even when he is around, but of course his work is terribly important, and he gives her so much. And she doesn’t mind all of the rules and restrictions of the Homeowners Association, who are only looking out for the residents’ best interests. The neighbors all love her and respect her husband. She’s really so very lucky. The world is theirs.
But then, for no real reason — and it’s an impulse Sophia desperately regrets later — this morning she pulls open the top left-hand drawer of her vanity. And doesn’t know what to make of what she finds in that drawer.
When a tale about a young wife keeps emphasizing how everything is SO PERFECT and she is SO HAPPY … you know things are going to go south in a big way. And the creepiness and tension keep building and you’re not sure exactly what is going on until the light blinks on in your head and you’re all, OHH, so that’s what this was building toward this whole time. But then it’s too late.
Catherynne Valente does a fascinating mashup of various stories, folktales and tropes — old tales with some current elements and a feminist spin — in this wickedly sharp novella. Comfort Me with Apples weaves in not just the Bluebeard folktale but much more that only becomes apparent as you get deeper into the story. It’s easy to get lost in Valente’s evocative, lyrical prose, but every detail is significant and even symbolic: places, objects and character names (I particularly liked Mr. Semengelof, Mrs. Palfrey and Cascavel). Even the chapter names come into play: each a different type of apple, many of which I’d never heard of before, like Black Twig and Northern Spy.
I didn’t really love Comfort Me with Apples, I think mostly because I don’t care for its troubling worldview (you'll know what I mean), but I’m in awe of Valente’s craft in this disturbing allegorical story. My two co-reviewers at FanLit really loved it - see the link above for their takes.
Thanks to the publisher for the ARC!
Content advisory: It's on the gruesome side of creepiness, and religion and (view spoiler)[and the Bible story used as the basis of this story (hide spoiler)] are given an ugly twist here....more
A good non-fiction book of horrors for October! Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
"Most people say that it is the intellect which ma
A good non-fiction book of horrors for October! Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
"Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." - Albert Einstein
Sam Kean is my favorite pop science author, ever since I read Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us in 2017. Kean has an engaging voice, a solid understanding of science, and a talent for telling stories, making complex subjects both intelligible and interesting to non-scientific readers (tellingly, he studied both physics and English literature). In his latest book, The Icepick Surgeon, Kean turns his attention to the many ways in which science has been twisted to sinister and even evil purposes over the centuries. Each chapter focuses on a different era in history and a different type of corrupted science. The perpetrators of these crimes range from well-meaning though woefully misguided people to those blinded by the quest for wealth or fame to deliberately malicious actors.
The first chapter is set in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when English biologist and naturalist William Dampier took to the sea. He was a brilliant navigator and at one point piloted the ship that rescued a marooned sailor, Alexander Selkirk, whose story in part inspired Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. But his passion for exploring the biology and natural history of other lands, along with a desire to be rich, also led him to join some sailing crews that were shady privateers or even outright pirates, and Kean notes that there’s no reason to think Dampier stood aloof from looting and murdering natives and sailors on other ships.
From piracy it’s a natural though disturbing step to slavery, the topic of Chapter 2, in which we follow the exploits of British naturalist Henry Smeathman in the later 1700s. Smeathman initially abhorred the slavery trade (though not enough to stay off of slave ships traveling to the far-off countries he wanted to study). But eventually he began socializing with the slave ship captains and merchants, and finally engaged in slave-trading himself as, he told himself and others, a matter of economic necessity.
And so it goes. Some of the stories Kean relates in The Icepick Surgeon are easy to predict: Nazi tortures in the name of science, of course, and grave-robbing to produce human bodies for medical study … which occasionally led overly ambitious grave robbers to become murderers. There’s also Walter Freeman’s practice of lobotomizing mentally ill individuals on a massive scale in the 1940s, when he traveled across the U.S.A. from asylum to asylum on lobotomy road trips: the “icepick surgeon” of the book’s title. Other chapters have more surprising topics, like Chapter 6, devoted to the sabotage and stealing between two rival dinosaur fossil hunters in the late 1800s. That chapter, like the later one about some of the American spies who stole nuclear science secrets for other countries in the post-WWII years, made for fascinating reading and weren’t too gut-wrenching.
But it was difficult to read about animal torture (Thomas Edison, for one, when he was exploring the differences between direct and alternating electric currents), innocent people infected — often deliberately — with terrible diseases that were left untreated in the name of science, Nazi atrocities, and the torturous psychological experiments that helped form teenaged Theodore Kaczynski into the Unabomber. It’s worth reading because it’s true (by and large; Kean does indulge in the occasional speculation) but so many of these stories are harrowing and tragic. At the same time, as the author points out, we do need to consider where and why humans have gone down the wrong path and what can be done to help prevent these types of misdeeds from happening again. Some of the historical abuses this book chronicles may be unlikely to recur, but, as the appendix chapter discusses, technology opens up all sorts of new avenues for bad behavior and abuses of scientific knowledge.
The Icepick Surgeon is a sobering book but a fascinating one, and, more importantly, a needed record of scientific misconduct, both historically and in our modern time.
Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy!...more
4.5 stars for this suspenseful Tor.com story, a 2021 Locus Award finalist. Free to read online here at Tor.com. Final review, first posted on FantasyL4.5 stars for this suspenseful Tor.com story, a 2021 Locus Award finalist. Free to read online here at Tor.com. Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Chessup is a day laborer working as part of a crew outside of Boulder, Colorado, helping to clean up a creek that was filled with trash in the aftermath of a flood. At the end of the day, looking to borrow a battery from the crew’s bulldozer to jumpstart his old car, Chessup finds something very old tangled up in the roots of a tree that the bulldozer had pulled down.
With visions of selling his discovery to a pawnbroker for cash, Chessup sets about removing it from the tangle of tree roots. He’s about to leave when his co-worker Burned Dan, who wears a bandanna over his face like a train robber, confronts him and demands that Chessup sell his find to Dan instead. But darkness is beginning to fall, and it may be too late for both of them …
Stephen Graham Jones’ “Wait for Night,” a Locus finalist short story, weaves a familiar mythology into an unusual setting. A pair of world-weary, down-on-their-luck workers are the main characters, and Jones’ depiction of Chessup’s character and his world is stellar.
Thirty minutes later, that five o’clock whistle blowing a couple hours late, my uncle’s unregistered Buick fell into its usual routine of refusing to start, and I was the only one still parked in the pullout. I sloped back down to the creek to splash my face, consider my life, and all the decisions I’d made to get me to this point.
The characterization remains true even as Chessup finds himself in an intense life-and-death situation, faced with choices he never thought he’d be required to make. Burned Dan is equally interesting, making seemingly off-hand comments earlier in the story whose true import becomes all too clear later on. It’s exceptional storytelling, with so much going on between the lines....more
On sale now! I can't even say how much I loved this book ... okay, maybe except for the jaw-dropping ending. But STILL! If you've read the first book,On sale now! I can't even say how much I loved this book ... okay, maybe except for the jaw-dropping ending. But STILL! If you've read the first book, definitely read this one, even if you weren't so excited by A Deadly Education. If you haven't, read both!! Here's my full review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
The Last Graduate completely sucked me in from start to finish! Galadriel has managed to survive three years at her deadly magical school, the Scholomance, with her junior year capped by an epic battle against a fearsome assembly of maleficaria (magical creatures that feast on wizards, especially youthful ones), as related in the first book in this fantasy series, A Deadly Education. Now El is in her last year at the Scholomance and has achieved her goal of becoming part of an alliance of fellow students (albeit a very small, less powerful one) who will protect each other when they run the gauntlet of ravenous mals that line the hallway leading to the graduation exit. And Orion Lake, the best mal-killer in the school, has progressed from mere annoyance to occasionally still aggravating but valued friend. Which makes it difficult when El’s clairvoyant mother sends her an urgent message to keep far away from Orion.
Even more upsetting for El is that now the Scholomance seems to have her personally in its cross-hairs. Instead of working toward graduation, she’s spending most of her time fighting mals that all seem to be focused exclusively on eating her, and perhaps the group of brand-new, hapless freshmen that the school has inexplicably thrown El in with in one of her classes.
I opened the door expecting to find something really horrible inside, and I did: eight freshmen, all of whom turned and stared at me like a herd of small and especially pitiful deer about to be mown down by a massive lorry. There wasn’t so much as a sophomore among the lot. “You’ve got to be joking,” I said with revulsion …
El is in a constant battle against her innate affinity for massively destructive and violent spells, and the Scholomance seems to be pushing her to make selfish choices, saving her mana or magical power for her own needs instead of helping random freshmen who mean nothing to her. But as El battles the mals and her own dark nature in order to save herself and her friends and yes, random freshmen, the scope of her concern for others starts to grow, leading to changes that are unprecedented in Scholomance history.
I initially had trouble getting into the first book, A Deadly Education. At first El was very prickly and sulky, a difficult main character to like, and there was a lot of info-dumping as Naomi Novik introduced us to the unique world and culture of the Scholomance. But by the end of that book I was fully on board with her character and anxious to see what happened next. And it didn’t disappoint, at all, in fact, The Last Graduate was far more than I expected.
Everything that gave me hesitation about the first book has been resolved. Novik is fantastic when she’s on (Spinning Silver is still one of my favorite fantasies ever), and she definitely is here. There are game-changers afoot in the pages of The Last Graduate. El and her classmates are led step by excruciating step toward a greater purpose than simply surviving and getting out of the Scholomance alive. I don’t think inspiring is too strong of a word.
The Scholomance has always had an international student body, and Novik better fleshes out the diversity in this second novel, with students from different cultures and races playing more significant roles. She also delves more deeply into themes of (often unexamined) privilege and how that affects choices and options. Along the way there are also some great moments of friendship, as El (still sensitive and snappish) grows closer to her classmates, especially the members of her alliance, and gradually learns that it’s okay to rely on others.
“Stop it!” she said. “I think that’s like the third time you’ve asked to be ditched. You’re like one of those puffer fish, the second anyone touches you a little wrong you go all bwoomp,” she illustrated with her hands, “trying to make them let go. We’ll let you know, how’s that?”
There are also some intriguing new characters, like Liesel, the abrasive, ruthless and utterly brilliant class valedictorian (“If you’re wondering how Liesel came into our discussions, so were the rest of us, but she was both impervious to hints that she wasn’t wanted, and also hideously smart, so we hadn’t actually been able to chase her from the planning”).
I’ll admit to a few qualms about the efficacy of the plan El and her class came up with in the end; it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the upcoming conclusion of this trilogy. And THAT ENDING. I hate to complain when the rest of the book was SO good, but really it is one of the most jaw-dropping cliffhangers I’ve ever seen. I would suggest that if you’re strongly averse to cliffhangers, you could wait to read this book until the next one comes out … but I wouldn’t want anyone to delay the sheer excitement and fun of The Last Graduate. It has been one of 2021’s reading highlights for me: one of the most exhilarating, delightful and moving books I’ve read this year. Every page was truly a pleasure. Well, except maybe the last one. :)
Previous update: So my daughter (hi, Emily! *waves*) found out I had the NetGalley ARC of this book a few days ago. She loved the first book, A Deadly Education, even more than I did, so she came home from college for a couple of days, mostly I think to borrow my iPad so she could read this ARC. I told her (a) I loved it, and (b) it has a killer cliffhanger ending. Last night I was on my laptop and she was in the same room reading this, and all of a sudden around midnight I hear this "AAAARRGH!!!" from the other side of the couch. *Cue evil laughter from me*
She loved it. And the ending kills. And that's all we need to say for now, except you DEFINITELY should read this series if you have any interest in something sort of Harry Potterish, except with way more carnivorous monsters.
I received an advance copy of this book for review. SO MANY THANKS to the publisher!
Content notes: Gruesome carnivorous monsters, scattered F-bombs and a mildly explicit sex scene....more
In Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark melds two types of horror, Lovecraftian monsters and the bloody r4+ stars. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
In Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark melds two types of horror, Lovecraftian monsters and the bloody rise of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922 Georgia, as a group of black resistance fighters take on an enemy with frightening supernatural powers.
As Ku Klux Klan members march down the streets of Macon, Georgia on the Fourth of July, Maryse Boudreaux, who narrates the story, watches from a rooftop with her two companions, sharpshooter Sadie and former soldier Cordelia “Chef” Lawrence, a bomb expert. They’ve baited a trap for the “Ku Kluxes,” who are hellish demons that hide in disguise among the Klan humans, taking over the bodies of the worst of them. The trap works, but the silver pellets and iron slags contained in the bomb aren’t enough to kill the three monsters that rise out of the wreckage and their human outer veneers. It takes more to kill a Ku Klux.
Since The Birth of a Nation had come out seven years earlier, in 1915, susceptible white folk surrendered to the spell of hatred woven by the groundbreaking silent film with its message of white supremacy and KKK heroism, lending manpower to the KKK and spiritual power to evil demons. Now The Birth of a Nation is getting a grand rerelease at Stone Mountain, a Georgia park honoring the Confederacy, in a few days. The spirits that frequently commune with Maryse let her know that this will cause a massive rise of evil and hatred, a rift that the demonic powers can use to fully inhabit and take over our world.
Ring Shout is little hard to wade through at times, with lots of idiomatic speech. Otherwise, though, this is powerful stuff. H.P. Lovecraft’s eldritch monsters and, more, his infamous racism lend themselves well to a plot centered on the infiltration of the KKK — and from there, our world — by unearthly, destructive powers that use our weaknesses against us. Opposing them are lively, earthy blacks and their sympathizers, many of whom have their own supernatural connections, primarily arising out of African traditions and folklore. Among these are Maryse’s magical sword and the Ring Shout, a ritual gathering involving song and dance. It’s “about surviving slavery times, praying for freedom, and calling on God to end that wickedness.”
Clark’s novella also points out the seductive power of hatred and rage, and how they can twist good to bad. “A righteous anger and a cry for justice,” Maryse realizes, aren’t the same thing at all as hate.
These monsters want to pervert that. Turn it to their own ends. Because that’s what they do. Twist you all up so that you forget yourself. Make you into something like them.
In Ring Shout, Clark deftly uses a historical and fantastical setting, characters and motifs to create a novella that’s both timeless and timely, with a powerful message for all.
Okay ... that was downright creepy! I’ll never look at a willow tree the same way again.
RTC.
Initial post: This is a "Read Now" book on NetGalley rightOkay ... that was downright creepy! I’ll never look at a willow tree the same way again.
RTC.
Initial post: This is a "Read Now" book on NetGalley right now, and T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) is amazing. So I think I'll read it even though horror novels aren't generally my thing. :D...more
A woman goes hiking with her dog in th4.5 stars. On sale this week! Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
The Call of the Wild (Singer):
A woman goes hiking with her dog in the northern California mountains, searching for the hidden settlement her father calls home. After a long search she finds the encampment — really a small town — but her father is gone, along with every other person who lived in Wild Sign. Some time later, two FBI agents pay a surprise visit to Anna and Charles Cornick in Aspen Creek, Montana. The agents lay their cards on the table: The FBI is looking for an alliance with the werewolves, and because of past interactions they’ve concluded that Anna is likely the Marrok, the werewolf who rules them all (which leads to an amusing scene with Bran Cornick, who is).
The agents suggest that the werewolves might be interested in helping to investigate the disappearance of the town of Wild Sign, especially since part of the town was located on land now owned by the Marrok’s pack, and originally owned by Leah Cornick, Bran’s mate. What the FBI agents don’t know, but Bran does, is that Leah has been singing disturbing music ever since April, the time of the last communication from someone living in Wild Sign.
Some type of great power is in the area of Wild Sign, and has been for at least two hundred years, Bran explains to Charles, bringing death and misery to the humans it meets. And now it’s waking up again.
So Anna and Charles, along with a third werewolf named Tag, who has some barely-controlled berserker tendencies but also a useful resistance to magic, take a road trip to the northern California wilderness to investigate the mass disappearance of the inhabitants of Wild Sign, and find out what it has to do with the long-ago, dark history of their alpha’s mate, Leah, and the mysterious werewolf Sherwood Post, who’s been haunting the pages of the last several books in this series.
Wild Sign is the sixth novel in Patricia Briggs’ ALPHA AND OMEGA fantasy series, or the seventh if you count the 2007 introductory novella, Alpha & Omega (which you should) … or the eighteenth if you include the closely-intertwined MERCY THOMPSON series (which you also should). It’s a pleasure to see the way Charles and Anna have grown and changed, individually and as a couple, over the course of this series. Anna has grown far more confident, and she plays a vital role in increasing not just the peacefulness, but the happiness, of Bran’s entire wolf pack. Even when events occur in California that almost literally take her back to her time with the abusive werewolf pack in Chicago, where we first met Anna in "Alpha and Omega," the set-back is temporary. Charles has always been Anna’s protector, but he’s able to watch Anna take the initiative and take pride in her strength.
Tag is an interesting character in his own right, though I didn’t feel that we really got to know him all that well in Wild Sign. The real illumination for readers is in Leah’s newly-disclosed backstory and the insights given into her thoughts and personality. Leah, who’s always been defined by her selfishness and harsh coldness, is clearly in the process of getting a redemption arc here which, well, Briggs has bitten off a lot there. But it’s working for me. Leah’s story is both painful and humanizing for her character.
There’s also a cameo appearance or two by a new magical race in California that (I’m slightly embarrassed to admit) made me squee out loud. They’re a delightful addition to this series, and I hope we meet them again. Less pleasant, but equally compelling, are the black witches, including more of the Hardesty clan that has caused so much trouble for the werewolves in the last few books. They are truly, irredeemably evil … even to their own.
Wild Sign is a fascinating story, hard to put down. But, fair warning, the darkness and horror vibes are especially strong with this novel. The horror includes trigger-warning types of events, like (minor spoilers here) (view spoiler)[scenes with a mind-controlling rapist and with another old enemy of Charles whose backstory includes horrible crimes against children, incest is implied at another point, and something happens offscreen that I can best describe as tentacle sex (hide spoiler)]. Briggs grapples with serious issues in this series and this book in particular, and she never lets favorite characters off the hook. Still, there’s an underlying optimism and hopefulness that ultimately carries the day in Briggs’ books.
Some highly interesting events happen at the end of Wild Sign, especially with the epilogue, that open up all sorts of intriguing options for later books. I’m glad Briggs comes out with these MERCY THOMPSON and ALPHA AND OMEGA books about once a year! They make up one — or maybe two, depending on how you slice it — of my very favorite urban fantasy series.
Initial post: I've been approved for a NetGalley ARC, cheers!! I always get so unreasonably excited when I get a new Patricia Briggs book. Or maybe it's reasonably excited. :)...more
This review is for the spooky title story by Charles Dickens, "To Be Read at Dusk," published in 1852. You can download or read this story for free heThis review is for the spooky title story by Charles Dickens, "To Be Read at Dusk," published in 1852. You can download or read this story for free here at Project Gutenberg.
The unnamed narrator happens across five couriers sitting on a bench near a Swiss mountain, the Great St. Bernard, "looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow." <--Read: It's bloody red, and the imagery is underscored by the bodies of unlucky travelers stored in a nearby shed.
The couriers begin to talk of ghost stories - but not your ordinary ghosts. One story is of a young wife who has a portentous vision of a dark man that haunts her. The other story is of two twin brothers: when one brother falls ill, he tells the other brother, who is leaving on a long trip, "If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go." And apparently he REALLY means it.
This is a haunting story (or really three stories: two framed by a third) that can be read on a few different levels. Are there ghosts? Or is it a purely psychological tale, with no real ghosts, just people frightening themselves? Or is Dickens, perhaps, telling us a deeper tale, using symbolism?
I was scratching my head over some of the aspects of this tale and how to interpret them, so I went on a Google search and came across the most fascinating essay here: https://journals.openedition.org/jsse.... It’s a little dense and scholarly but has some really intriguing ideas in it. I recommend it if you want to do a deep dive!
4.5 stars - my favorite of the 1944 stories nominated for Retro Hugo awards! You can read "Arena" free online here or here. Review first posted on Fan4.5 stars - my favorite of the 1944 stories nominated for Retro Hugo awards! You can read "Arena" free online here or here. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, together with reviews for ALL of the current Retro Hugo novelette and short story nominees. Seriously, this FanLit column took me HOURS to put together, even though I didn't write all of the reviews in it, so please scoot over there and take a quick look and let me know if my efforts paid off. Feel free to add a comment to the thread there. :)
So, "Arena":
Two huge space fleets near Pluto are about to engage in a battle to the death: Humans and the aliens they call the Outsiders. Bob Carson, a young human in an individual scout ship, is about to engage with his Outsider counterpart in another scouter when he suddenly blacks out, only to awaken under a dome on a planet in another dimension. Across from him is a large red ball with retractable tentacles that turns out to be the Outsider scout, and the two are separated by an invisible barrier.
A disembodied voice informs Carson that if the space battle ensues, one side will be wholly exterminated, but that “winner” will be so damaged that it will “retrogress and never fulfill its destiny, but decay and return to mindless dust.” So this powerful entity has plucked Carson and the Outsider out of the two fleets to fight a one-on-one duel to the death. This being will destroy the entire spacefleet of the loser, allowing the winning species to continue to progress. But given the invisible barrier between the two, it will be a battle of brains as much as physical strength.
I first came across "Arena" at about age 13 in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964, a book that was instrumental in shaping my love and tastes for SF. "Arena" was one of the most compelling and memorable stories in the collection, and rereading it now, a few decades later, I’m impressed with how well this novelette has withstood the test of time. Compared to some of the other Retro Hugo nominees from this year, it’s an outstanding piece of storytelling, and there’s a nice note of irony to the ending.
"Arena" was used at least partially as inspiration for a famous Star Trek episode in 1967 (also called Arena), which has a quite different ending. Many prefer the Star Trek ending, and I can't really argue with that, but considering that this was written during WWII, when the mood for righteous war was at its peak, it’s impressive that Brown actually took the time to show that Carson does attempt to make peace with the Outsider, which responds with a wave of hatred so strong that it physically weakens him.
"Arena" may be somewhat lacking in depth and nuance, but as a suspenseful, well-told SF action tale from this era, it’s hard to beat....more
4.5 stars - this creepy, excellent novelette is now a Nebula award nominee! Free to read online here at Tor.com. Final review, first posted on Fantasy4.5 stars - this creepy, excellent novelette is now a Nebula award nominee! Free to read online here at Tor.com. Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Some thirty years after graduating from high school and leaving her home town, Stella returns for a visit and attends the funeral of the older brother of one of her childhood friends. She ends up impulsively volunteering to help her friend Marco clean out his brother Denny’s home — a major undertaking, since Denny was a massive hoarder.
Stella often lies about her life for no particular reason, so when she and Marco come across an aged TV set, she asks him if he remembers The Uncle Bob Show, something she had made up on the spot. Oddly, Marco says yes, and as he chats about Uncle Bob and his TV show, Stella begins to remember the show too, and even being part of the show’s child audience several times when it was being filmed at the local public broadcast station. As Stella investigates this old TV show with its unsettling host, she begins to notice the creepy stories that Uncle Bob would tell the children in the audience … stories that may have a lingering effect on the child they’re told to.
Two Truths and a Lie is one of those stories that gets more intriguing and impressive as you look more closely at it and examine its parts. The first time I read it I thought it was okay, maybe 3.5 star material. When it got a Nebula nomination I reread it, and I was completely on board with it the second time around. It’s subtle horror, in a creepypasta type of way, and it has its own internal, inexorable logic. I do feel sympathetic toward Stella, even as it becomes clear that she’s got pathological lying issues. But maybe it’s all the fault of Uncle Bob, who in one of his shows told a story about a girl:
“… the girl was willing to trade who she was for who she could be, so she began to do just that. Little by little, she replaced herself with parts of other people she liked better. Parts of stories she wanted to live. …This girl was her own cuckoo, laying stories in her own head, and the heads of those around her, until even she couldn’t remember which ones were true, or if there was anything left of her.”
The internal logic of the story breaks down a little, leaving the reader confused as to whether Stella’s initial lie about remembering the show was really a lie that somehow became truth, or whether she’d forgotten the show (or blocked it out of her mind) until she mentions it to Marco. The ending also initially seems like it comes out of left field, but the clues to the logic and even inevitability of that ending are there, hidden in Uncle Bob’s tales.
Bonus: Here's a more detailed discussion of the ending: (view spoiler)[The clues are in Uncle Bob's ongoing story about the boy/himself who was buried in the hill, which is referenced several times in the story, and in Uncle Bob's story about Stella, which is mentioned earlier and then repeated just before the end: "... the girl was willing to trade who she was for who she could be, so she began to do just that. Little by little, she replaced herself with parts of other people she liked better. Parts of stories she wanted to live. ...This girl was her own cuckoo, laying stories in her own head, and the heads of those around her, until even she couldn’t remember which ones were true, or if there was anything left of her." And that's what happens in the end: Stella replaces her life with the "boy in the hill" story told by Uncle Bob. (hide spoiler)]
Initial post: What is all this talk about “creepypasta” in connection with this Tor short? (Not just here on GR but also in the comment thread to this story on Tor.com.) I know I’m not much of a horror reader but I’ve somehow managed to get through my entire life until now without hearing about creepypasta, and apparently this is a Thing.
In any case I like Sarah Pinsker; she’s a talented author. Plus karen loves this one....more
In the American Civil War era,Another Hugo award-nominated short story, free online here at Tor.com. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
In the American Civil War era, as soon as she hears that the man of the house has died in the war, Sully, a 15-year-old slave, slits the throats of the five women who own her and have mistreated her. That’s not really so surprising, but what happens to Sully next is.
The murder of a family by a girl so tender and young ripped a devilishly wide tunnel between the fields of existence, for it was not the way of things, and the etherworld thrived on the impermissible.
Sully’s anger cuts a path between these two planes of existence, and the spirit of a teenage girl who died long ago rides that path into Sully’s womb and is immediately born in flesh (conveniently and temporarily shrinking down to baby-size for the birthing process). The new girl, Ziza, and Sully get along well, but there are four more lives Sully took that still require balancing, additional revenants who will need more food than their farm can produce, and a nearby town full of people who are bound to come checking on the farm sooner or later.
Sully’s seething anger toward her former owners is understandable. It’s not the initial murders that take me aback here, but the ongoing bloodthirstiness of the tale, which makes for an odd combination with the romance and the hopefulness of the ending. “Blood is Another Word for Hunger” offers some disturbing metaphors for our own day and time. It’s a disquieting tale: a cry of anger and wanting retribution and more from a world that’s never felt fair....more
Catfish Lullaby, a 2019 Nebula Award-nominated novella, might be described as Louisiana swamp monster Full review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Catfish Lullaby, a 2019 Nebula Award-nominated novella, might be described as Louisiana swamp monster folklore colliding with eldritch Lovecraftian horror. Author A.C. Wise (who also has a second Nebula nomination this year, for her short story “How the Trick is Done”) visits Caleb, the biracial, queer son of the local sheriff, at three key points in his life. We follow Caleb from childhood to adulthood as he navigates his friendship with Cere Royce, the daughter of a once-prominent and depraved local family, and they try to conquer the black magic that haunts her and has destroyed her family.
When Caleb is about twelve, the Royce home mysteriously burns to the ground, killing Cere’s father and two older brothers. Caleb’s single father takes Cere into their home. Cere manages to freak out the schoolboys who have been bullying Caleb for years (“Sometimes you have to be scarier than the monsters,” she comments). The two children begin to cautiously develop a friendship, although Caleb is himself a little freaked out by the strange colors he sometimes sees in Cere’s eyes, the terrible dreams he has about her, and the chilling things she sometimes says, like, say, “I was born to end the world.” When a woman is murdered, Cere begins to suspect that someone in her family has survived and is planning to use their dark magic — and Cere herself — to end the world in flames.
Woven through Caleb’s story are the tales of Catfish John, a legendary half-man, half-catfish creature that hides in the swamp and may be devilish or good (the stories disagree). Cere believes in the helpful version of Catfish John. As terrible events build on each other, Caleb can only hope that Cere is right.
Each chapter begins with a quote from a scholarly book called Myths, History and Legends from the Delta to the Bayou, most of them about Catfish John. The book doesn’t actually exist outside of the pages of this novella, but the quotes add a sense of realism to the legend of Catfish John, grounding the story in our world.
In the South, we have our own blood and pain, and time moves different here. People from elsewhere say folks talk slower down here. We’re slower to forget too and slower to forgive. Even the land holds onto its scars… See, there are two Souths: one on the surface, one underneath. Underneath is where we keep our angels and demons both.
It was difficult for me to believe that Catfish John isn’t a pre-existing myth that A.C. Wise wove into Catfish Lullaby, but as far as I can determine it all came from her fertile imagination.
The jumps in time make Catfish Lullaby feel a little disjointed, but the clash between Catfish John’s magical swamp song and the otherworldly cosmic horrors called down by the Royces makes for a compelling story. The theme of otherness is echoed in Caleb’s racial and sexual identity and in Catfish John’s lonely existence, but there’s a countervailing theme of friendship and family, including found family, that adds a note of hope to the song of Catfish Lullaby....more
It's Nebula-nominated story time! And here's my favorite of the short story nominees, though it probably won't be to everyone's taste. This review is It's Nebula-nominated story time! And here's my favorite of the short story nominees, though it probably won't be to everyone's taste. This review is just for the (super short) story "Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island" by Nibedita Sen, free online here: http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fic.... Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
From Victorian outrage to feminist declarations, each of the ten works cited in this brief story sheds new light on the cannibalism by the native women of Ratnabar Island, the resulting massacre of the natives by the horrified British explorers, and the aftermath, where two young Ratnabari girls are taken to England and assimilated into British society … but not quite. Sen has put so much thought into the different “works” cited in this story, the era in which they were “written,” and the diverse viewpoints of their authors.
I was particularly taken with the wry title of the seventh work, “The Subaltern Will Speak, If You’ll Shut Up and Listen,” an obvious reference to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s seminal 1985 essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” on colonialism. It’s thought-provoking that the last three works in the list let us hear the voices of three of the descendants of the Ratnabari girls taken to England, and that their points of view are not all alike. The fantasy element in “Ten Excerpts” is of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type, but it’s there, adding an additional layer of metaphor to the story.
In Sen’s interview with Nightmare Magazine, she comments that “ ‘Ten Excerpts’ is a pointed middle finger at how colonialism Others and declares monstrous the very cultures it, itself, is in the process of devouring.” That Sen has done that so effectively, with such a very short, satirical story that subverts the hidebound traditions of literary analysis and MLA bibliographical style, is remarkable.
See also my FanLit co-reviewer Skye's review at the link - she has some great insights.
Content notes: It's about cannibalism, so a couple of brief but slightly gory descriptions....more
Stephen King takes over 550 pages here to relate the story of the mysterious Institute an3.75 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Stephen King takes over 550 pages here to relate the story of the mysterious Institute and its merciless dealings with kidnapped children. Given that page count, it shouldn’t be too surprising that King spends the first forty pages setting up his tale with a seemingly unrelated story of a man adrift in his life. Tim Jamieson, an out-of-work cop, takes a hefty payout to give up his seat on an overfull flight, and ends up making his rambling way from Tampa, Florida to the small town of DuPray, South Carolina, where the local sheriff gives him a job as a night knocker, an unarmed beat cop who patrols DuPray during the night. But — as King informs us not once, but twice — great events turn on small hinges.
That same summer, Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old Minneapolis boy with genius-level intelligence, loving parents, and a very mild talent for making pie pans and other lightweight items rattle and move in moments of strong emotion, is kidnapped from his home by a SWAT team that murders Luke’s parents as part of the operation. When Luke awakes from his drugged sleep, he’s in a bedroom that, spookily, almost mirrors his own (there’s no window, for one thing). But outside of the bedroom, he finds he’s in an institutional building in rural Maine that’s nothing like his home, with other kidnapped children and some adult caretakers.
A black girl, Kalisha, introduces Luke to his new life. All of the children and teenagers at the Institute have some degree of talent with either telepathy or telekinesis, and the doctors and staff forcibly work them over to try to enhance their supernatural gifts and to bring out the more-desired telepathy in children like Luke who have only displayed telekinetic power. Luke and a handful of other children are in the part of the Institute called the Front Half. After a few weeks, children “graduate” to the Back Half … and none of them knows for certain what happens to them there, or why they are there. But what’s clear is that no child has ever escaped from the Institute.
The Institute is a horror story of the human heart. The children who have the supernatural powers are entirely sympathetic; it’s the adults surrounding them who are horror figures, particularly the cruel head of the Institute, Mrs. Sigsby, who is of the Nurse Ratched school. She’s assisted by doctors, technicians and orderlies who punish and torment the children in pursuit of their secret goals. The tortures they inflict on their young charges can make for difficult reading. King weaves in allusions to Nazi concentration camps and digs at individuals who, in their fanatic pursuit of a goal, lose their moral compass. If you’re thinking that might also be applied to the current political climate in the U.S., King certainly wouldn’t disagree.
King is a talented storyteller, and though The Institute is a fairly hefty book it moves with a sense of urgency. But even if one accepts (at least for purposes of reading this novel) the existence of telepathy and telekinetics, the plot’s logic breaks down when the Institute’s true goal is finally revealed. The justification for the entire secret scheme of those in charge of the Institute, combined with some cost-benefit analysis when considering the cost in lives and the other potential methods of reaching their goals, really strained my ability to suspend disbelief. That issue is briefly raised and dismissed in a few short paragraphs, but I wasn’t convinced.
If you’re not too inclined to find logical plot holes and poke at them, The Institute is a compelling science fiction read with a solid mix of action, suspense and horror.
Content warning: death, mistreatment, abuse and torture of teens and children....more
One chilly autumn night, seven fox kits beg their mother for a scary story, “so scary our eyes fall out of our heads.” Don’t go to the Bog Cavern, she tells them, because the old storyteller lives there, and the tale she would tell them would be so scary it would put white in their tails. So naturally the seven kits scamper off through the woods to the Bog Cavern as soon as their mother is asleep, and beg the spooky-looking storyteller for a scary story.
“All scary stories have two sides,” the storyteller said. “Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world.”
But, she warns, kits who lose heart and don’t stay until the end of the stories may lose all hope and be too frightened to ever leave their den again. Then she embarks on a series of eight tales. There’s a beloved teacher who turns into a gooey-eyed monster who attacks Mia and her brothers, the fox kits who adore her. There’s also Uly, a runt with a crippled forepaw and six cruel sisters who torment him … but they’re not as bad as the white-fanged Mr. Scratch. And more, including the underwater monster Golgathursh, a skin-stealing witch, and a creepy, crawling disembodied hand fox paw. The stories soon tie together to become one overall tale of the terrible — and occasionally good — adventures of Uly and Mia.
Scary Stories for Young Foxes, a 2019 Newbery Honor book, is a little like a middle-grade version of Watership Down, except with foxes rather than rabbits, and a liberal dose of fox-type horror. Each of the stories in it riffs on a different classic horror trope. For example, the first story — one of the most horrific ones — is a type of zombie tale, in the form of foxes contracting rabies, turning into monsters, and stalking and killing other foxes. A sadistic fox father, with no patience or love for a crippled son, takes on the role of Dracula. Beatrix Potter assumes the role of a scary witch who captures wild animals, steals their essence by writing a story about them, and then kills and stuffs them. (According to Heidicker, Beatrix Potter really did do amateur taxidermy as part of her nature studies, but from the fox’s point of view, of course, it’s horrific.)
One of the main attractions of Scary Stories for Young Foxes is that, despite their close ties to time-honored horror tales and tropes, these stories are generally realistic. Each story revolves around a life-and-death situation that could actually happen to a young wild fox. Heidicker does take a few liberties with real life, though: rabies spreads between the foxes far more quickly than is natural, an alligator shows up in a part of England where it has no business being, and Beatrix Potter’s story here (aside from painting her as villainous, which is certain to offend some readers) diverges somewhat from her actual life history.
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Scary Stories for Young Foxes is beautifully and evocatively told, with lovely and frequently creepy charcoal pencil illustrations by Junyi Wu. As the old storyteller said, there’s an affirmative message underlying the stories, but getting to the end is harrowing for both the fox kits and the reader. Foxes die. Baby foxes die. So it’s not for every reader, but for those who, like the bravest little fox kit, can stick it out, it’s a rewarding set of tales.
Initial post: My teenage son was sleuthing around on my Goodreads account for Christmas present ideas for me and landed on this one. Awww! So now I have a lovely hardback copy of this Newbery Honor book to read, with really wonderful illustrations. Can't wait!!...more
Heads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterHeads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/give....
Personally I can't recommend this dark urban fantasy but I have a lot of friends who loved it. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern (the name courtesy of her hippie mother) seems an obvious misfit at prestigious Yale University. Wealth, athletic talent and academic stardom are nowhere to be found in Alex’s life. Instead she’s a high school dropout with a history of dead-end jobs and drug use, and the survivor of a traumatic multiple homicide. But she has a rare talent that to date has brought her nothing but grief: Alex sees the ghosts of dead people.
As it turns out, that talent is highly useful to Yale’s eight elite secret societies, and they’ve had their eye on Alex for a while. Each of these houses specializes in a different type of black magic — Skull and Bones, for example, performs ritual vivisections of living people, examining their inner organs to predict stock market changes — and these dark rituals attract ghosts. A ninth Yale house, Lethe, polices the magical activities of those other eight houses and is tasked with keeping the ghosts in check, preventing them from causing chaos. Alex gets a full ride scholarship to Yale, provided that she joins Lethe. When a “townie” girl is murdered, Alex feels compelled to investigate it, gradually unearthing a hidden world of corruption, abuse of privilege and evil.
I was warned by a GR friend that Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo’s new contemporary dark fantasy, might be too grim for me, but I was all, I love Leigh Bardugo! I gotta give it a shot! The SIX OF CROWS duology is dark fantasy, so I thought I was prepared.
Silly me.
Ninth House features an onslaught of horrible events, one piling on the next. The trigger list is almost too long to get into, but it includes the aforementioned vivisection, drug abuse, self-neglect, murder … and that’s just in the parts I read or skimmed. I’m reliably informed that its plot also includes child and statutory rape, other types of sexual assault, and forcible eating of human waste. It’s a deeply unpleasant world that Alex Stern lives in, and I realized fairly quickly that I didn’t want to live in it with her, not even for the few days it would take to read this book.
I’m not much of a fan of horror literature in general, and occult horror in particular. You may like Ninth House if you’re a fan of occult horror and are mentally and emotionally up to dealing with the morass of human failings and foul deeds. Ninth House is well-written and detailed, but arguably too detailed and slow-paced. It examines the patriarchy of our society and the unearned privileges of rich white men, who do most (though not all) of the ugly things in this book. Alex herself is a hard-edged survivor, but still struggling to recover from past traumas and to survive the pressures of life at Yale.
This is clearly one of those “your mileage may vary” types of books. Know your reading tastes: if you have major qualms, it's probably not for you....more
This is the graphic novel version of Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," which won the Hugo Award for short stories in 2004. It's a brilliant mash-up This is the graphic novel version of Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," which won the Hugo Award for short stories in 2004. It's a brilliant mash-up of the Sherlock Holmes universe and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, a weird but wonderful fantasy variation on a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
So I'm normally not a graphic novel kind of person - I like my reading straight-up, the traditional way, not in audio or graphic novel version - but when I saw this book sitting on the library shelf staring at me I couldn't resist picking it up, since the original "Study in Emerald" is one of my favorite Gaiman short stories. (Really, it is brilliant.)
It's Victorian days in England Albion, and a doctor, wounded in the Afghanistan war (in this case, by a monstrous being), moves in with a new roommate. Names are never mentioned, but the new roommate is a consulting detective with a deep knowledge of obscure facts. Oh, and he lives on Baker Street. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard comes to beg the detective's help in solving a mystery: an alien noble from Germany has been murdered, emerald blood scattered everywhere. All the nobility and leaders of nations in this world are Lovecraftian aliens, owing to their conquest of the world 700 years earlier. But the thing is, most people heartily approve of government-by-alien-monsters, despite some ... drawbacks. So the detective and the good doctor set off to hunt down the murderers.
I still like the original written version of this story better, but this graphic novel does have about 80-90% of the original version's text (I was doing a side-by-side comparison for most of the novel). The illustrations are appropriately creepy, especially Queen Victoria and her magic tentacles and human mask. :) (view spoiler)[Prince Albert is human, and I just don't even want to think about the human/monster interbreeding going on in this world. (hide spoiler)]
Once you read this, I highly recommend Wikipedia's spoiler-filled page about this book, which includes discussion of the many hints and Easter eggs that Gaiman slipped into this story. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article. The "advertisements" are to die for....more
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