4.5 stars. This is such a fun, fascinating mashup of a murder mystery, humorous boy-band dynamics and The Island of Dr. Moreau. The boy band here is a4.5 stars. This is such a fun, fascinating mashup of a murder mystery, humorous boy-band dynamics and The Island of Dr. Moreau. The boy band here is a group of five half-human, half-animal young men, all with very different personalities and quirks. The murder victim is their overbearing band manager, who's found clawed to death after a party in a hotel where lots of people were high and/or drunk. He was a truly awful person that lots of people wouldn't mind seeing dead. Everyone's a suspect!
Daryl Gregory is brilliant when he's on. Half a star off because the science fiction parts are so totally unbelievable; you just kind of have to roll with it. But it's otherwise a very smart, funny book with some great personalities and a solid murder plot to back it up.
Full review to come! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of the ebook.
Content advisory: Sex, drugs, some gore, and F-bombs litter the pages like confetti. I still got a kick out of it. ...more
This 1930 British novel is a witty and often very insightful story, somewhat a coming-of-age novel about a young woman, Ann Laventie. Ann is from an iThis 1930 British novel is a witty and often very insightful story, somewhat a coming-of-age novel about a young woman, Ann Laventie. Ann is from an intellectual, snobbish and rather pretentious family, just wealthy enough to consider themselves above all of their neighbors in Sussex. Ann is the youngest and doesn't quite fit the family mold. She's more down to earth and caring about others' feelings than her siblings and father (her mother is an invalid and pretty much a non-entity; until the very end you have very few clues as to what's going on in her head).
The question is whether she'll break the mold completely or be fully absorbed into the family's social sphere and way of life.
[image] The rhododendron pie of the title is a great symbol: Ann's family’s tradition is to have a birthday pie filled with fresh flowers instead of fruit. Beautiful but inedible. Everyone loves it except poor Ann, who's just dying for a good old apple pie.
There is a little romance here, but it's a minor element. Mostly it's about social standing and the way people view and treat each other. That may sound simple, but Margery Sharp had a gift with words that made this a joy to read even when events were rather slow-moving and (seemingly, at least) mundane. It's very self-assured for a first novel, and well worth reading if you enjoy this type of historical, personality-driven novel, especially for the $2.99 Kindle price.
May 2021 group read with the Retro Reads group....more
This is a collection of 15 Christmas-themed stories and short works by John Scalzi, mostly humorous but with a few serious notes. Review first posted This is a collection of 15 Christmas-themed stories and short works by John Scalzi, mostly humorous but with a few serious notes. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
I spent part of Christmas Day 2020 reading A Very Scalzi Christmas, a (mostly) humorous collection of short Christmas-themed pieces by, naturally, John Scalzi. As Marion so aptly commented in her review of Scalzi’s highly similar collection Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi, “this collection of works does verge on the silly. It jumps the border of silly. It tap-dances and cartwheels through the world of silly, shrieking ‘Wheeeee!’ ” It’s the same in this case, except with a few more serious pieces to offset the absurd and satirical ones.
Of the humorous pieces, I had two favorites: First, there’s “Jangle the Elf Grants Wishes,” in which Jangle’s boss, the head of the Department of Non-Material Christmas Wishes, tries to make Jangle understand that he can’t just grant someone’s Christmas wish without considering the larger repercussions. If Genevieve wants a white Christmas, Jangle’s style is to send a blizzard that dumps two feet of snow on four states, causing massive travel delays and power outages. Jangle is kind of the Christmas version of the monkey’s paw. The other is the final piece, “Resolutions for the New Year: A Bullet Point List,” which begins in classic fashion, losing weight and exercising more, but devolves into a diatribe against his ex-girlfriend Kate, who left him for Chuck, the annoying dude from Accounting. Probably because of all of the narrator’s monologues about robot uprisings and cloning. He’s clearly an alarmingly creepy person, but it’s still a very funny piece.
The Christmas holiday frequently sits somewhat uneasily at the intersection of religious observance and commercial overindulgence, and Scalzi has a keen eye for the foibles of some of the secular traditions associated with Christmas. In “A Bitter November,” the month of November invades Scalzi’s kitchen and, while swiping and eating his Thanksgiving leftovers, complains, well, bitterly, about how December and its holiday festivities have invaded the month of November, especially the days after Thanksgiving, when everyone’s attention shifts to Christmas decorations and shopping. “Interview with Santa’s Reindeer Wrangler” explains how nobody at the North Pole is a fan of the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”:
Well, it makes us look like jerks, doesn’t it? A young reindeer is discriminated against up to and until he has marginal utility. I mean, really. Who looks good in that scenario? Not all of the other reindeer, who come across as bigots and bullies. And not Santa, who is implicitly tacit in reindeer bigotry.
“An Interview with the Christmas Bunny” is a Q&A session with the newly-appointed Christmas Bunny, under a franchise sold by the Easter Bunny. The Bunny is in the thick of plans to compete with Santa and drive down his popularity, though he admits he’s been told he needs to leave Jesus strictly alone. There’s also “An Interview with the Nativity Innkeeper,” in which the innkeeper defends his actions on that fateful night and criticizes the wise men’s gift choices for the Christ child (“Have you ever in your life gone to a baby shower where someone says, congratulations on the baby, here’s some perfume. No. Because most people have some sense.”).
Underlying the satirical humor is Scalzi’s goodhearted affection for Christmas, which comes out most clearly in the sole poem in the collection, “Jackie Jones and Melrose Mandy,” in which a girl with an immense collection of dolls begins to understand how the joy of Christmas is more in giving than getting, and in the short stories “Christmas in July” and “Sarah’s Sister.” Those two stories are the longest works in this collection, and the most serious and touching, particularly “Sarah’s Sister,” which shoots straight past sentimental and heads for the tearjerker target.
Most of the pieces in A Very Scalzi Christmas have been previously published on his website “The Whatever” or elsewhere, but three of the better pieces are new and exclusive to this collection. The collection was an amusing way to while away an hour or two with Christmas-flavored works....more
A witty, intelligent contemporary romance with more heart than usual. Emily, fresh off breaking up with her slightly boring boyfriend, immerses herselA witty, intelligent contemporary romance with more heart than usual. Emily, fresh off breaking up with her slightly boring boyfriend, immerses herself in an online flirtation with (let me get this straight) her roommate’s brother’s good friend, Jack. Jack is in Oregon and Emily’s in San Francisco, so Emily’s comfortable knowing this is just for fun. Or is it? But Jack is hiding some secrets...
This is the first in a set of (at least for now) four books that collect all of the “Welcome to Night Vale” scripts, along with a couple of pages of cThis is the first in a set of (at least for now) four books that collect all of the “Welcome to Night Vale” scripts, along with a couple of pages of commentary on each episode. I wasn’t previously familiar with Night Vale, but my 21-year-old daughter told me she listened to the podcasts regularly. Night Vale is a town where weird, sometimes spooky, often creepy things happen on a daily basis, and are reported on with equanimity by our radio announcer, Cecil.
They have a very dry, absurdist type of humor that I enjoyed, and I even listened to two or three episodes on YouTube. But I never really got into them, and it was too easy to set this aside for other more compelling reads.
I think fans of the podcasts will really enjoy these books. They’re probably not the best place to start for newbies, though.
I received a free copy of these books from the publicist for review. Thanks, and sorry they didn’t work out for me!...more
This collection of Allie Brosh's thoughts on dog ownership, depression, moving, weird childhood ideas, self-identity, and other life topics is a littlThis collection of Allie Brosh's thoughts on dog ownership, depression, moving, weird childhood ideas, self-identity, and other life topics is a little random (a lot of it was previously posted on her website). She's really insightful - I feel like I understand depression better after reading her chapters about dealing with it. And her "Identity" chapters delve into the lies we tell ourselves. I laughed even though I see myself in some of these behaviors.
Her drawings never fail to crack me up. I don't know if I'd have the self-confidence to draw myself as someone who resembles a weird fish, though. [image] And just the other day my family was chuckling about how our dog always tilts his head when we're talking to him. Alhough our dog has never fallen over from doing it. :) [image] A super quick read with a good mix of laughs and poignancy, illustrated with hilarious drawings.
Content notes: Lots of swearing.
Initial comments: I will always love Allie Brosh for introducing me to the Alot.
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
This Nebula-nominated short story is a conversation bet
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
This Nebula-nominated short story is a conversation between two aliens, one of which CANNOT BELIEVE that intelligent beings can be made out of ... meat. It’s very short and funny, but with a bite to it. I love the creativity of the concept.
This 1891 story by Robert Louis Stevenson is a fun October read, just a little spooky. Native Hawaiian Keawe meets a man with a beautiful home but a dThis 1891 story by Robert Louis Stevenson is a fun October read, just a little spooky. Native Hawaiian Keawe meets a man with a beautiful home but a deep sadness in his heart. It turns out that the man's wealth and possessions all come from a mysterious bottle with a magical imp inside that grants your wishes. But there's always a catch with wishes being granted. In this case, the only way to get rid of the bottle is to sell it for less than you paid for it, and if you die still possessing the bottle, your soul will go to hell. As the price drops to pennies, the plot thickens.
How it plays out is interesting and rather creative. Stevenson examines the hearts of men and women as they deal with the hopes and fears that accompany the magical bottle.
Free to read online many places, including here....more
3.5 stars for this MG/YA fantasy. Full review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Anya is an orphaned young princess, about twelve or thirteen years ol3.5 stars for this MG/YA fantasy. Full review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Anya is an orphaned young princess, about twelve or thirteen years old, and a bookworm (as many of the best princesses in literature seem to be). She and her fifteen year old sister Morven are orphans under the dubious care of their stepmother, a botanist who is enthusiastic about plants but completely uninterested in and uninvolved with the girls, and Duke Rikard, their stepstepfather (which is what you get when your stepmother remarries after your father dies). Morven is supposed to be crowned as the queen when she turns sixteen in three months, but she’s far more interested in handsome princes than in ruling. This suits Duke Rickard just fine: he’s a black-hearted sorcerer who’s intent on making his control of the Kingdom of Trallonia permanent.
Duke Rickard is also given to transforming unlucky servants and hapless princes into frogs. Morven asks Anya to do the dirty work of changing his latest frog victim, Prince Denholm, back into a human with a kiss (kissing frogs, even if they’re really handsome princes, is definitely not on Morven’s agenda). Luckily their librarian has a magical Transmogrification Reversal Lip Balm that will reverse the transformation spell without the otherwise necessary ingredient of true love. Unluckily, Anya kisses the wrong frog with the last of the lip balm, and although that prince was happy to no longer be a frog, it does still leave Denholm in a frog-sized bind, and making more lip balm involves assembling several tricky ingredients, like a pint of witches’ tears and six pea-sized stones of three-day-old hail from a mountaintop.
Coincidentally, at the same time Duke Rickard announces to Anya that he’s sending her far away to a school for royalty, on a journey that seems likely to be fatal for Anya and leave Morven alone and in danger. Tanitha, the senior royal dog, tells Anya that she must leave the palace and seek help from others to defeat the Duke. So Anya embarks on a twofold Quest: searching for the elusive ingredients to the Transmogrification Reversal Lip Balm, and also searching for those who can help to overthrow Duke Rikard and stop his evil plans. Anya is assisted in her quest by Ardent, a young and excitable royal dog; Shrub, a junior thief who’s also been shape-changed by a sorcerer into a huge, bright orange talking newt ...
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(two shout-outs to Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the price of one!); a Good Wizard who tries to evade her obligation not to directly help Anya; Snow White ― who is NOT what you’d expect ― and seven dwarves; and many others. Anya’s quest turns out to encompass more than she expected, as several people that she meets strongly encourage her to do even more to change their society ― in particular, to bring back the All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs.
Garth Nix has a lot of fun with Frogkisser!, weaving in various fairy tales and fantasies, both old and new, and twisting them in humorous ways. Besides the aforementioned Monty Python references, there’s a Robin Hood figure, Bert (short for Roberta, which is only a couple degrees of separation from Robin), leader of the Association of Responsible Robbers, who steal from the rich and give to the poor in time-honored fashion. I never read Lloyd Alexander‘s CHRONICLES OF PYRDAIN series, so it took me a while to realize that there was a shout-out to Gurgi behind the Wallet of Crunchings and Munchings that Anya is offered by the semi-helpful Good Wizard.
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And OF COURSE magic carpets have to wrap you up in a tight roll so you can hardly breathe don’t fall off them when they’re zooming around. [image] Frogkisser! is a little long-winded for a middle grade novel, but then winds up in an unexpectedly rushed manner. It didn’t entirely captivate me, and I never really lost myself in the story. But it’s a reasonably fun middle grade fantasy with some weightier elements. Nix pays attention to diversity: the Good Wizard, like Bert, is dark-skinned woman; Snow White is an old man (nicknamed for his snowy white beard) who previously was known by another familiar name; the seven dwarves include three females. Nix also works some important life lessons into the plot.
Bert and Dehlia had planted the seed of thought in her mind, and it was growing away busily and putting out new shoots of thought, all of which were quite bothersome, because they were about things like responsibility and fairness, and thinking about others, and why being a princess perhaps should be about more than just having a nice library and three meals a day, particularly when other people didn’t have these things …
These periodic discussions of the previously unexamined privilege that Anya enjoys as a wealthy princess, her responsibility to others, and the need to recognize their rights, can get a little clunky and heavy-handed, but the book’s heart is in the right place.
Frogkisser! was a finalist for the 2018 Locus Award for Young Adult Book and is a current nominee for the 2018 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. ...more
[image] With just a whiff of Twelfth Night about it, this Georgian era novel by Georgette Heyer is lots of cross-dressing, romantic, swashbuckling fun:[image] With just a whiff of Twelfth Night about it, this Georgian era novel by Georgette Heyer is lots of cross-dressing, romantic, swashbuckling fun: hidden identities, love interests - two for the price of one! (also, a little difficult when you’re posing as the opposite sex, but trust love to find a way), a couple of sword fights, an attempted elopement or two, a bit of a mystery, and a master manipulator pulling the strings.
A brother and sister, Peter and Kate Merriot, are traveling to London in the late 1740s, soon after the unsuccessful Jacobite rebellion. They stop at an inn and discover an elopement in process: Letitia Grayson, a lovely and naive young heiress, is running away with Gregory Markham. But Letty has realized that Markham is an unkind brute and is trying to back out. The Merriots decide they need to get involved and help Letty out, to great comic effect.
The villain is successfully sent on a wild goose chase, just before Sir Anthony Fanshawe, a “mountain” of a man (think very large but swift-on-his-feet linebacker type) arrives to whisk Letty back to London. She’s happy to go along once she realizes that Sir Anthony doesn’t have any romantic intentions toward her. But someone else is interested in Sir Anthony: Peter Merriot, who is actually Prudence, while her brother Robin is playing the role of Kate. Prudence and Robin are in hiding because they (especially Robin) got involved on the wrong side of the Jacobite Rebellion. The cross-dressing is supposed to be helping to keep them from being recognized. Just roll with it.
Sir Anthony looks like a big, mentally slow guy (we meet his type occasionally in Heyerville, as in The Toll-Gate and The Unknown Ajax) but Prudence is fairly certain that his sleepy-looking eyes are seeing a lot more than they seem to. Meanwhile, Robin is very interested in Letty, who thinks he’s a girl and her new bestie. And then Prudence and Robin’s father sweeps into town, announcing to all and sundry that he’s the Lost Viscount, an heir to a great estate. Prudence and Robin, who are familiar with their father’s crazy, elaborate schemes, are dubious...
Anyway, it’s loads of fun in a distinctly old-fashioned way (fair enough, this book was written in 1928). You have to be on board with alpha-type guys masterfully taking charge of situations, stealing kisses, and so forth. At the same time, you have this really interesting character in Prudence, who has had to masquerade as a boy or young man so often in life that she's EXTREMELY self-sufficient for a lady of that time, and the book actually deals with that issue, although I don't think it completely comes to grips with the tension between Prudence's independence and her love interest's desire to protect her and take care of things for her.
It was still early days in Heyer’s career but she’s starting to hit her stride here, with some delightful, witty dialogue and memorable characters. I wasn’t really fond of the brilliant but immensely narcissistic father, but he had his amusing moments.
That Sir Anthony, though. He’s a keeper! As is Prudence. [image] Definitely my two favorite characters!...more
All the stars! "Utopia, LOL?" is a 2018 Nebula award nominee in the short story category, and just possibly my favorite of the whole batch. Read it whAll the stars! "Utopia, LOL?" is a 2018 Nebula award nominee in the short story category, and just possibly my favorite of the whole batch. Read it when you're in the mood for some off-beat humor! It also has some surprising depth to it. It's free online here at Strange Horizons. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Charlie Wilcox, after uncounted centuries of cryogenic frozenness, is decanted in a distant future. He’s cheerfully helped to adjust by an extremely ditzy person named Kit/dinaround, who is the assistant of the AI known as the Allocator, which watches over and guides humanity. Through a temporary upload station, Kit shows Charlie the ropes of their virtual society, which humans (who now number in the trillions) experience solely as digital entities, “uploaded consciousnesses in distributed Matryoshka brains.” It’s an immense, and immensely complex, Matrix type of world.
After Kit takes Charlie on a quick trip to the “Bird Simulator” world, which leaves Charlie totally freaked out, Allocator intervenes and sends Charlie to a simulated world that he’ll find more congenial: Middle Earth. Kit is appalled; Charlie is delighted. But even a perfect elvish conclave, “green and vibrant, untouched by the tides of strife or decay” and “inhabited by beautiful and mysterious immortals” (“Siiiiiiigh” says Kit) might get old after a while. And Allocator has plans …
“Utopia, LOL?” is an absolutely delightful story. Kit is a truly hilarious narrator whose commentary and digital side conversations with Allocator make for one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. There’s a heartwarming and poignant conclusion to the tale, giving it an unexpected depth. It reads even better the second time around. Don’t miss this one!
P.S. If you're confused by the ending (which is totally understandable), here's my take on it. Spoilers ahoy! (view spoiler)[Once Charles dinks around in the virtual reality for 11 years and realizes that he wants to live a more productive, useful life, Allocator sends him on an interstellar probe to look for new habitats for humanity. This was Allocator’s master plan all along. Kit watches Charles go, then realizes that Allocator’s hope and plan is for her to go do the same thing. And she consents.
That said, I can see an alternate interpretation, which is that Kit is consenting to continue to be Allocator's assistant and, in a sense, its tool, to find other people to go exploring the universe for humanity, even if it requires Allocator to wipe her memory after each time. (hide spoiler)]...more
2.5 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature (along with my co-reviewer Jana's review). It took me nearly two months to read this Eurovision i2.5 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature (along with my co-reviewer Jana's review). It took me nearly two months to read this Eurovision in space/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy mashup, start to finish. My journey began with Anticipation, shifted to Befuddlement and Boredom, passed through Dismay, flirted with DNF, picked up again a few weeks later with Resolution, and ended with an overdose of Whimsy and Zaniness.
Oort St. Ultraviolet and his old bandmate Decibel Jones, the two remaining members of a defunct glam rock band called Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, are tapped on the shoulders by a seven-foot-tall ultramarine roadrunner-type alien to represent humanity in the periodic Metagalactic Grand Prix, a musical contest that the various races of the galaxy have settled on as an alternative to their massively destructive Sentience Wars. Newly space-faring races ― like humanity ― are required to participate in the Grand Prix to prove their sentience. If they come in last place in the contest, the entire race will be promptly and summarily executed, perhaps by a passing Vogon ship.
Even though all they have to do is not come in last, the odds are against humanity and the Absolute Zeroes. Jungle rules apply to the Grand Prix contest and, frankly, the Absolute Zeroes are out of practice, out of inspiration, and missing the third member of their group, Mira Wonderful Star, who was the glue that held the group together and made it function. Still, there’s nothing for Decibel to do but try to write a new song, and perhaps enjoy a little partying and alien strange along the way.
Space Opera had its moments, and parts of it really did tickle my funny bone. Catherynne M. Valente slings a lot of humor around, and some of it is bound to stick. I think my favorite bits were about Capo, Oort’s cat who for no particular reason (the way most events in this novel occur) accompanies the two humans on their trip through space on an interstellar ship called Cake in the Rain, to the planet where the Grand Prix event will be held. The roadrunner alien gives Capo the power of speech (“Just a little strobe lighting in the hippocampus”) to prove to the humans that speech isn’t the determining factor in proving sentience. But Capo still thinks and acts pretty much like most cats do.
Nico and Siouxsie Caliskan’s enormous four-year-old Maine Coon-Angora-somebody’s-barn-cat-possibly-a-stray-albino-panther mix was entirely unbothered by suddenly achieving the ability to speak rather posh English. Oh, certainly it had been alarming at first. But adjusting to sudden changes in your circumstances was easy when you didn’t really care about anything. As far as she was concerned, she’d always talked. By some miracle, everyone else had recently achieved the ability to listen properly. She was over the novelty within half an hour…
The key to a happy life, Capo devoutly believed, was never giving much of a damn what happened in any given day so long as you got in a nap, a kill, and a snuggle, and the snuggle was optional.
I frequently came across parts like this that made me snicker or even laugh out loud. But the slight plot of Space Opera is surrounded by just SO MUCH glitter and wordplay and absurd humor and wandering off on tangents and then meandering casually back again, that it’s hard not to get lost in the forest of fanciful details. Pretty much every single sentence includes some kind of in-joke or off-beat humor or just plain silliness. After a while it just became mentally exhausting to wade through.
I’m a lifelong fan of the HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY series, and Space Opera has a marked similarity to Douglas Adams’s work, both in the abundance of screwball, often deadpan humor and in the slightness of the plot. But Space Opera just didn’t create the same magic for me. In particular, its length works against it, especially with all of the distracting, at most semi-relevant, digressions. But this is clearly one of those “your mileage may vary” books. If you adore Douglas Adams, Eurovision and/or glam rock, there’s a fairly good chance you’ll like Space Opera.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review. Thank you!!
Content notes: A lot of F-bombs. Also, um, alien sex, but it's so esoteric that it's hard to imagine it offending anyone.
Update #1: I dunno, people. I’m having a tough time getting through this book. Its Hitchhiker-type of humor can be very funny, but too often I find it just silly and exhausting. It’s going on hiatus for a week or so; I’m on vacation* and I’ve got lots of other things to read and do rather than force myself to power through to the end of this book.
* I have three large, tough sons - two in their early twenties and one an older teen - holding down the home fort against any intruders. No lie. So I don’t feel like I’m being reckless in sharing my vacation status here. :) Meanwhile, my husband and I are having a nice time celebrating our 25th anniversary in Cabo San Lucas!
Original post: The hardcover ARC just appeared on my doorstep yesterday, and this looks like so much fun! Sort of a glam rock twist on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-type humor.
Life is beautiful and life is stupid. This is, in fact, widely regarded as a universal rule not less inviolable than the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Uncertainty Principle, and No Post on Sundays. As long as you keep that in mind, and never give more weight to one than the other, the history of the galaxy is a simple tune with lyrics flashed on-screen and a helpful, friendly bouncing disco ball of all-annihilating flames to help you follow along.
Humorous (and R-rated) science fiction short story from the Ilona Andrews team, free online here on their website. It's very different from their usuaHumorous (and R-rated) science fiction short story from the Ilona Andrews team, free online here on their website. It's very different from their usual fare, a space opera tale with (as usual) a romance subplot, mixed with (not so usual) lots of rather clinical discussions about ... the act of sex. Because of reasons. If that strikes you as something you might think is funny, you might give this a try.
The story itself is a little weak, about a conflict between various space factions and the need to get one particular race of highly trained military warriors on the side of humanity. The more I thought about the plot, the more holes I could see in it. And the romance is of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it type. But there are some nice touches and details to the story (I really like the older duke character), along with a few heartwarming moments. Which makes for a bit of an odd combination with the clinical discussions of sexual positions and other smuttiness, but it is what it is.
The Andrews team comment on their website that this story was written as kind of a (dirty) joke, in response to a challenge to wrap a story around a particular phrase. Anne suggested in our chat in her thread that this is the title phrase. I think she's right. :)...more
A weak 3 stars for me. This surrealistic, absurdist short story is one of those that I feel like I should love but just don't. It just never really enA weak 3 stars for me. This surrealistic, absurdist short story is one of those that I feel like I should love but just don't. It just never really engaged me. I read it twice because karen really liked it, but it was only marginally better for me the second time.
Still, if you love absurd humor, or if the idea of a parody of The Metamorphosis sounds like it might be your cuppa tea, give this Tor online freebie a shot. It only take about 10 minutes to read....more
4.5 stars. In the 180 pages of this zany, funny and intelligent SF novel, Roger Zelazny tells the story of Fred Cassidy, an eternal college student do4.5 stars. In the 180 pages of this zany, funny and intelligent SF novel, Roger Zelazny tells the story of Fred Cassidy, an eternal college student doing his level best to never graduate, who gets caught up in a strange mystery of a missing alien artifact, the star-stone, which has no known purpose. Nevertheless, several players - both human and alien - are convinced that Fred knows more about the location of the star-stone than he does, and are willing to use deadly force to get an answer out of him.
Somehow Zelazny mixes off-the-wall elements like alien investigators masquerading as kangaroos and wombats and an inversion machine (which makes fast food and mediocre bourbon taste AMAZING) with literary writing, tongue in cheek humor, and allusions to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other literary and scientific sources. It's a brilliant achievement, one of those books I'll have to read two or three times to try to catch everything that Zelazny is doing, and even then I'll probably miss half of it.
An incredibly fun and strange mental workout. Full review to come!...more
4.5 stars! This humorous short story by Neil Gaiman is, like A Study in Emerald, a take-off on the Cthulhu mythos. Free online here at Tor.com, here w4.5 stars! This humorous short story by Neil Gaiman is, like A Study in Emerald, a take-off on the Cthulhu mythos. Free online here at Tor.com, here we have the monstrous Cthulhu dictating his memoirs to a hapless human servant named Whateley. The beginning of his personal history:
I was spawned uncounted aeons ago, in the dark mists of Khhaa’yngnaiih (no, of course I don’t know how to spell it. Write it as it sounds), of nameless nightmare parents, under a gibbous moon. It wasn’t the moon of this planet, of course, it was a real moon. On some nights it filled over half the sky and as it rose you could watch the crimson blood drip and trickle down its bloated face, staining it red, until at its height it bathed the swamps and towers in a gory dead red light.
Those were the days.
I laughed right out loud, and never looked back.
I'm not a serious fan of Lovecraft and am only passingly familiar with that mythology, so a lot of Gaiman's sly references went swooshing over my head. The Lovecraft wiki was extremely helpful with a few key terms like shoggoth, though.
A must read for Lovecraft fans, and recommended for anyone who likes fantasy horror and humor....more
3.5 stars for this satirical Victorian-era novella by Oscar Wilde. Young Lord Arthur, engaged to the lovely Sybil (interesting name choice, there!) go3.5 stars for this satirical Victorian-era novella by Oscar Wilde. Young Lord Arthur, engaged to the lovely Sybil (interesting name choice, there!) goes to a posh party hosted by Lady Windermere, where one of the amusements is the eerily accurate fortune-telling by her pet palm reader, Mr. Podgers. Lord Arthur decides to take his turn:
Lord Arthur smiled, and shook his head. ‘I am not afraid,’ he answered. ‘Sybil knows me as well as I know her.’
‘Ah! I am a little sorry to hear you say that. The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding. No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.'
Unfortunately, Podgers (on the hush) predicts an ominous future for Lord Arthur: he's going to murder a distant relative. Arthur decides to take fate by the hands and commit the murder sooner rather than later, so he can wash his hands of it and marry his sweet, beautiful fiancee without this burden on his soul. <--- This totally didn't make sense to me but you just have to roll with it.
But fate has its own plans for Lord Arthur.
I never was able to really buy into the nonsensical central premise, but I guess that's the beauty of this parody of the Gothic genre. Oscar Wilde's engaging wit and epigrams raise this story several notches, and the ending was a pleasant surprise.
3.5 stars. Who knew that Mark Twain wrote a Victorian era version of the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places ... or at least half of it? This novella is3.5 stars. Who knew that Mark Twain wrote a Victorian era version of the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places ... or at least half of it? This novella is an amusing, quick read.
Henry Adams, a young man working a clerking job in San Francisco, is lost at sea, picked up by another ship and taken to London. When he arrives he is ragged and penniless. It just so happens that a couple of rich brothers have bought up a one-of-a-kind bank note for a million pounds. They make a bet about whether, if they give the bank note to a destitute stranger, he will be able to make something of it, or will be arrested or refused if he tries to cash in or use the money. Henry Adams happens to walk by their window, and becomes the subject of their human nature experiment.
It's a humorous story (of course, it's Mark Twain) with a can-do main character and just a little romance (instalove, more for smiles than feelz). My favorite passage:
I handed the note to him, and said: "Oh, very well; I apologize."
He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes all around over, and has folds in it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava which you find hardened on little levels on the side of Vesuvius.
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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