Saturday, October 31, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
GUD Reviews: Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca
Midnight Picnic
by Nick Antosca
Word Riot Press, 2009
Paperback, 182 pages
ISBN: 0977934330 (Amazon.com)
9780977934331 (Book Depository)
$15.95 / £9.72
Midnight Picnic is GUD contributor Nick Antosca's second novel, but is written with such assurance and skill that it might more easily be his twenty-second. On the first page, Antosca draws the reader in to unwilling protagonist Bram's world, which is about to get uncannily strange.
Bram's living a mundane, drab existence over a bar called Moms until the night he comes home tired and accidentally runs over the bar's dog, Baby. His attempts to succour the injured animal show him to be basically decent, but ineffectual. He wants to do the right thing, yet gives up when it becomes too difficult. This is the issue Bram will have to face up to as the story continues.
The skeleton of a young boy is found, and his spirit makes a connection with Bram that takes him on a nightmare journey into the land of the dead. Here, he learns far more about himself--and the dead and living--than he ever thought possible. However, at heart, Midnight Picnic is not a ghost story. It's a tale of redemption and the healing effects of time.
The central premise is that, given time to reflect, we can all come to a realisation of where we have gone wrong in our lives. No matter how despicable our crimes, redemption is possible, but it comes not from outside, but from the person themselves, from their changed relationship with themselves and the other dead. It's a powerful message in a book that refuses to label anyone as evil.
Only Adam is depicted as incapable of this process, perhaps because he died too young. For him, time to reflect has only bred hatred; he is locked into childish ideas of right, wrong, and punisment.
All Antosca's characters are vividly realised, from Bram's lost soul of an on-off girlfriend to the old man who lives in the woods, and has, in the past, done whatever it took to stay hidden there. Before vengeance comes for him, he seems to have already learnt his lesson, telling another intruder on his solitude, "I wouldn't do anything to you...".
This book is relatively short, but the reader needn't feel short-changed. There's a complete story here, one that compels as well as entertains. It's fascinating to travel with Bram and Adam into the lands of the dead, a place into which the living often stray, unawares, a land that's depicted as chillingly as the dead landscape of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
An excellent book to read on Halloween, with your head under the covers and a heavy flashlight handy.
Nick Antosca's story 'Soon You Will be Gone and Possibly Eaten' appears in GUD Issue 3.
Original review, pics, comments:
http://ping.fm/BpCUa
by Nick Antosca
Word Riot Press, 2009
Paperback, 182 pages
ISBN: 0977934330 (Amazon.com)
9780977934331 (Book Depository)
$15.95 / £9.72
Midnight Picnic is GUD contributor Nick Antosca's second novel, but is written with such assurance and skill that it might more easily be his twenty-second. On the first page, Antosca draws the reader in to unwilling protagonist Bram's world, which is about to get uncannily strange.
Bram's living a mundane, drab existence over a bar called Moms until the night he comes home tired and accidentally runs over the bar's dog, Baby. His attempts to succour the injured animal show him to be basically decent, but ineffectual. He wants to do the right thing, yet gives up when it becomes too difficult. This is the issue Bram will have to face up to as the story continues.
The skeleton of a young boy is found, and his spirit makes a connection with Bram that takes him on a nightmare journey into the land of the dead. Here, he learns far more about himself--and the dead and living--than he ever thought possible. However, at heart, Midnight Picnic is not a ghost story. It's a tale of redemption and the healing effects of time.
The central premise is that, given time to reflect, we can all come to a realisation of where we have gone wrong in our lives. No matter how despicable our crimes, redemption is possible, but it comes not from outside, but from the person themselves, from their changed relationship with themselves and the other dead. It's a powerful message in a book that refuses to label anyone as evil.
Only Adam is depicted as incapable of this process, perhaps because he died too young. For him, time to reflect has only bred hatred; he is locked into childish ideas of right, wrong, and punisment.
All Antosca's characters are vividly realised, from Bram's lost soul of an on-off girlfriend to the old man who lives in the woods, and has, in the past, done whatever it took to stay hidden there. Before vengeance comes for him, he seems to have already learnt his lesson, telling another intruder on his solitude, "I wouldn't do anything to you...".
This book is relatively short, but the reader needn't feel short-changed. There's a complete story here, one that compels as well as entertains. It's fascinating to travel with Bram and Adam into the lands of the dead, a place into which the living often stray, unawares, a land that's depicted as chillingly as the dead landscape of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
An excellent book to read on Halloween, with your head under the covers and a heavy flashlight handy.
Nick Antosca's story 'Soon You Will be Gone and Possibly Eaten' appears in GUD Issue 3.
Original review, pics, comments:
http://ping.fm/BpCUa
Monday, October 12, 2009
Banned Books Week: Thoughts from Lisa Grabenstetter
GUD contributor Lisa Grabenstetter writes: The American Library Association's 'Banned Books Week' was September 26th through October 3rd this year. As you can see, I'm a little late coming to it. Nevertheless, I think it an important topic to arrive at--no matter how tardily.
The vast majority of banned books are children's books, and they're challenged for the very fact of being written for children. Somewhere, somewhen, some people came up with the idea that children's brains are infinitely malleable. Yet, furthermore, every single impression worked into a child is unchanging and indelible. That's right. You, reader, who were afraid at age five that flying skull monsters would come out of the toilet to eat you every time you flushed*: you still leave the door unlocked for a swift getaway. We know it. Time, age, experience? They are nothing to the fact that you read about toilet monsters once!
This is how many book banners would appear to think.
So, permanently scarred by The Toilet Monster Compendium, you are now lobbying to get it removed from your local library. It is simply not enough that you advise all of your friends not to read it, and tell them not to let their children read it. Not enough that you let nary a copy cross the threshold of your own home. No, you must prevent all those innocents who may ever want to check it out from your local library from doing so, too!
Banning alone, though, is an ineffective strategy. It may cover all those who have no other recourse but to borrow the book from the library, but it leaves all other options for acquiring the book wide open. How will you prevent impressionable children (or their well-meaning relatives) buying The Toilet Monster Compendium? Or borrowing it from a friend? How about that big-budget Hollywood adaptation with Crispin Glover in the title role? Worse, controversy is a more surefire way to make a book (or movie, or picture) skyrocket in popularity.
So what is a budding mind-controller to do?
Find a group of people who can be led into being equally offended by The Toilet Monster Compendium, and gain their support. Even if none of them have ever read it, and the reason they're offended has absolutely nothing to do with the reasons you're still terrified of brightly-gleaming porcelain, this can be an effective strategy. Not only will you be more likely to get the book banned, due to sheer force of numbers, but the involvement of more people means you can cover more fronts. While you're campaigning to get Toilet Monster removed from the public library, someone else can be working on the second-grade curriculum, and the local bookstores. You can hold midnight book-burnings in protest, gaining media attention and encouraging other branches of the group to challenge the book as well.
A friend of mine actually removed his kid from the religious school she was attending over a scenario quite similar to this. Now, he was of the religion this school represented... hence having his child attend in the first place. But then the school voted to unilaterally ban the book The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) by Phillip Pullman from school grounds. They sent home notices with students, warning parents not to allow their children to read the book or see the movie. When my friend asked the principal whether he had ever read the book himself, the principal responded that he had not. He was having it banned because of a protest within his religion against the book, timed to coincide with the release of the movie, and due to some anti-religious content they had told him the book contained. My friend asked around, and found that none of the school's deciding board had read the book: they'd written the notice and instated the ban entirely on the word of some other members of their religion. My friend did the logical thing: he bought several dozen copies of the book, and handed them to those in charge. When they upheld the ban, he pulled his daughter out and sent her to a secular school. Also, he took her to see a movie.
But there you go! Look how much trouble my friend had to go through to try and defend a book he loved from the ignorance of an entire elementary school. Adhere your Toilet Monster-banning agenda to that of a populous group like a religion, and otherwise rational people will avoid the book like the plague--out of sheer laziness. Probably the only human trait that can trump curiosity.
A person is told vociferously and often that, if they were only to read this book they will be offended--truly, deeply, heartrendingly offended. There is no possible way they could enjoy anything about this book... they will only be offended! Easy to just take that message away with them without going to the trouble of reading the book, or even just looking up relevant quotes in context. So when someone else asks them how they feel about the book, well... they are offended! Truly.
And there you have your strategy. Get people so pumped up that they will defend banning a book solely on hearsay.
Now, you might encounter some people who suggest to you that many things will happen to you in the course of your life. These people will tell you that a single book read as a child is usually pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and that if you really didn't like The Toilet Monster Compendium, you should move on and read other books--not try and prevent everyone reading the book ever again, for any reason. Humans change and develop, they will tell you, learning to measure the world and forming opinions based on a multitude of stimuli.
Basically, they are telling you that most people grow up.
So that is my take on book banning. Happy belated Banned Book Week, and may your quest for knowledge take you to many surprising, controversial, and fascinating places!
*The librarian at the school I attended in first grade told my class that, when she was our age, she had been afraid of monsters coming out of the toilet when she flushed. Thinking this was funny, I told my little sister the story when I got home. She took it seriously, and the fear of monsters (or monstrous ghosts) rising from the toilet when she flushed plagued her for years. Yet another of my siblings' childhood traumas that was actually my fault!
(Editor's note: And no books involved!)
Lisa Grabenstetter's artworks Writing the Harvest and The Catoblepas appeared in GUD Issue 4.
The vast majority of banned books are children's books, and they're challenged for the very fact of being written for children. Somewhere, somewhen, some people came up with the idea that children's brains are infinitely malleable. Yet, furthermore, every single impression worked into a child is unchanging and indelible. That's right. You, reader, who were afraid at age five that flying skull monsters would come out of the toilet to eat you every time you flushed*: you still leave the door unlocked for a swift getaway. We know it. Time, age, experience? They are nothing to the fact that you read about toilet monsters once!
This is how many book banners would appear to think.
So, permanently scarred by The Toilet Monster Compendium, you are now lobbying to get it removed from your local library. It is simply not enough that you advise all of your friends not to read it, and tell them not to let their children read it. Not enough that you let nary a copy cross the threshold of your own home. No, you must prevent all those innocents who may ever want to check it out from your local library from doing so, too!
Banning alone, though, is an ineffective strategy. It may cover all those who have no other recourse but to borrow the book from the library, but it leaves all other options for acquiring the book wide open. How will you prevent impressionable children (or their well-meaning relatives) buying The Toilet Monster Compendium? Or borrowing it from a friend? How about that big-budget Hollywood adaptation with Crispin Glover in the title role? Worse, controversy is a more surefire way to make a book (or movie, or picture) skyrocket in popularity.
So what is a budding mind-controller to do?
Find a group of people who can be led into being equally offended by The Toilet Monster Compendium, and gain their support. Even if none of them have ever read it, and the reason they're offended has absolutely nothing to do with the reasons you're still terrified of brightly-gleaming porcelain, this can be an effective strategy. Not only will you be more likely to get the book banned, due to sheer force of numbers, but the involvement of more people means you can cover more fronts. While you're campaigning to get Toilet Monster removed from the public library, someone else can be working on the second-grade curriculum, and the local bookstores. You can hold midnight book-burnings in protest, gaining media attention and encouraging other branches of the group to challenge the book as well.
A friend of mine actually removed his kid from the religious school she was attending over a scenario quite similar to this. Now, he was of the religion this school represented... hence having his child attend in the first place. But then the school voted to unilaterally ban the book The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) by Phillip Pullman from school grounds. They sent home notices with students, warning parents not to allow their children to read the book or see the movie. When my friend asked the principal whether he had ever read the book himself, the principal responded that he had not. He was having it banned because of a protest within his religion against the book, timed to coincide with the release of the movie, and due to some anti-religious content they had told him the book contained. My friend asked around, and found that none of the school's deciding board had read the book: they'd written the notice and instated the ban entirely on the word of some other members of their religion. My friend did the logical thing: he bought several dozen copies of the book, and handed them to those in charge. When they upheld the ban, he pulled his daughter out and sent her to a secular school. Also, he took her to see a movie.
But there you go! Look how much trouble my friend had to go through to try and defend a book he loved from the ignorance of an entire elementary school. Adhere your Toilet Monster-banning agenda to that of a populous group like a religion, and otherwise rational people will avoid the book like the plague--out of sheer laziness. Probably the only human trait that can trump curiosity.
A person is told vociferously and often that, if they were only to read this book they will be offended--truly, deeply, heartrendingly offended. There is no possible way they could enjoy anything about this book... they will only be offended! Easy to just take that message away with them without going to the trouble of reading the book, or even just looking up relevant quotes in context. So when someone else asks them how they feel about the book, well... they are offended! Truly.
And there you have your strategy. Get people so pumped up that they will defend banning a book solely on hearsay.
Now, you might encounter some people who suggest to you that many things will happen to you in the course of your life. These people will tell you that a single book read as a child is usually pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and that if you really didn't like The Toilet Monster Compendium, you should move on and read other books--not try and prevent everyone reading the book ever again, for any reason. Humans change and develop, they will tell you, learning to measure the world and forming opinions based on a multitude of stimuli.
Basically, they are telling you that most people grow up.
So that is my take on book banning. Happy belated Banned Book Week, and may your quest for knowledge take you to many surprising, controversial, and fascinating places!
*The librarian at the school I attended in first grade told my class that, when she was our age, she had been afraid of monsters coming out of the toilet when she flushed. Thinking this was funny, I told my little sister the story when I got home. She took it seriously, and the fear of monsters (or monstrous ghosts) rising from the toilet when she flushed plagued her for years. Yet another of my siblings' childhood traumas that was actually my fault!
(Editor's note: And no books involved!)
Lisa Grabenstetter's artworks Writing the Harvest and The Catoblepas appeared in GUD Issue 4.
Monday, October 5, 2009
More GUD Love (and some miscounting)
GUD has just nominated Ian McHugh's Stiletto (Issue 4) for an Aurealis Award. You may remember Kirstyn McDermott's Painlessness (Issue 2) won the Best Horror Short story for 2008. Ian's story has been nominated in the Science Fiction category, and we think it stands a good chance :).
This seems therefore like a good time to share with you more of the love that's out there for our eclectic genre/literary magazine.
In Gardner Dozois's 'The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection'*, GUD received two Honorable Mentions. At first, when we thought we'd got one, we were as happy as clams. When it emerged we had two, we were as happy as...well, a whole bed of clams. It's tough for a small, relatively-young magazine to get its name out there, and we're grateful for all the great help we get.
(In our defence, the Dozois anthology got Blaikie's forename wrong, listing him as 'Moal'.)
The Honorable Mentions were for Neal Blaikie's Offworld Friends are Best (Issue 2) and Night Bird Soaring by T.L. Morganfield (Issue 3). Night Bird Soaring is still in the running for Nebula recommendations, and so is available to read in full, free, here on our site, by kind permission of the author.
Then, when details of Ellen Datlow's long-awaited anthology Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 came out, we are delighted to see we had three Honorable Mentions.
Except once again we were doing ourselves down. We didn't have three. We had six. We really must pay more attention when the love's being dished out.
Ellen Datlow singled out for Honorable Mention:
* Think Fast by Michael Greenhut (Issue 3)
* The Festival of Colour by Paul Richard Haines (Issue 2)
* Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Stage IV by Samantha Henderson (Issue 2)
* Painlessness by Kirstyn McDermott (Issue 2)
* Dolls by Kristin Ong Muslim (Issue 2)
* Closer in my Heart to Thee by Jeffrey Somers (Issue 2)
Sometimes it's interesting to go back and look at the staff comments on stories that went on to be singled out for praise. I see that on Painlessness I wrote, "Well. At last, a decent story. I'd begun to give up hope." Kaolin, on the other hand, had this to say, "I love where it goes, what it does, but FUCK. Intense. I was squirming through bits of it." Sal thought the story "awesome" when he chose it for his issue. And so it is!
It's also wonderful to see the poetry in GUD receiving the attention it deserves--all too often it gets overlooked by the critics.
Remember: you can buy a single .pdf of any story, poem, art, comic, script, or report that appears in any issue of GUD Magazine. Or buy whole issues in either print or .pdf. Treat yourself today and find out what Gardner Dozois and Ellen Datlow think we're doing right!
* Published in the UK as 'The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 22'.
See original page for all the proper links and such: http://ping.fm/iJkwb :)
This seems therefore like a good time to share with you more of the love that's out there for our eclectic genre/literary magazine.
In Gardner Dozois's 'The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection'*, GUD received two Honorable Mentions. At first, when we thought we'd got one, we were as happy as clams. When it emerged we had two, we were as happy as...well, a whole bed of clams. It's tough for a small, relatively-young magazine to get its name out there, and we're grateful for all the great help we get.
(In our defence, the Dozois anthology got Blaikie's forename wrong, listing him as 'Moal'.)
The Honorable Mentions were for Neal Blaikie's Offworld Friends are Best (Issue 2) and Night Bird Soaring by T.L. Morganfield (Issue 3). Night Bird Soaring is still in the running for Nebula recommendations, and so is available to read in full, free, here on our site, by kind permission of the author.
Then, when details of Ellen Datlow's long-awaited anthology Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 came out, we are delighted to see we had three Honorable Mentions.
Except once again we were doing ourselves down. We didn't have three. We had six. We really must pay more attention when the love's being dished out.
Ellen Datlow singled out for Honorable Mention:
* Think Fast by Michael Greenhut (Issue 3)
* The Festival of Colour by Paul Richard Haines (Issue 2)
* Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Stage IV by Samantha Henderson (Issue 2)
* Painlessness by Kirstyn McDermott (Issue 2)
* Dolls by Kristin Ong Muslim (Issue 2)
* Closer in my Heart to Thee by Jeffrey Somers (Issue 2)
Sometimes it's interesting to go back and look at the staff comments on stories that went on to be singled out for praise. I see that on Painlessness I wrote, "Well. At last, a decent story. I'd begun to give up hope." Kaolin, on the other hand, had this to say, "I love where it goes, what it does, but FUCK. Intense. I was squirming through bits of it." Sal thought the story "awesome" when he chose it for his issue. And so it is!
It's also wonderful to see the poetry in GUD receiving the attention it deserves--all too often it gets overlooked by the critics.
Remember: you can buy a single .pdf of any story, poem, art, comic, script, or report that appears in any issue of GUD Magazine. Or buy whole issues in either print or .pdf. Treat yourself today and find out what Gardner Dozois and Ellen Datlow think we're doing right!
* Published in the UK as 'The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 22'.
See original page for all the proper links and such: http://ping.fm/iJkwb :)
Garbage Man by Joseph D'Lacey, reviewed by Debbie Moorhouse
After the success of Joseph D'Lacey's disturbing debut MEAT (reviewed by GUD here), his second novel, Garbage Man, was bound to come out to high expectations. So high, perhaps, that no book could live up to them.
The people living near the RefuSec Waste Management landfill don't pay it much attention. After all, they have their own problems to wrestle with--frustrated ambition, a damaged connection with the Earth, sexual deviancy. But is the landfill as indifferent? Or is it churning humanity's waste into a strange new form of life?
Garbage Man has strong plot elements--a mysterious, shaman-like figure called Mason Brand who communes with the local landfill, a young woman prepared to do anything to escape her "boring, boring, boring" life, another woman tormented by dreams of a "razor-baby" that endlessly searches, endlessly suffers, and is endlessly silent, and, brooding over all, the filth and waste of the dump.
D'Lacey is clearly determined to eschew the errors made by so many Horror novels that offer the mutilation and death of characters we know nothing about and care for less. Half of Garbage Man is dedicated to introducing its characters, to inviting the reader to learn their failings and their flaws, to sympathise with their attempts to overcome the sheer dull nastiness of their lives. Yet somehow it doesn't work. The characters don't come alive on the page.
This despite some solidly creepy writing, especially in the dream sequences.
"The knives enter the baby's body easily, as though it were made of fresh cake. They slide in deep. Deep enough to stay. The baby pauses, turns. Some of the longer knives have passed right through it. She sees the points poking downward from its chest as it screams. She can't hear the screaming. She only feels it, deep inside, her spirit being murdered by the baby's pain."
The first half of the book disappoints. There's almost too much introduction, too much following the characters around while they prepare, unwittingly, for their own annihilation. After a while, even the tormented baby loses its impact. If it's going to go on its agonizing search forever, the reader has to distance themselves, has to put up barriers to interminable, hopeless pain.
When the landfill comes unexpectedly, vehemently alive, the novel picks up as if this is what it's been waiting for. There are daring escapes across rooftops. There are people trapped in buildings, trembling as they await their fate. And there are some of the strangest monsters Horror has ever brought forth.
"She didn't know what it was. It had no name. It had five 'arms' which it used as legs. It was fashioned of junk and animal parts and filth. It dragged a long fat body and left a wet trail of excrement on her carpet. A long-bodied spider without enough legs to move properly...its eyes were the loops from the handles of scissors. Its teeth were the ends of dozens of knitting needles."
Gratifyingly, Garbage Man turns into an exciting, scary, highly-imaginative Horror novel about halfway through. It's worth reading the first part to get to the second. D'Lacey has the chops to scare and disgust the reader, whether they care about the characters or not.
The people living near the RefuSec Waste Management landfill don't pay it much attention. After all, they have their own problems to wrestle with--frustrated ambition, a damaged connection with the Earth, sexual deviancy. But is the landfill as indifferent? Or is it churning humanity's waste into a strange new form of life?
Garbage Man has strong plot elements--a mysterious, shaman-like figure called Mason Brand who communes with the local landfill, a young woman prepared to do anything to escape her "boring, boring, boring" life, another woman tormented by dreams of a "razor-baby" that endlessly searches, endlessly suffers, and is endlessly silent, and, brooding over all, the filth and waste of the dump.
D'Lacey is clearly determined to eschew the errors made by so many Horror novels that offer the mutilation and death of characters we know nothing about and care for less. Half of Garbage Man is dedicated to introducing its characters, to inviting the reader to learn their failings and their flaws, to sympathise with their attempts to overcome the sheer dull nastiness of their lives. Yet somehow it doesn't work. The characters don't come alive on the page.
This despite some solidly creepy writing, especially in the dream sequences.
"The knives enter the baby's body easily, as though it were made of fresh cake. They slide in deep. Deep enough to stay. The baby pauses, turns. Some of the longer knives have passed right through it. She sees the points poking downward from its chest as it screams. She can't hear the screaming. She only feels it, deep inside, her spirit being murdered by the baby's pain."
The first half of the book disappoints. There's almost too much introduction, too much following the characters around while they prepare, unwittingly, for their own annihilation. After a while, even the tormented baby loses its impact. If it's going to go on its agonizing search forever, the reader has to distance themselves, has to put up barriers to interminable, hopeless pain.
When the landfill comes unexpectedly, vehemently alive, the novel picks up as if this is what it's been waiting for. There are daring escapes across rooftops. There are people trapped in buildings, trembling as they await their fate. And there are some of the strangest monsters Horror has ever brought forth.
"She didn't know what it was. It had no name. It had five 'arms' which it used as legs. It was fashioned of junk and animal parts and filth. It dragged a long fat body and left a wet trail of excrement on her carpet. A long-bodied spider without enough legs to move properly...its eyes were the loops from the handles of scissors. Its teeth were the ends of dozens of knitting needles."
Gratifyingly, Garbage Man turns into an exciting, scary, highly-imaginative Horror novel about halfway through. It's worth reading the first part to get to the second. D'Lacey has the chops to scare and disgust the reader, whether they care about the characters or not.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
GUD Issue #4s Have Landed In UK!
To a warm (well, furry!) reception :D.
Hmm, those look interesting....
Hmm, those look interesting....
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Eternal Vigilance 2: The Death of Illusions by Gabrielle Faust, reviewed by Jess
The Death of Illusions by Gabrielle FaustMy review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
Another beautiful piece of cover art should have teenage goths, emos, and creatures of the night itching to get their hands--or claws-- on Book Two of the Eternal Vigilance series.
One year on from the original "Eternal Vigilance" book (also reviewed by GUD), Tynan Llywelyn, an immortal vampire, is battling the Vicinus in an attempt to save his own race, the Phuree, as well as humanity, from the Tyst empire's attempt to gain immortality. Despite being described by the author on her website as "technohorror", this was more of a typical Fantasy battle novel--high on action and thrills but less involved with character than the first book.
Although I didn't find much in the novel that particularly fitted the Horror genre, it works well as Fantasy, particularly for those who don't mind extremely lengthy back story and buildup. Lots of gadgets and deaths certainly make for up for lack of pace--eventually.
I was disappointed by the lack of character development, even though I was expecting a battle novel. If I don't care enough about the characters I won't be invested in whether they live or die, and the story will have difficulty holding my interest.
"The Death of Illusions" is ambitious, dark and very emo. As a teen I might have liked it more; as an adult, I felt it didn't capture my imagination in the way this author is very much capable of doing. Also, I had some minor niggles, like the over use of 'undulating'; a lot of typos; and far too much italic use in strange places. These niggles detracted from my ability to read the novel fluidly, as I found them off-putting. However, kudos to Faust for getting tentacles into the story. I did laugh at:
"Blinding pain exploded through the my [sic:] torso and I looked down to see a tentacle of blue impaling my body"--page 108
I will still look forward to more from Gabrielle S. Faust in the future--I don't think the Eternal Vigilance novels have seen her reach the best of her potential. One for hardcore vampire fans (and tentacle lovers) only, I think.
View all my reviews.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Neon Literary Journal #14, edited by Krishan Coupland, reviewed by Debbie
Neon Literary Journal
Edited by Krishan Coupland
FourVolts Productions, 2007
Booklet, 50 pages
ISSN: 1753-4240
Neon #14 is available in print or to download at http://www.neonmagazine.co.uk.
British literary magazine Neon describes itself as "a journal of brilliant things", and issue #14 belies its small size with an enigmatic and striking picture of a shingle beach on the cover. Throughout this fifty-page literary journal are monochrome images that set off, illustrate, or provide backgrounds to the poetry and prose. This is a serious work of art created by people who take art seriously.
Since the journal is short, the contents tend to be short, too, which means Neon can easily be consumed in a series of quick reads. This makes it ideal for the West's rush-rush-rush societies. But what about those contents? Are they worth the effort?
If you're not going to read GUD (although why wouldn't you?) give Neon a try instead. Or even better--try both.
From the beginning of Rupert Merkin's Second Coming--"Hyde Park is mined"--to the end of Jarod Rosello's This is What the Robots Do--"...robots are sleeping in people's beds"--Neon offers variety, intrigue, and solid writing.
Brits might be disappointed that so much of the content of this British journal is by writers from or connected with the US, but I have to say, from my experiences with NFG (Canadian), GUD (American), and ASIM (Australian), that's pretty much the way the wind blows. The US has a huge English-speaking population, and some days it feels like they all want to write.
To stand out in that crowd, non-US content has to be extra-sparkly. Perhaps like Grant McLeman's poem Fall In:
he was the name,
who gives no reply,
the gap
in the parade ground,
the empty echo
across the square.
Definitely one for the nightstand.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, reviewed by Jess
The Gargoyle by Andrew DavidsonMy review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Gargoyle is an intriguing and intelligent novel that I couldn't put down, despite occasional annoyance with the overly-flowery language, the momentum being spoiled when interesting sections ended too soon (and believe me, parts are simply stunning, particularly Dante's hell as a dream), or when the prose got lumpy.
The book's nameless narrator is horrifically burned in a car accident, after a hallucination distracts him and causes him to drive off a cliff. The story begins with graphic descriptions of his treatment for burns, including very clinical descriptions which sound as though they've been lifted straight from the pages of a medical journal. We learn that he was a porn star in his pre-accident life, and led a debauched and selfish lifestyle. Not only is he now disfigured and in constant pain, but he also lost his penis in the accident, leaving him with no chance of a return to his old life style.
Giving up all hope, he starts to fantasise about an elaborate suicide plan he'll undertake as soon as he is well enough to leave the hospital. But he soon forgets it when a mysterious woman named Marianne Engel starts visiting. She claims to have known him in previous lives, and tells him a series of tales about how they met, and the ways they died, whilst nursing him.
>She turns out to be a sculptor who specialises in gargoyles, but also a former psychiatric patient, with either suspected schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I found it unbelievable that after so much apparent treatment and time spent on the wards, her doctors were unable to determine which if either she had, given they are characterised by different symptoms.
The main bulk of the stories Marianne tells concern her life as a nun and her translation of Dante's Inferno, which was supposedly brought to her originally by our now-monstrous hero. These stories, presented in the form of first person chapters, are more interesting than the present-day narrative. This left me wondering why Davidson didn't use these as a full novel, especially as he'd obviously gone to some lengths with his research.
The full-on disclosure of the narrator's background points to a redemption story early on. However, I was fascinated, and found the opening similar in tone to Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. The style is somewhat different from Palahniuk's, and would have delivered a harder emotional hit had it been a touch less romanticised. I found the obvious conclusion a let down, but because of the circular nature of the plot and the 'morality tale' feel, it couldn't go anywhere else at the end of its magical and inspired journey.
I felt physically repulsed throughout the book, but as a reader who likes it raw I didn't find this objectionable. Despite containing strong elements of Fantasy and Horror, The Gargoyle is probably best placed with Modern Fiction. I'd strongly recommend it as a good example of a mainstream cross-over novel. The intertextual element renewed my interest in Dante's Inferno and inspired me to hunt down a copy. I see it as no bad thing that this book could introduce new readers to such an important poem, although I suspect others may feel that using it as a plot device to such an extent is a rip off.
Although The Gargoyle is blatant and slightly pretentious, Davies still manages to pull off a richly woven, bizarre love story that's not for the squeamish.
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Scrofula by Matt Dennison, reviewed by Jill Librarian
Scrofula by Matt DennisonMy review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Scrofula, a collection of twenty poems by Matt Dennison, is strongest in the poems detailing ordinary life. These include the poems Scrofula, Found in My Garden After the Rain, Premise, and The Spider Weaves.
I admit it, the title sent me to the dictionary—knowing scrofula was some kind of illness—to find
"scrofu·la (skräf′yÉ™ lÉ™)—noun-tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, esp. of the neck, characterized by the enlargement of the glands, suppuration, and scar formation."
This first poem, bearing the title also of the book, has strong, clear images that linger in the mind. As the young man and old man searched through the hill's "hundred summers' growth" for buried head stones, they "marched with pitchforks/ side by side, shoving their fingers into the ground, feeling for what had been slowly bowed/ and buried by the dull weight of time", and further in, "..how entire families would be/ laid out in descending scales of grief, all voices stopped within the same small/ circle of days and how one family, from suckling child to father, had been Taken By Scrofula/ in the winter of 1868, the dark/ earthy sound of which I tried again/ and again in the thick summer air" and going on, includes a quiet tribute to the old man—"tying the posts together in a complicated,/ old-fashioned way whose secret of doing/ I knew would vanish with the old man"—paying tribute to life and to death which calls us "in the ultimate foreign tongue."
In "Found In My Garden After the Rain" a simple find of flint in the garden calls up the beginnings of mankind , flint knapping, and spirals back to today. This poem has nice meter married to some excellent lines. In Premise, the child wants proof of God in his daily life, but the mundane proves too strong. The ending is matter-of-fact but very moving.
Salvation, one of the longer poems, a spirited rejection of traditional church services, is a joy to read. Also "Balboa Egret", with its lovely quatrain:
"Under the house in a low, minor key,
an old cat told a Chinese tale--eyes closed,
>mouth near dirt, she droned on and on
to the delight of her young."
I recommend this small but sturdy compilation to all lovers of poetry.
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Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Second Elizabeth by Karen Lillis, reviewed by Julia
The Second Elizabeth by Karen LillisMy review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
"The Second Elizabeth" is probably best described as a novella-length prose poem. It's a meditation on what it means to be who one is, and how one finds that out, and how one's identity is channeled through one's name(s). Its author obviously has the sensibilities of a poet, though not exactly the sensibilities of a storyteller; the strengths of the book are more in the atmosphere, imagery, and concept-play than in the characters and plot.
Insofar as it is a story, it's a story about Karen Elizabeth Lillis, who has a second Elizabeth also hidden in her name (she took her middle name as her confirmation name), recovering from a broken-up love affair while living with her brother in Charlottesville and becoming friends with a woman named Beth (another Elizabeth) who lives next door. The book is heavy with a sense of place -- Charlottesville as a whole, and the parts of it Karen moves through in the two months of her life described there: her apartment, the deli where she works, and the streets and railroad tracks in between that she and Beth walk each day. The writing style makes the reader feel she is swimming in the humidity and in the emotions of the novel, especially a thick, thick nostalgia that imbues even the passages that aren't about the past.
But on the whole, I'm not sure I can even call this a story. There are many threads of narrative, but the author seems to be more interested in following each thread where it leads her than in bringing them together to make a coherent piece of work. It is one of those narratives that swirls around the edges of a traumatic event in the main character's past that is never explicated; a hole in the middle of a story is okay sometimes, if it gives definition to the narrative around it, but in this case it's just one more thing that makes the reader feel like there's nothing to grab onto -- no frame, no wrap-up, and no center. The progress of this piece of writing is but a string of moments -- albeit prettily-told moments.
Whatever new definitions the narrative tries to place on the sister's death, whatever consolations are offered--"Girls who become mistresses through whom you become a man, not the boy that death fueled"--the loss is always there, tangible, demanding to be understood, to be redefined, to be hidden then sought in allegory. Every possible means of understanding the death is attempted, rotated, abandoned, re-tried, holding the death at the centre of the narrative, allowing it to force its way into every thought, every action. Here our determination to ignore death is the ultimate taboo; here death will not be ignored.
Taking it as poetry, rather than trying to fit it into my expectations from a story, gives a different perspective. The poetlike way in which the narrator will take an image or concept and go over and over it in different ways, playing with it and teasing out all its connections, can be quite interesting. When it's simply repeating the same phrases over and over (as well as the same concept), it may also be poetical, but it's rather more irritating -- though an interesting exercise in forcing the mind to make sense of nonsense through sheer exposure. I wondered throughout whether this repetition of concepts and wordings was meant as an attempt at stream-of-consciousness writing, whether it was simply to enhance the poeticalness, or whether the author was attempting some hybrid -- a poetrified representation of cognition, perhaps.
If it's meant to be stream-of-consciousness, it is certainly an odd consciousness; the Southernism 'tetched' comes to mind. I gather from the author's MySpace page that the narrative style is supposed to be getting more childlike as it goes on, as Karen works back toward rebirth (as the second Elizabeth, a different -- stronger? -- version of herself). I found it childlike from the beginning and thought it just got more tiresome as it went on; I admire what the author was trying to do, but I think this is too sketchy a narrative to really embody such a vision. And, perhaps because of this deliberate degeneration or perhaps because the author couldn't figure out how to tie everything together, the novel ends on what I found too light a note -- with a chapter about the narrator dreaming, mostly nonsense (as dreams are), ending with a reference to a running theme in the novella (the language of "The Second Elizabeth"), but without really making anything of it. The effect is similar to ending a poem on an unstressed syllable.
There is a lot of focus on names and words and letters and talk, in the fanciful and pervasive way one expects from poetry. Though the fancifulness was usually entertaining, I did have some moments when reality intruded on my enjoyment of the embroidery on words and concepts. For instance, when the main character began lilting on about how her tears are letters and her crying rag contains a whole new mixed-up language because she never washes it, I had to wonder, if her tears were letters, what was her snot, and how gross was this rag that she never washed? (Being a very practical user of handkerchiefs, I always have this issue when authors romanticize tear-filled hankies...)
The narrator's sense of self is embodied in her name, and there are several chapters on that name alone -- how Karen Lillis is different from Karen E. Lillis is different from the second, secret Elizabeth from her confirmation name, and how it all relates to family and history and identity. The viewpoint character having the author's name (at least the 'Karen' and 'Lillis' parts) gives the focus on that name more intimacy, and to some degree gives the whole book more intimacy; it's an interesting choice, and ties in with the question Karen contemplates throughout of who gets to write our stories. (And also the question of whether it's the narrator or the writer who is tetched.)
"The Second Elizabeth" definitely has some good imagery and evocative concept-play, and is weird enough stylistically to have altered my state of mind a bit. The characters -- including the narrator herself -- are too much passive receptacles for the narrator's rambling thoughts to really stand out, but they give the impression that given a chance (in a book where they actually interacted with anything), they could be quite fascinating. But the heavy, embroidered robes of repetition and tangent in which those good things were garbed nearly hid them entirely, and though I'm sure the robes themselves had aesthetic value in some (more-fashionable?) circles, it was, alas, lost on me....
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Sarasota VII by Lo Galluccio, reviewed by Debbie
Sarasota VII by Lo GalluccioMy review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Sarasota VII" is so intensely personal that reading it feels like an intrusion, like listening to someone's late-night conversation with their lover, like shoving your face right into the breast of a nursing woman, like clomping in Wellington boots through a delicate tracery of flowers.
It's as if Lo Galluccio has opened her private diary and printed its contents on the page: raw, unedited, begging to be prised open and understood. Death and sex intertwine like lovers, neither making sense of the other, but unable to part.
"She's taken from you. You've been vandalized by a rummaging god. She becomes a compacted star in your cosmos, the rings through which you become, like Saturn, denser than before--heavy with shame and longing--but furious enough in your suspension to fly."
Whatever new definitions the narrative tries to place on the sister's death, whatever consolations are offered--"Girls who become mistresses through whom you become a man, not the boy that death fueled"--the loss is always there, tangible, demanding to be understood, to be redefined, to be hidden then sought in allegory. Every possible means of understanding the death is attempted, rotated, abandoned, re-tried, holding the death at the centre of the narrative, allowing it to force its way into every thought, every action. Here our determination to ignore death is the ultimate taboo; here death will not be ignored.
In the second section, the narrator is dealing with a second death: her father's. Half of this narrative is, it seems, missing, and so it ends tantalisingly with much unsaid. Here, we have perhaps a gentler, more accepting view of death, yet it's still all-pervasive. "Because I'm fatherless I wound up in his shiny black rental car." Grief brings about strange outcomes; grief motivates everything, even though it's the great demotivator. Everything comes back to the black hole death has made in the narrator's life; everything is attributable; everything is coloured by it. Nothing can ever be the same.
This collection will appeal to those prepared to deal with an onslaught of emotions, to those who are prepared to take the time to let it soak into their understanding, to those who've been there. It's outstanding in its rawness, in its willingness to tell it like it is. Not for the faint of heart.
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Monday, February 16, 2009
The Pines by Robert Dunbar, reviewed by Xysea
The Pines by Robert DunbarMy review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a chilling tale set in the rural Pine Barrens of New Jersey, a region as known for its inbred, throwback inhabitants or 'Pineys', as for its swampy, humid and dense woodland. The story centers around a team of ambulance drivers, a couple of small-town sheriffs, and a series of deaths that occur, leaving behind bodies so mangled it looks as though wild animals have been in a frenzy. And yet, there are clues that these are no animals anyone's ever come across before. Thus start the rumors, the stories, of a devil, a Jersey devil, hunting its prey, tearing it limb from limb and doing unspeakably horrible things to the corpses....
The tension builds, and the bodies mount, as Athena, (one of the newer ambulance drivers) becomes deeply embroiled in the investigation. Is her involvement the result of her colleagues' unquestioning attitudes towards the deaths? Or is it because she's the single parent of a son who seems to be autistic, but who has an amazing ability to know the thoughts and intentions of the unknown assailant? Is this really a freak talent or something more sinister?
Using rich language and imagery, Robert Dunbar has written a timeless tale of horror and suspense. All the elements of the traditional horror novel are explored, with just enough twists and turns to engage the reader and lend the story some uniqueness. There are a few stray subplots that could have been edited out, and it seems they possibly were in previous editions. However, this has been promoted on the back cover as the 'uncut version, in paperback for the first time!'
While these subplots don't particularly enhance or detract from the novel, per se, they just don't take the story anywhere new. I have read quite a few horror novels in my time, and when I was younger I'd make the rounds of the more popular authors. In the end, what kept me from continuing with them was their predictability--the nubile thing in the woods gets attacked (usually in an overtly sexual way), there's a mysterious connection between the 'thing' and a human (usually involving telekinesis)--and this novel is, unfortunately, as predictable. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad novel, but for someone like me, who has read a lot of horror, it did take a little something out of the reading. I suppose I was hoping for a bit more uniqueness or originality, and I didn't find it here.
Still, this is a pretty good book for any horror fan to curl up with on a dark and snowy night...as long as they're far from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
Twenty-Five Things About GUD
1. If asked whether I'm male or female, I answer "female". I also wonder why anyone asks.
2. My first issue was called Issue 0. This has created lots of headaches for the editors, who keep forgetting that Issue 3 is not the third issue. And so on.
3. I'm created online by editors from the US and the UK.
4. I'm available in both print and .pdf formats direct from GUD.
5. I'm also available as a multi-format eBook from Fictionwise.
6. My first three issues (0-2) are even available for the Kindle.
7. One of the stories in Issue 2 (that's my third issue, for those who aren't paying attention), Painlessness by Kirstin McDermott, won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Horror Story.
8. Each of my issues so far has had a different instigator. But I hear it's kaolin's turn again soon.
9. Whenever I visit Debbie, her cat bothers me.
10. kaolin NEVER takes me snowboarding.
11. The cover for Issue 3 can be made into a model Steam Bat. Why not give it a try?
12. At the time of writing, the editors have sent 9,682 responses to would-be contributors.
13. The editors have decided that only 1.9% of submissions are good enough to snuggle between my covers.
14. Sue lays me out every time.
15. Twenty-five is a lot.
16. Issue 5 has had the most submissions.
17. Julia shares me with Michael. Aww, romantic!
18. Sal doesn't come to see me as often as I'd like.
19. Almost every week, I give away a review book to our readers.
20. I have 200 pages.
21. Yes, 200!
22. I only accept submissions via my online form.
23. Library Journal wrote me up recently.
24. If you open an account, I'll give you a FREE .pdf from one of my issues!
25. I'm GUD. And I'm good, too.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Through A Glass, Darkly by Bill Hussey, reviewed by Debbie
Through a Glass, Darkly by Bill HusseyMy review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
In Bill Hussey's debut novel, a centuries-old pall of evil hangs over the small village of Crow Haven, personified by a mysterious figure known as the Crowman. When the young Simon Malahyde disappears apparently without cause, and young boys are abducted, then found dead and mutilated, DI Jack Trent is paired with his colleague and ex-girlfriend DS Dawn Howard to investigate.
Trent is already familiar with the supernatural. A childhood near-death experience has left him infested by demons that give him intimate insights into the thoughts and histories of anyone he touches. He also receives visions of the future--visions that insist Dawn's son Jamie will be a victim of the serial killer currently terrorising the area (except Crow Haven itself, which seems inured to strange deaths and malice). Dawn takes more convincing that the threat to Crow Haven is not mundane, and she becomes sidelined as the investigation takes Trent into stranger and stranger parts--including a marvellous hidden library.
The enforced proximity between jilter (Trent) and jiltee (Dawn) makes for a constant thread of tension running through the novel. The more Trent yearns to be close to Dawn, the more he must push her away, for his emotional attachment to her feeds the demons that he has always tried to keep penned within a cage of logic. The demons have already killed his mother; he can and will give everything to prevent that ever happening again.
The narrative is slow to build to the climax, and it feels somewhat weighted down by the density of Hussey's writing. The investigation is followed minutely, and there are digressions into various aspects of the relevant backstory, all of which tends to create a feeling that the story isn't going anywhere soon. Yet Hussey writes well, and imbues the reader with confidence that this is all going to come together at the end. Which it does. The tension becomes more effective as the final confrontation approaches, and the worth of the slow build-up becomes evident when the reader realises they are fully engaged with Trent, and concerned for his welfare.
There are some great aspects to the book--the above-mentioned library, for one, and the way everyone knows there's something not quite right about Simon Malahyde, but nobody really wants to face what it might be. Definitely one for the Horror fan who prefers to get more in their favourite genre than just blood and gore.
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Monday, February 2, 2009
Aurealis Award for "Painlessness" in GUD Issue 2
Reposted from GUD, here are Painlessness author Kirstyn McDermott's thoughts on winning the Aurealis Award for Best Short Horror Story.
How cool is this? First my story, "Painlessness", wins an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story and now I get asked to write a guest blog post for GUD. The story, by the way, can be found in Issue #2, along with many other fine works. Go, shoo, buy yourself a copy right now and then come back to finish reading this. Seriously, I can wait.
The Aurealis Awards, for those who don't know, recognise the achievements of Australian speculative fiction writers and, increasingly, illustrators. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, young adult, graphic novels - the awards cover a wide field and each year the lists of finalists for each category should be considered mandatory reading for spec fic afficiandos. Especially this year. Especially the Horror Short Story category. Obviously. ;-)
"Painlessness" is a story of which I am still immensely proud. And I can say this with certainty, because I just read it again for the first time since it was published way back in January 2008, and I didn't vomit once. Not even a little bit.
The way I write, most of the time it's like excavation. I'll randomly chip away at the bedrock and find these interesting, odd-shaped bits and pieces, most of which I'll carry around in my pockets for months or years before I eventually stumble across that one last chunk that holds it altogether. And then I start to write.
Sometimes it all falls apart half way through, but most of the time I have the right pieces and they stick together fairly well. Occasionally, they make something quite unexpected. "Painlessness" was a bit like that. I thought I knew what it was, how it would look and feel; I thought I knew the end. But it managed to surprise me in a lot of ways, as the best stories do when you're writing them, and I still don't know where some parts of it came from. I don't remember digging them up from anywhere. But they're sharp and bright and it hurts a little to read them and really, that's what a good horror story is about. Right? And I'm allowed to say that because, hey, it just won an award. :-)
So, many thanks to Sal Coraccio and the fine editorial team at GUD. They not only accepted my story but put up with a minor primadonna act during the editing. And it's a much better piece for it.
And seriously, go to the Aurealis Awards website and track down as many of those shortlisted titles as you can, across all the categories. We have some mightly fine talent working down here in Australia, some of the best writers and artists you'll come across anywhere. Trust me, your time and effort will be well rewarded.
I,AM by Deon Sanders, reviewed by Sal
I, AM by Deon C. SandersMy review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
"At first, when darkness covered the earth and the sun rested in the propensity of God, entrenched in the darkness was I,AM-a force of relentless evil."
The premise of Deon Sanders’ work of horror is that an evil entity, I,AM, battles directly with God--and loses. God summarily slices I,AM into three parts (an Unholy Trinity?) using a "Lance of Transgression" and converts the parts to stone.
After a brief retelling and slight re-spin of the seven-day Genesis introduction, Sanders tells us that God
"...chucked the first rock into the bottom of the Black Sea near the shores of Odessa. He propelled the second rock into the hottest part of what would become the Sahara desert in Algeria hidden under mountains of sand. Then, with great thunder, God threw the last rock to the top of where the North Pole would be, near Greenland. The rock landed in a frozen iceberg under a massive peak on the tip of the Arctic Ocean."
From this passage one can garner a sense of how language is used by the author throughout the one-hundred-and-five-page book; "chuck", "propelled", "threw" -– "rock, rock, rock". The point is made, and articulately enough – but not artfully.
The plot begins in earnest by revealing that the battle, now myth, is inscribed on an ancient scroll. Along with this is a map showing the locations of the three pieces and the Lance (which turns out to be an amulet). Naturally, the path is full of peril and tests of purity; there are many attempts–-none fruitful.
Eventually, we are introduced to a character named Kumhuma who, not intending to seek the scroll nor the amulet (Lance of Transgression), is drawn to them both, finding his own challenges along the route. Once the scroll is found it is moved to a presumably safer location, and Kumhuma, in secret, dons the amulet.
Predictably, the location is betrayed, with violent results, to an evil group of mercenary Americans (financed by "Egypt, Europe, India and the United States without the President’s knowledge"). The amulet, however, makes its way safely to Kumhuma’s brother Michael, in Chicago.
Sixteen years later, the stones, now found, arrive in Chicago to be ceremoniously unveiled. It is during this event that the stones re-unite to form the evil I,AM--it seems that the only one who can stop the ensuing terror is an amulet-protected Chicago Homicide detective named Michael Zeiss -- Kumhuma’s now-grown brother.
Part of the full rebirth of I,AM involves a human host and this provides another opportunity to show a taste of the book’s particular writing style and sense of humor:
"Mary walked somewhat hindered, due to the extra weight of her pregnancy. Being huge, her belt barely went around her stomach, her breasts were just about to jump out of her shirt, and her derriere could eclipse the sun... The voice of I,AM rang out and was all Mary could hear. She turned and hightailed it to the exit of the exhibit room, but the doors had a mind of their own. They closed right in front of her and she was trapped."
A larger portion of the rest of the book describes the many evil doings of I,AM as he flexes his inhuman (perhaps "too human") muscles to murder and cause chaos. We follow Detective Zeiss as he, and those near and dear to him, fight the monster-–or die trying.
Sanders’ greatest strength in this multi-genre work is that he can spin an epic tale based on widely-held beliefs while adding something elementally new. Some of the writing may be elementary, but this does have the benefit of propelling the story forward at a brisk and engaging pace. Given the long time-line of the work the result is, on balance, positive.
If you enjoy horror along with stories based in religious faith, political intrigue or detective drama I’M sure "I,AM" will fit quite nicely on your shelf.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Spellbound by Margit Sandemo, reviewed by Debbie
Spellbound by Margit SandemoMy review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
This very readable novel is the first in a series by best-selling Scandinavian author Margit Sandemo, whose books are being made available for the first time in English. Sandemo is the author of a hundred and seventy novels, a feat that becomes more believable when you note that, at two-hundred-and-fifty-five nicely-spaced pages, "Spellbound" is actually a bit short for a Fantasy novel. A forty-seven-book series is still an impressive achievement whatever way you look at it.
"Spellbound" introduces Silje, an orphaned teenager who has come to the big city of Trondheim seeking refuge after her family is wiped out by disease. Destitute and starving, Silje takes another orphan and a foundling under her wing, before falling in with what she believes to be a group of rebels against the absentee king.
Induced to save one of the 'rebels' from torture and execution, Silje wins the protection of their fascinating and mysterious leader. Returned to the threatening mountains--home to the Ice People of the title-- that she thought she had escaped, she begins a new life with the two children. But peace and tranquility cannot last for long, and soon Silje is driven once again to seek help from the rebels--but are they rebels? And what is their leader's secret, a secret that troubles him so much that he has sworn never to lie with a woman.
This book was a fast and enjoyable read. Silje is a whole person--a woman sensual yet chaste, vulnerable yet competent. She finds depths of strength within herself when rising to the challenges she's forced to face, while at the same time yearning to express her creative side. There are some lovely touches when her lack of domesticity is observed or commented on. She's been promised a different future in which she can express herself, but, meanwhile, the baby has nappy rash.
The sixteenth-century setting convinces at least partly because the author doesn't try too hard--she has nothing to prove. The stark ice and snow, the long wagon journey on which the baby can't be fed because his milk is frozen, and so his "screams would echo in giant caverns".
Where the book perhaps falls down is in setting out what the characters are feeling too clearly, rather than enabling the reader to make deductions based on observation. Telling us what Silje is feeling means her feelings are only shallowly felt; this deprives the book of much of the passion it's striving for. If those feelings could be evoked in the reader with something of the author's own intensity, this book would be unputdownable.
Closing off its story arc nicely, this volume of "The Legend of the Ice People" leaves plenty of threads dangling to induce the reader to try more.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A Field Guide to Surreal Botany edited by Janet Chui and Jason Erik Lundberg, reviewed by kaolin
A Field Guide to Surreal Botany by Janet ChuiMy review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
These days you have to crinkle the map a bit to find any edges, but that makes the edges no less real. And still at the edges of the map lie not only dragons and other fauna, but quite curious flora as well, though in some instances the distinction is difficult.
"A Field Guide to Surreal Botany" begins with an elegant introduction to the world of surreal botany, and its move to the underground of science since the eighteenth century. But:
The publishers of this book believe that the time for remaining ignorant of surreal botany has come to an end. Personal safety alone would justify the information on some of these specimens coming to light, and readers will surely appreciate learning of the plants whose threats are lesser, or that are disappearing as the plants themselves become more rare. This book may be read and appreciated by gardening enthusiasts, paranormal investigators, and conspiracy theorists alike.
To that last list, I would add: the whimsically creative, the writer dry of ideas, precocious children, geneticists, and perhaps those very surreal plants themselves as are capable of assimilating information from this printed form. The guide delights with forty-eight detailed and researched (and in the case of the Big Yellow Flower of Unnecessarily Obvious Information, perhaps overly detailed and researched) plants (or plant-like beings, or vaguely plant-like things) that exist across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and in some cases "beyond".
That is not to say the book is without flaw--with so many contributors, the tone at times falls from the requisite scientific to more mundane turns of phrase; and some of Janet Chui's wonderful illustrations, for me, fall short of perfection. And while I'm wishing, I really could have gone for a more thorough set of indexes--it's frustrating to remember a plant and have to go scan the table of contents, where they're alphabetized per region.
Really, though, it is a beautiful book, and the humor and erudition is more than consistent enough to carry the bemused reader away--they do warn you about some of those plants! While the Forget-me-bastard merely causes itching, stinging, and rash, the Time Cactus can trick the unwary researcher or amateur botanist into a quite deadly trance (sending nutrients back along a wormhole to previous times of scarcity). I would recommend a copy of this book to be nestled in among any collection of its more prosaic ilk.
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Monday, January 5, 2009
Sparks and Shadows by Lucy Snyder, reviewed by Debbie
Sparks and Shadows by Lucy SnyderMy review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Sparks and Shadows" is a collection of poems, short stories, and essays by GUD contributor Lucy Snyder ('Sublety', Issue 2). Snyder has a unique voice and her work is almost instantly recognisable. Dive into this collection and you begin to feel like you're swimming around inside her head. It's not necessarily comfortable in there, but it's certainly interesting.
It's rare to encounter a writer who so loves words and the changes that can be rung and the tricks that can be played. Rare and precious. But because of Snyder's versatility, it's difficult to give an overview of this collection. Every piece is different, and every piece demands attention. So I'm just going to pick out a few to comment on, and you'll have to buy a copy if you want to know the strangeness and wonder of the rest.
In the short story 'A Preference for Silence', we meet Veronica, who has "never lost her tea in zero gee", but for whom the predilection of the title becomes more and more pressing while she and companion Melvin keep watch on a sleepship travelling through space. It's always the little things that wear you down, and even out in the deep black, peace isn't so easily found. Snyder presents the story with confidence, explaining only that which you need to know, and leaving the rest to silence.
The hilarious short story 'Boxlunch' starts with a slightly risky hunt for a condom and ends with a race-against-time through mortar attacks in order to save a recorded ('boxlunched') personality from data decay. This story started off by reminding me of "Appropriate Love" by Greg Egan in which a woman must incubate her dead husband's brain, but it soon went off in an entirely different direction. Egan's story was more disturbing; this is funnier.
"I know you’ll fly to me;
babies can’t resist the shiny, pretty things,"
So speaks the narrator of 'Dark Matter', the "death we cannot see", or, given our endless curiosity, elude. The poems in the ebook version tend to have their last stanza dropped onto a second page, which can give a false impression of where the poem ends. Here, I thought it ended nicely before I even noticed the last stanza--maybe it's one stanza the poem could have done without?
'Through Thy Bounty' presents a chef forced by alien invaders to cook the relatives of the resistance of which she (or he? the narrative doesn't specify) was once a part. The chef's only salvation is a telepathic link with her mother, the organiser of the fight against the Jagaren. Urged by her mother to stay alive, the chef cooks meal after meal, day after day, butchering men, women, and children alike with a dreadful, self-willed calmness. Disgusted by her mother's plan to sacrifice herself trying to rescue her "helpless, useless child", the narrator belatedly discovers there's more to it than that. Although heavy with backstory, this macabre tale is gripping. The reader is forced to balance sympathy for and dislike of the narrator in about equal measure.
In a more light-hearted vein, we have "The Fish and the Bicycle", a poem that explores the incompatibility between the eponymous creations.
"Consider the physics:
how could she pedal
with fragile fanning fins,
sit with slippery tail,
steer with gasping mouth?"
In its subtle way, the poem is a commentary on the saying from which it derives its concept. A fish may be unable safely to ride a bicycle, but, Snyder says, that doesn't mean she doesn't want to. The deadly attraction can't be denied.
With the short essay 'Camp Songs', Snyder takes an idea about indoctrination via Girl Scout songs and runs with it--some might say too far. It's probably best to enjoy the ride, both here and with the essays that follow. Like 'Why I Can't Stay Out of My Husband's Pants'. No, not in THAT way--go wash your brain out! "And, oh, the pockets! Deep, capacious pockets! I could keep all my hopes and dreams in pockets like those." But she can't just go out and buy men's pants. This is Ohio, after all. Fortunately, her husband can solve the problem, if he can only pay attention to it, rather than her, for long enough. This is more of a rant than an essay, but it's touching, all the same. As for 'The Dickification of the American Female', I honestly can't tell you whether it's a rant, a story, two interviews, or an essay. I know for certain it's not a poem. It starts innocently enough by letting you think that "dickification" only refers to famed SF author Philip K. Dick, whom Cassandra (whose story this is) apparently discovered much younger than I did--lucky her! But then it's time for Randi's story, which goes into "Tiny Tango" territory (anyone else know that "undrag" story?) until an almost complete dickification has been achieved. Very strange stuff. Finally, 'Menstruation for Men' is the essay so many women have wanted to write, but only Snyder has. A shame that men will probably wince and skip it.
The discomforting poem 'The Jarred Heart' plays with two meanings of "jarred"--the narrator's heart is literally in a jar, and she (or he? again, we don't know, and we're forced to deal with that not-knowing), and her love for the enchanter who "wooed me and won me // fed me lies sweeter than the opium wine" has been jarred by the discovery of treachery, and poison. But the narrator's not going to put up with this situation for long. Lots of play on words here; it's a delight.
'...Next on Channel 77' gives a literal bent to the idea that our deceased relatives are looking over us in Heaven. Tom's Aunt Fran comes back as a news announcer who's determined no harm will come to him, or to the two sisters he hasn't seen in years. While running hither and thither to do her bidding, Tom rediscovers connections to his family that he (and they) thought were gone forever. There's perhaps one too many emergencies in this story; it started to lose credibility towards the end. Better pacing might have helped, but this is ultimately a feelgood story with not much more to offer.
Dark, funny, and romantic by turns, "Sparks and Shadows" is a must read. Go! Buy! Read!
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