Sunday Shorts: Two from Knaves

In Knaves: A Blackguards Anthology (Outland Entertainment, 2018), Editors Melanie R. Meadors and Alana Joli Abbott brought together 14 stories about anti-heroes, heroes discovering the darker sides of themselves, and villains discovering their nobler aspects. Here are my thoughts on two of the stories contained in an anthology that covers a variety of genres.

cover art by Daniel Rempel

“Daughter of Sorrow” by Maurice Broaddus

“Our kind is never alone.” I really wasn’t sure, thanks to that opening sentence, what genre of story I was in for. “Our kind” meaning … vampires? Clandestine super-humans? Aliens living among us? So many possibilities, and any of them would have been interesting in Broaddus’ hands. What we get is the tale of Rianna, a teenage girl whose family is part of a secret society that runs the world. Rianna’s father is missing and presumed dead, which leaves her adrift and in harm’s way thanks to the society’s rules. Broaddus reveals the danger she’s in through a series of encounters with classmates and doles out the details of her relationship with her father via flashbacks. The alternating scenes build the suspense of both storylines effectively up to the moment they come together. The story is complete unto itself but did leave me wanting more of both Rianna and the Grendel Society.

The Life and Times of Johnny the Fox by Sabrina Vourvoulias

“The Life and Times of Johnny the Fox” is a story about a classic trickster personality, about community, and about doing the right thing even when it’s not the easy thing.

One of the many things I love about this story is what I can only describe as the “street corner urban legend” style of the narration. Imagine walking through a Philadelphia neighborhood, stopping into a bodega for a bottle of water or soda while you’re in the middle of telling your companion a local legend you’ve heard, and having someone say, “I am here to tell you the truth about the Johnny the Fox.” That first sentence sets that tone, and the rest of the story delivers on it.

Every Sabrina Vourvoulias story has an undeniable rhythm, a musicality that drives it. “The Life and Times of Johnny the Fox” is no exception. There’s the beat of the narration, a very particular style of storytelling that sweeps you up and carries you along. But music, singing especially, also plays a part in the main action of the story as Johnny returns to Puerto Rico at a particularly dangerous time for the island, to try to do what he does best: convince someone not to do the terrible thing they’re about to do. But even the most charismatic people stumble sometimes, and how Johnny recovers from that with the help of a community that loves him (even if they don’t always like him) is just as important as whether he succeeds.

2025 Reading Challenges

I always set myself more than one reading challenge per year. Some carry over from year to year, and some are new. Some are broad and some are themed. And in many cases, books read will help me meet more than one challenge. Last year I also started making some formal movie, television, and live theatre viewing challenges.

On the reading side of things, in 2024, I hit my overall book and short story goals and blew past my non-fiction reading sub-goal, but didn’t complete any of the other reading challenges I set myself. On the watching side of things, I exceeded my goal for live theater, but only hit about 70% of my television goal and slightly less than 50% of my movie-watching goal.

So I decided this year, I’m sticking to the basics:

365 SHORT STORIES CHALLENGE

Every year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. Some years I keep the pace well, and some years I fall behind and then scramble to catch up (and some years, I catch up and fall behind again, and some years I blow past the goal handily). I’m defining “short story” as anything from flash fiction to novella-length. I am going to once again make an effort to review one or two stories every Sunday in my “Sunday Shorts” feature.

GOODREADS CHALLENGE

Goodreads allows members to set a challenge. In previous years, I’ve set goals ranging from 125 to 150 books. For 2024, I’m setting a goal of 120 to start with (10 books per month), and we’ll see what happens.

MOVIE CHALLENGE

I own a lot of DVDs. (I know, you’re shocked. Shocked!) Every year I say, “This is the year I’m going to make an effort to watch them!” And then, somehow, I … don’t. One year, I did a list of 12 and two alternates as I do for the TBR Challenge, called it the TBW Challenge … and failed it miserably. Last year, I got about halfway to the goal of 52 movies, an average of one per week. So this year, I’m setting myself the same challenge. This includes movies on DVD, streaming services, and any trips to an actual movie theater (which have become rare for me).

TELEVISION CHALLENGE

Did I mention I own a lot of DVDs? And that I’m subscribed to a lot of streaming services? I did? Well, you won’t be shocked to know that it’s not all about the movies. So I’m setting myself a “TV Series Watch” challenge akin to my Short Story Challenge: an average of one full episode of a television series (regardless of length) for each day in the year, which this year means 365 episodes.

LIVE THEATRE CHALLENGE

I did pretty well with this one in 2023, even though I never posted about it (because I posted extraordinarily little here in 2023, but that’s a subject for another post), so I’m making it official for 2024: I want to see at least 1 live theatrical performance per month. Most of them will be in New York City, but I’ll count any play, musical, opera, ballet, or staged reading I see anywhere, regardless of whether it’s fully professional productions, college, community theatre, whatever. (Music concerts, author signings, and conferences/conventions do not count towards this.)

ACCOUNTABILITY

So how am I going to hold myself accountable? I’m planning to bring back my monthly Reading RoundUps. I’m not going to rename/rebrand because I like the alliterative title (which falls well in line with Series Saturday, Sunday Shorts, and a few other blog series I’m hoping to make regular features in 2025), but those posts will also track the Viewing challenges.

I would love to hear what YOUR Reading, Writing, or Viewing Challenges are for 2024. Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: TIDAL CREATURES

TITLE: Tidal Creatures (Alchemical Journeys #3)

AUTHOR: Seanan McGuire

453 pages, TorDotCom, ISBN 9781250333551 (hardcover; also e-book and audiobook)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

Tidal Creatures continues to build out the world Seanan McGuire introduced us to in Middlegame and deepened in Seasonal Fears. Like Seasonal Fears, it starts off by introducing us to a new batch of characters that personify/anthropomorphize a new set of universal concepts. In this case, embodiments of the Moon in all the forms such embodiments have taken throughout all the world’s mythologies. Unlike the main characters of Middlegame (who are forced to become the embodiment of the Doctrine of Ethos by their Maker) and Seasonal Fears (who become embodiments only after winning a competition), the human embodiments of the Moon are chosen by the Moon gods/goddesses themselves and the situation is less “embodiment” and more “time-share.” The human avatars of the Moon are able to go about their lives as essentially human, except when the Moon needs to shine through them and the resident Moon god/dess must take full control. I loved this idea that in a universe where almost every natural concept/constant is embodied, the ways the embodiments function can be so varied.

Where Seasonal Fears was a road-trip novel, Tidal Creatures is a murder-mystery. (It’s been long enough since I’ve read Middlegame that I’m not sure what classic genre I’d place it in (I really need to do a re-read), but at this point I’m almost positive part of McGuire’s plan for this series is to use the trappings of a different classic genre for each entry.) Someone is killing the moon gods of the San Francisco area. Which is a problem because part of the job of the Moon gods is to cross the sky above the Impossible City (the heart of all creation, thanks to the alchemy of an author named A. Deborah Baker). The moon gods who notice what’s happening must figure out who is doing it before they can wrest control of the Impossible City (and thus, the universe) for themselves. This is a very “fair play” mystery – meaning all the clues are there for the reader to figure out the who, why, and how (because how the murder that start the book was even possible, given the victim was the living embodiment of the moon and fully empowered when it happened, is part of the mystery). Readers who enjoy having a juicy mystery in the middle of their fantasy/horror hybrid novel will not be disappointed and will probably enjoy the challenge of figuring it all out before the characters do.

Several of the main characters of the novel are the local embodiments of three moon goddesses and a moon god: Judy (Chang’e), Anna (Artemis), Professor Williams (Diana), and David (Máni). They are more like co-workers than friends, and even though they are all embodiments of the Moon, they are embodiments of different Moon deities, with different mindsets and histories, so they are not automatically best friends and comrades. I really appreciated that while two of these moon deities are familiar to just about anyone who experienced a public-school education in the United States, McGuire went out of her way to make the other two deities from non-Eastern-European traditions, and to give us a deep sense of what those deities were like in those traditions. She made me want to learn more about Chang’e and her peaches of immortality, Máni, and others who are mentioned but play less significant roles in the way the story plays out (Losna, Aske).

The moon deities are not the only main characters. There’s also Kelpie, a woman who thought her current unusual body type (mostly human, but with orange skin and legs that end in hooves and a few more subtle differences) was the result of a horrible lab accident that also wiped her memory. She learns what she really is and goes on the run from her employers, the Alchemical Congress of the United States, after her friend and mentor is killed for seemingly failing in a project designed to get the Congress access to the Impossible City before it is claimed by its rightful rulers. She encounters a boy name Luis and his mother, Isabella, who is an hechicera (a type of sorceress), who join her in her quest to find someone who can help her understand herself and help stop the man pursuing her.

In Kelpie, we have one of the most stunning portrayals of a person escaping and overcoming the trauma of gaslighting that I think I’ve ever read – a woman whose whole sense of self and purpose gets uprooted and who still finds ways to stay strong, move forward, and come to terms with what she really is. In Isabella, we get a stark indictment of the ways in which European colonization practically (and in some cases, totally) eradicated other belief systems (by absorption or by destruction).

I found aspects of each of the main characters relatable, and I came to care for all of them as much as I did the main characters of Middlegame and Seasonal Fears. And for those wondering, I can say without spoilers that while the MCs of Seasonal Fears only get a few passing mentions, the MCs of Middlegame enter the story much earlier, and play a much bigger role, than they did in Season Fears.

Fans of Seanan McGuire, fans of mystery-fantasy-horror hybrids, fans of tales of moon deities: you’ll find something to love about this book. BUT – you should probably at least read Middlegame if not Seasonal Fears before Tidal Creatures, to understand the alchemical underpinnings of the world and the history of the Alchemical Congress.

I received an advance reading pdf of this book for free via NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I received and read the ARC well before publication date but dropped the ball on posting the review until now. Tidal Creatures is currently available wherever books are sold.

You can read my review of book two in the series, Seasonal Fears, HERE. Somehow, I never posted a review of Middlegame. I’ll have to reread it and fix that one of these days.

Book Review: SILVER NITRATE

TITLE: Silver Nitrate

AUTHOR: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

368 pages, Del Ray, ISBN 9780593355381 (paperback, also hardcover, e-book and audio)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: Sometimes, horror slams into your life blatantly and unavoidably, and sometimes it slowly insinuates its way into your life, growing incrementally with plenty of easy-to-miss warning signs. Thus it is in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Silver Nitrate – a subtle sense of unease at the start grows into full-blown supernatural horror by the end, a journey that, like the characters, you won’t be able to stop once you start no matter how many signs there are warning you away.

In 1990s Mexico City, Monserrat (a movie sound editor), her childhood best friend Tristán (a struggling actor), and Abel (a retired director) uncover the secrets of a “lost film” from the 1960s, a film Monserrat and Tristán have been obsessed with since high school and which Abel actually directed but left incomplete, leading to the realization that magic is real and to a cult that wants to bring their dead leader back to life. Along the way there are magical changes of fortune, ghosts, and dark presences.

I’ve become quite a fan of “lost film” and “forgotten television series” stories over the past few years (see: Will Ludwigsen’s Acres of Perhaps, for instance), and I was already a big fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia (I haven’t read everything she’s ever written, but I’m working on it), so of course the combination of author and concept would catch my eye. Silver Nitrate, in case you haven’t already figured it out, did not disappoint.

Moreno-Garcia’s characters are always nuanced and complex. Montserrat, Tristán, and Abel are no exceptions. Montserrat juggles frustrations with family and a misogynistic boss with her self-admittedly unrequited love for Tristán. She could do better on both the employment and romantic fronts if she could just let go of these things/people she loves, but she can’t bring herself to break from either. Tristán had it all as a devilishly handsome soap opera star in a tempestuous relationship with his co-star girlfriend until a car accident took both away from him. He too cannot let go: of the love, of the guilt, of wanting to regain his career. And Abel – well, Abel starts the story at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from Montserrat and Tristán, having given up career and love and become an alcoholic recluse … until they come along to rekindle his interest in his lost project. They are not quite “three points on a triangle,” but they are on an emotional continuum. Moreno-Garcia illustrates the push and pull they exert on one another in small moments and large confrontations that keep the book’s emotional stakes high.

That emotional push and pull also makes it easy for each of them to ignore the warning signs that things are getting dangerous, and that what seemed like a light bit of magic at first is pulling them into something darker and potentially fatal. I don’t want to say too much about the reveals in the last quarter of the book, but I will say Moreno-Garcia is great at blending the literary equivalent of a “jump scare” with the kind of psychological horror that typically eschews jump scares. And she kept me guessing right up to the denouement as to how things were going to play out.

Fans of psychological and supernatural horror, fans of “lost film” stories, and fans of period pieces (yes, as much as it pains me to say it, stories set in the 1990s are now “period pieces”) will all find Silver Nitrate a worthy read. Check it out.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I received and read the ARC before the book was published but dropped the ball on posting the review. The paperback edition was released on May 21st, 2024, and is available in all the usual places. Also, Moreno-Garcia’s newest novel is The Seventh Veil of Salome, which also has to do with a classic period of filmmaking. I’m hoping to read that soon.

Reading Round-Up: August 2024

Here’s what I read, listened to, and watched in August 2024!

BOOKS

I read 8 books in August: 3 in print, 3 in e-book format, and 2 in audio format. They were:

1.       My West Side Story: A Memoir by George Chakiris and Lindsay Harrison (E-BOOK, Non-fiction Challenge)

2.       A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, (Narrated by Tim Curry) (AUDIOBOOK)

3.       Superman Batman: Saga of the Super Sons by Bob Haney, Dick Dillin, Vince Colletta, Tex Blaisdell, and others (PRINT; Graphic Novel Challenge)

4.       Stormgate Press Quick Reads Book #1: The Purple Mystique by Charles Millhouse (PRINT)

5.       Tournament Manners: A Martial Arts Mystery by Jess Faraday (E-BOOK)

6.       In the Hands of Women by Jane Loeb Rubin (PRINT) REVIEW HERE

7.       The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam by G. Willow Wilson (AUDIOBOOK; Non-fiction Challenge)

8.       A Princess of Mars: Shadow of the Assassins by Ann Tonsor Zeddies (e-book) REVIEW HERE

STORIES

Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “The Darkness Between the Stars” by Richard Thomas in Lightspeed Magazine #171, edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “Resistance” by Cat Rambo

3.       “The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strain'd” by Archita Mittra

4.       “Under the Skin” by Deborah L. Davitt

5.       “Mud Maidens Rise” by K.A. Wiggins

6.       “Look at the Moon” by Dominique Dickey

7.       “What's in a Name?” by Matthew Hughes

8.       “Child of the River” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

9.       “The Lazarus Cabal” by Sean Lee Levin, from The Lazarus Cabal, edited by Michael Croteau

10.   “Daily Nightly” by Jim Beard, from Moonstone Double Shot May 2024, edited by Joe Gentile

11.   “Streets of Blood” by Richard Scanlan

12.   “The Time Capsule” by Alice Towey, from Clarkesworld #214, edited by Neil Clarke

13.   “The Sort” by Thomas Ha

14.   “A Night in Purple” by Charles Millhouse, from Stormgate Press Quick Read Book #1: The Purple Mystique, edited by Charles Millhouse

15.   “Death in Purple” by Charles Millhouse

16.   “Into the Valley of Death” by William Meikle, from Creature Feature, edited by William Meikle

17.   “Home from the Sea” by William Meikle

18.   “A Rock and a Hard Place” by William Meikle

19.   “One Ear Left Over” by Jonathan Olfert, from Beneath Ceaseless Skies #413, edited by Sean H. Andrews

20.   “An Isle in a Sea of Ghosts” by J.A. Prentice

21.   “Once There Was Water” by Katie McIvor, from The Dark #111, edited by Sean Wallace

22.   “The Operculum Necklace” by Megan Chee

23.   “Bite Me, Drink Me, Get Me” by H. Pueyo

24.   “To Call the Lightning” by Rebecca Burton, from Kaleidotrope Summer 2024, edited by Fred Coppersmith

So that’s 24 short stories in August. Less than “1 per day” again, which keeps me slightly behind for the year! (August 31st was the 244th day of 2024.)

MOVIES

I watched four movies in August:

1.       We Are Doc Savage (2024)

2.       Logan (2017)

3.       The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

4.       West Side Story (1961)

The week ending August 31st was the 35th week of the year, so I’m still behind on the “1 movie per week” challenge.

TELEVISION

·       Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1, Episodes 1 – 10 (10 episodes) REVIEW HERE

·       Slow Horses Season 3, Episodes 1 – 6 (6 episodes)

·       Only Murders in the Building Season 4, Episode 1 (1 episode)

·       The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2, Episodes 1 – 3 (3 Episodes)

That’s 20 episodes of television, which puts me still well below the “1 per day” I was shooting for and keeps me behind the pace for this challenge.

LIVE THEATER

I saw two live theatrical performances in August:

1.       Back to the Future: The Musical (Winter Garden Theater, New York City) REVIEW HERE

2.       Once Upon a Mattress (Hudson Theatre, New York City) REVIEW HERE

Summary of Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 6 of 15 read.

366 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  24 read; YTD: 226 of 366 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 8 read; YTD: 83 of 120 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 1 read; YTD: 16 of 52 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 14 of 12 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0 read/watched; YTD: 2 read/watched.

Movie Challenge: This month: 4 watched; YTD: 21 of 52 watched.

TV Shows Challenge: This month: 20 episodes watched; YTD: 169 of 366 watched.

Live Theater Challenge: This month: 2 shows attended; YTD: 11 of 12 attended.

Book Review: IN THE HANDS OF WOMEN

TITLE: In The Hands of Women

AUTHOR: Jane Loeb Rubin

340 pages, Level Best Books, ISBN 9781685123468 (softcover, also e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Jane Loeb Rubin’s In the Hands of Women is an engrossing historical fiction novel (a genre I readily admit I am not well-read in). Taking place in the early 1900s and set against the backdrop of the pre-WW1 immigration surge and the Women’s Suffrage movement, the book tracks the life and career of Hannah Isaacson as she attends Johns Hopkins Medical School to become one of the first accredited female doctors working in the relatively new field of obstetrics, and then returns to her family in New York City to practice.

Hannah is a multi-faceted narrator. She is a survivor of poverty and trauma (the death of her mother when she was just a toddler from breast cancer, the remarriage of her father, the death of her best childhood friend from consumption) who has been motivated by that trauma, and by the love of the older sister who raised her and the support of a local physician who believed in her, to pursue a career in medicine at a time when women weren’t encouraged to be doctors (leaving many to “settle,” as it were, for nursing or midwifery). Stalwart friends and family surround her both at medical school and when she’s practicing in New York. I enjoyed the depth of character Rubin gives to not just the supporting cast but even the tertiary characters. In addition to Hannah, the book has a lot of strong and complex women characters, from Hannah’s older sister Tillie to her medical school best friend Elspeth to her secretary Ina and including some real-life women at the time: Johns Hopkins trustees Mrs. Garrett and Mrs. Thomson, and controversial Suffragist movement / sex education advocate Margaret Sanger at the beginning of her career. Not every strong woman in the book is on Hannah’s side though. There’s a particularly nasty prison warden who plays a significant role in the second half of the book.

The book’s male characters are equally split between supportive (Dr. Boro, her mentor; Tillie’s husband Abe; Hannah’s stepmother’s second husband) and horrible (several other medical students at Johns Hopkins, among others). The attitude that even accomplished professional women were “second class” in relation to men, that they should be thankful for men’s attention and also clean up men’s mistakes without complaint, permeates the book as it permeated the time, as does the limited options for women in terms of understanding and thoughtful healthcare, including birth control and abortion rights, of the time. I would like to say these issues made the book feel purely historical, but unfortunately, we know very well how much and yet how little has changed in the past 120 years. The novel informs without preaching, the issues of the time a natural part of the narrative and reflective of our current environment.

In addition to women’s rights, the book also puts a laser-focus on immigration, the waves of Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews that filled the southern half of Manhattan in the years between the end of the Civil War and the advent of Prohibition. The majority of the main characters are recently immigrated or first-generation Russian Jews but their story is reflective of what immigrants of other nationalities and faiths were experiencing at the time. The squalor so many of them lived in, having fled even worse in Europe, impacted the city’s crime rate and public health. The overlapping issues of poverty, crime, and public health (and even more so, women’s health) become the focus of Hannah’s career.

Hannah also has a personal growth arc that takes her from a naïve medical school student to a woman who can stand up to bullies (both the political and romantic/sexual type). I enjoy novels where characters come into their own, and Rubin accomplishes that subtly and completely.

Highly recommended to fans of historical fiction that centers complex female characters!

Macbeth Monday: Macbeth (an undoing)

Let’s face it: the women of Shakespeare’s Macbeth are ill-served by the script. The witches are largely stereotypes, there to move the plot along and provide some spookiness amid all the murder; Lady MacDuff appears in only one scene, by the end of which she’s dead; and while she is as commanding a presence as her titular husband at the start of the play, Lady Macbeth’s impact on the action quickly diminishes to nothing, ultimately resulting in an off-stage suicide. Over the years, there have been many attempts to delve deeper into the characters of the women of Macbeth (and their real historical counterparts) or to rewrite their roles and histories. One such successful recent attempt is Zinnie Harris’ Macbeth (an undoing), produced first by the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and then brought to the states at Polonsky Shakespeare Center’s Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, New York, where I saw it in its limited run in April 2024.

Harris puts the women at the center of the action, restructures their relationships to each other (Ladies Macbeth and MacDuff are cousins, raised together; Lady Macbeth and the Witches (here called Carlin, Mae, and Missy) have a history) as well as to the men (the marriage of MacDuff and Lady MacDuff is far from harmonious here), reorganizes the famous speeches to bring out different depths.

And damn, is it powerful stuff. (I’m not going to pretend the power of the piece is why I’m posting this review five months after I saw the show, which would be a lie. It’s pure procrastination. But here we are.)

As much as I love Shakespeare’s play, it has long bothered me (as it has so many other people; I am hardly the first to point this out) how diminished Lady Macbeth’s role becomes, and how sharply her character changes midway through the play. At the start, she is the strong one, holding to their shared purpose, pushing Macbeth to do what must be done to secure the prophecy the witches gave him, while he is the one who is indecisive, who hallucinates both visually (the dagger) and aurally (the voices crying “Macbeth doth murder sleep…”). Then that all changes, with Lady Macbeth going insane between scenes, reappearing as guilt-wracked sleepwalker, then dying off-stage while Macbeth stays “strong” (for some value of the word) against his rebellious thanes. Harris turns this on its head, in a fantastic sequence of scenes that serve both characters better, in my humble opinion. These are scenes that Shakespeare probably couldn’t have written in his time, but they work now.

Of course, they work so well because they are in conversation with Shakespeare’s work rather than trying to replace it. Throughout the script, several characters break the fourth wall (most notably Carlin, the eldest “witch,” at the start of the play and at the start of the second act, but also Lady Macbeth and others) acknowledging not only that they know they’re in a play but also that they have veered from the script to look at the story from a different angle. That new angle allows Harris to discuss misogyny, gaslighting, and the threat men seem to think strong women pose (in a particularly telling moment, the Thanes begin to address Lady Macbeth as “King,” and claiming it is his Lady who is slowly going insane … because they just can’t deal with the idea that a woman might be running the country not just capably but more capably than the man they elected; remembering those scenes now, in late August 2024, they definitely resonate stronger).

The production is set in a kind of nebulous 1930s, with costumes and furniture clueing the audience in. The staging made incredible use of moving mirrored walls, which indicate not just the walls closing in on the Macbeths but also how everyone’s actions reflect upon themselves and others. As you may be able to tell, I’m trying not to spoil too much of Harris’ changes; there are some moments that need to be seen in their fully staged glory to be as thought-provoking as they should be.

I do have to credit the cast. Nicole Cooper as Lady Macbeth, Emmanuella Cole as Lady MacDuff and Mae (the middle witch), Adam Best as Macbeth, James Robinson as Banquo, and Liz Kettle as Carlin led a great ensemble. This is not to denigrate the rest of the cast. These characters are on stage the most and command most of the attention. Kettle’s Carlin (who at the top of the show is giving a tweak on the lines Shakespeare gave the Porter, who is otherwise missing) was particularly captivating.

If you get to see a performance of this script, don’t hesitate! It’s an intense night of theater, but well worth the intensity to see a familiar story from an angle that plays off the original’s timelessness while still pointing a lens at our modern world.

I was unfamiliar with Zinnie Harris’ work before this, but I will be seeking out performances of not only her reconstructions/reinventions of other classic plays but her totally original work as well.

It is no secret that my favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth. I’ve lost count of how many live productions of it I’ve seen, plus movie and TV versions I own in various formats, not to mention all the novels, graphic novels, and non-fiction books. Macbeth Monday is intended to be an occasional feature on the blog where I discuss whatever version or aspect of the story catches my attention at a particular moment.

Book Review: THE BRIDES OF HIGH HILL

TITLE: The Brides of High Hill (The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 5)

AUTHOR: Nghi Vo

115 pages, TorDotCom, ISBN 9781250851444 (hardcover, e-book, audio)

MY RATING:  4 stars out of 5

At the start of The Brides of High Hill, the fifth book in Nghi Vo’s wonderful Singing Hills Cycle of novellas, Cleric Chih is in the process of accompanying a family to the titular estate, where the daughter will be married to the lord of the manor. Chih quickly discovers that not all is as it seems: the Lord has a history of short-lived marriages with tragic ends and a strangely ill son from one of those previous marriages; the Bride-to-Be’s family has secrets of their own; and why can’t Chih remember how they parted ways with Almost Brilliant, the neixin who usually accompanies them, and came to be traveling with the family?

Vo packs a lot into each Singing Hills novella, and The Brides of High Hill is no exception. What at first seems like a simple tweak to the legend of Bluebeard morphs into an Asian-inflected gothic suspense novel with a possibly haunted estate and then morphs again into a rumination on colonialism and on revenge as an unending cycle.

Chih of course finds themself at the center of all of this, not only as chronicler but also as the person who must try to find a solution that satisfies all the parties involved. This is not the first time we’ve seen Chih operate without Almost Brilliant at their side – but is the first time we’ve seen Chih unsure of where Almost Brilliant is. And that makes a difference in Chih’s confidence in their ability to recall details about Lord Gao’s family and the bride-to-be’s. It’s a side of Chih I feel like we haven’t seen before and continues the character growth we’ve seen in the preceding four novellas.

Vo does a wonderful job setting the mood of High Hills with details about the architecture, the smells, and the distinct differences noticeable between daylight hours and the nighttime. I understood Chih’s sense of disorientation, shared their discomfort at not being able to put their finger on exactly what was creating the sense of wrongness, felt like I was there in the misty, uncomfortable dark.

I can’t speak too much on the aspects of the book that touch on the ravages of colonialism and cycles of revenge (and how we break them), or on the parts that involve gaslighting, without spoiling major plot points that are best left discovered as they unfold. I can say that when I realized what was going on, I found Vo’s handling of the gaslighting in particular to be expertly done, with great care and understanding of the victim’s questioning of how to trust their feelings in the future. Likewise with the “how do we break violent cycles” issue.

I think I say this in every review of a Singing Hills Cycle installment, but these books truly can be read in any order; you do not have to know anything about what transpired in books one through four to enjoy The Brides of High Hill. I highly recommend picking it up – or picking up the first book in the series, Empress of Salt and Fortune, and savoring each novella in turn.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I did receive the e-ARC well before publication date but never posted the review. The Brides of High Hill is available now wherever books are sold.

READING ROUND-UP: July 2024

Here’s what I read, listened to, and watched in July 2024!

BOOKS

I read 15 books in July: 9 in print, 3 in e-book format, and 3 in audio format. They were:

1.       Represent! by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler and Brant Day (PRINT)

2.       Let the Games Begin by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler and Betty Yuku (PRINT)

3.       Hunter's Tall Tales by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler, and Danelle Prestwich (PRINT)

4.       A Scout Is Brave by Will Ludwigsen (E-BOOK) REVIEW HERE

5.       Caesar Now Be Still (Wilson Hargreave #1) by Frank Schildiner (E-BOOK) REVIEW HERE

6.       Changes in the Land by Matthew Cheney (PRINT)

7.       Prez: Setting a Dangerous President by Mark Russell, Benjamin Caldwell, Wilfredo Torres, Mark Morales, and others (PRINT, Graphic Novel Challenge)

8.       Reflections (Indexing #2) by Seanan McGuire (AUDIO)

9.       Star Trek Adventures: The Operations Division Supplemental Rulebook by Chris McCarver, Andy Peregrine, Jack Geiger, and others (PRINT)

10.   Dancing on the Edge by Russ Tamblyn (AUDIO, non-fiction challenge)

11.   Lovely Creatures by KT Bryski (PRINT)

12.   A Stick-Figure Macbeth by Mya L. Gosling (PRINT) REVIEW HERE

13.   Super Sons: The Complete Collection Book 1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Jorge Jiminez, Patrick Gleason, Carlo Barberi, and others (PRINT, graphic novel challenge)

14.   We by Yvgeney Zamyatin, translated by Clarence Brown (AUDIO)

15.   Victory Harben: Tales from the Void, edited by Christopher Paul Carey (E-BOOK, ARC (book to be published in September)

STORIES

Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “The Last Lucid Day” by Dominique Dickey in Lightspeed Magazine #170, edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “The Only Writing Advice You'll Ever Need to Survive Eldritch Horrors” by Aimee Picchi

3.       “The Heist for the Soul of Humanity” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek

4.       “The Aliens Said They Want to Party” by Joel W.D. Buxton

5.       “Songs of the Sorrow of Thorns” by Amayah Perveen

6.       “The Red Queen's Heart” by Vanessa Fogg

7.       “A Guide on How to Meet the Deity of Many Faces” by Oyedotun Damilola Muess

8.       “Between Above and Below” by Carrie Vaughn

9.       “The Girl Who Loved Peacocks” by Seanan McGuire, from the Author’s Patreon

10.   “The Terms and Conditions of Kindness” by James Bennett, from The Dark #110, edited by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace

11.   “That Maddening Heat” by Ray Cluley

12.   “Every Hopeless Thing” by Tia Tashiro, from Clarkesworld #214, edited by Neil Clarke

13.   “Pellucidar: Dark of the Sun” by Christopher Paul Carey, from Victory Harben: Tales from the Void, edited by Christopher Paul Carey

14.   “Victory Harben: Clash on Caspak” by Mike Wolfer

15.   “Victory Harben: Stormwinds of Va-Nah” by Ann Tonsor Zeddies

16.   “Victory Harben and the Lord of the Veiled Eye” by Christopher Paul Carey

17.   “Jason Gridley of Earth: Across the Moons of Mars” by Geary Gravel

18.   “Beyond the Farthest Star: Rescue on Zandar” by Mike Wolfer

19.   “Grottmata” by Thomas Ha, from Nightmare Magazine #142, edited by Wendy N. Wagner

20.   “Automaton Boy” by Sara S. Messenger

21.   “The Museum of Cosmic Retribution” by Megan Chee

22.   “Tamaza's Future and Mine” by Kenneth Schneyer, from Asimov's Science Fiction 582/583, edited by Sheila Williams

23.   “The Phantasmagoria of Castle Specfel” by Greta Hayer, from Kaleidotrope Summer 2024, edited by Fred Coppersmith

So that’s 23 short stories in July. Less than “1 per day” again, which puts me slightly behind again for the year! (July 31st was the 213th day of 2024.)

MOVIES

I watched one movie in July:

1.       The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

The week ending July 28th was the 31st week of the year, so I’m still way behind on the “1 movie per week” challenge.

TELEVISION

·       Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 1 – 20 (20 episodes)

That’s 20 episodes of television, which is well below the “1 per day” I was shooting for and keeps me behind the pace for this challenge.

LIVE THEATER

I didn’t get to any live theatrical performances in July!

Summary of Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 6 of 15 read.

366 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  23 read; YTD: 202 of 366 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 15 read; YTD: 75 of 120 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 2 read; YTD: 15 of 52 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 3 read; YTD: 12 of 12 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 1 read/watched; YTD: 2 read/watched. (I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie earlier in the year and finally watched the movie this month.)

Movie Challenge: This month: 1 watched; YTD: 17 of 52 watched.

TV Shows Challenge: This month: 20 episodes watched; YTD: 149 of 366 watched.

Live Theater Challenge: This month: 0 shows attended; YTD: 9 of 12 attended.

Macbeth Monday: STICK-FIGURE MACBETH

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not a comedy. (Despite what one might think of some productions’ choices.) It is a dark tragedy, full of blood and murder and the supernatural. Which, of course, makes it ripe for comedic parody. Earlier this year, I saw the New York City company of Drunk Shakespeare perform their rendition of Macbeth, and it was one of the funniest theatrical experiences I have had (right up there with the various Mischief Theatre productions I’ve seen).

I can confidently report that Mya L. Golding’s A Stick-Figure Macbeth (published by GoodTickleBrain.com) made me laugh just as hard. I picked it up during a visit to the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival last month and finally read it a few days ago. It is a fast, funny read.

Presenting chapbook style in black-and-white, the art is not truly stick-figure (the way the webcomic xkcd is), because how would you tell the characters apart? But there’s just enough detail to distinguish between Macbeth and Macduff, etc. The slightly more than stick-figure art allows for facial expressions that enhance the dialogue jokes. I particularly loved the long, straight lines representing Macbeth’s beard versus the goatee of Banquo and the full-bodied fluff of Macduff. Dueling facial hair for the win!

The introduction explains that this version of the story contains and the action and blood but omits most of the “richness and vibrancy of Shakespeare’s language.” There are plenty of direct quotes from the play, but most of the dialogue is paraphrased and played on, which is where the humor and charm of the book really click. There’s a running joke of everyone mangling “Thane of Cawdor,” for instance (calling him everything from Thane of Candor to Hodor. I half-expected a Superman reference (to the Kryptonian “Bottle City” of Kandor), and one about Macbeth trying to hard not to think of murdering Duncan that he says “casket” instead of “castle” and “knife” instead of “wife.” (The Introduction is extremely funny for other reasons. Don’t skip it.)

Golding even riffs on the famous “Hecate” scenes (including song-and-dance numbers) that don’t fit tonally with the rest of the play and are usually cut (belief is that they were added by another playwright, Thomas Middleton, after Shakespeare’s death), and on the awkward scene between Macduff and Prince Malcolm (where somehow Malcolm thinks that convincing Macduff he would be a worse king than Macbeth is the way to win Macduff’s support).

Some pages have the action interrupted by a note explaining historical context or some controversy related to the show (is it cursed? What was Lady Macbeth’s first name? and one of my favorites: a panel explaining how the Murderers are just called “First Murderer” and “Second Murderer,” and that Murderers traditionally come in pairs, and positing that these are the same murderers who appear in Richard III and Henry the Sixth Part II.)

I really don’t want to spoil every joke, so I won’t quote any more of them. I considered including a short excerpt of a few panels (with copyright info, of course), but I’m unsure if that would violate proper use laws. So just take my word for it: go find the book!

Perhaps I should note here: I know a lot of people get offended when their “favorite thing” (whatever it is) is parodied or turned comedic. I’m not one of those folks, as long as the parody is actually funny (which this is). If you are, and Macbeth is that “favorite thing” for you --- maybe this isn’t the book for you.

Macbeth is not the only “Stick-Figure” print adaptation Mya Golding has produced. Golding, and Good Tickle Brain, can be found at their website (linked to near the top of this review) and on Facebook (fb.com/goodticklebrain) and Instagram (Instagram.com/goodticklebrain).

It is no secret that my favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth. I’ve lost count of how many live productions of it I’ve seen, plus movie and TV versions I own in various formats, not to mention all the novels, graphic novels, and non-fiction books. Macbeth Monday is intended to be an occasional feature on the blog where I discuss whatever version or aspect of the story catches my attention at a particular moment.