Review of IN RE SHERLOCK HOLMES

TITLE: In Re: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Solar Pons (Solar Pons #1)

AUTHOR: August Derleth

288 pages, Belanger Books, ISBN 9781720599623 (paperback, ebook, audiobook)

DESCRIPTION: (from the Publisher’s description): Once again in old London, "the game is afoot." In these pastiches of the Sacred Writings, written when he was nineteen and twenty, August Derleth has recreated the London of Sherlock Holmes. It does not matter that the familiar name has become Solar Pons, or that the familiar Baker Street has become Praed Street — something of the nostalgic charm and fascination, of the remembered quickening of the pulse and the familiar settings of the original London of Sherlock Holmes, has been recaptured in these pages. And what intriguing titles there arc to these twelve pastiches, chosen from among a greater number! Here are "The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" — about a spectral image of Siva seen at a country estate beyond London; "The Adventure of the Purloined Periapt" — which is the purest of pastiches and perhaps the closest of all the tales in this book to the original spirit; "The Adventure of the Norcross Riddle" —containing some of the neatest deduction in the book; "The Adventure of the Man with the Broken Face" — a tale of "dark waters"; and eight others. "No doubt," writes Vincent Starrett in his Introduction, "we — and by we, I mean those frantic and incurable Sherlockians who, with August Derleth, deplore the paucity of canonical entertainments — should rather have more of the great originals, but we accept the imitations, faute de mieux, to satisfy a normal appetite. And we accept them with enthusiasm. They are the work of affectionate minds and hands. There is no intention to deceive. These stories, and others in their field, are intended only to please. They are nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street."

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: I’m sure I knew of Solar Pons, as one of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches I read in middle and high school. But I didn’t really become consciously aware of him, or just how many stories comprise the Pontine Canon, until I started regularly haunting used book stores and participating in various pulp magazine and “Wold Newton Universe” online groups about a decade and a half ago. Whether the Pontine Canon is composed only of the original stories by August Derleth or includes the later stories written by Basil Copper is for more knowledgeable minds than mine to debate; I bought all of the Pons 70s paperbacks I could find in those used bookstores with the intent of reading the whole series once I had them all. What inspired me to finally start (having finally read/listened to the entire Holmesian canon in order a few years ago) is the re-issue of the Derleth books by Belanger Books under the editorship of Pons expert David Marcum. And, more specifically, the offer from the publisher of a free audiobook of this first book in the series in exchange for an honest review.

For those not in the know (and who somehow missed the book description just above): August Derleth created Solar Pons to be the successor to Sherlock Holmes. Pons and his amanuensis, Doctor Lyndon Parker, are very much like their literary predecessors -- Derleth wasn't trying to create something new and daring, but was rather paying tribute to characters who had given him so much joy and for whom new adventures would not be forthcoming (I wonder, did Derleth ever suspect the overwhelming amount of new Holmes fiction that would be written, authorized or otherwise, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s passing? Did Derleth suspect that there would be more Pons stories written and published beyond his originals?)

The stories in this first collection, therefore, feel very much like Derleth writing Doyle: the stories are short and punchy; Parker spends a few paragraphs in each story talking about Pons’ amazing skills of ratiocination; Pons constantly tries to get Parker to deduce what’s really going on but of course the Chronicler is, if not clueless, at least not as intuitive as his friend. There are detectives and beat cops from Scotland Yard who are impressed by the detective but also a bit off-put by him; there’s a criminal mastermind with hinted-at history that we never quite get enough information about; there are even street-urchin “Irregulars” to help Pons in situations where multiple suspects need to be under surveillance.

It sounds sort of derivative, doesn’t it? And yet … in the reading, it doesn’t feel derivative at all. Derleth’s narrative voice, through Lyndon Parker, is lighter than Doyle’s, less serious but not lacking in tension.  The Pons-Parker dynamic is a bit more playful than that of their predecessors, without sacrificing the mutual respect they have. Pons’ relationship with Scotland Yard is less condescending (although he still pokes at the fact that he can find clues they seem incapable of finding on their own), and so the various officers’ attitude to Pons is more openly respectful. And Derleth doesn’t wait until he’s ready to kill his lead character off to introduce an arch-nemesis: Baren Ennesfred Kroll is mentioned in one story in this collection and actually appears in another. I assume he recurs in later volumes as well.

Steve White’s narration of the audiobook is at its best in the voices of Parker and Pons, who feel distinct from each other (Pons is a little more nasal in delivery, Parker a bit broader-toned). I didn’t always feel like the supporting character voices worked; some felt like the accent was more South African, some felt at odds with the character descriptions (for instance, Parker describes in one story a beautiful young woman as their client, but White’s character voice is more middle-age matronly). But overall, White does a wonderful job keeping the stories tense and exciting, and finding the humor in both Parker and Pons’ lines where appropriate.

This first Solar Pons collection is full of fun mysteries, some more predictable than others, with an engaging lead detective and sidekick. If you’ve read all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, you’re likely to enjoy this as a follow-up. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series, or listening if Belanger Books brings out more audiobook editions.

SUNDAY SHORTS: Abyss & Apex 70

Sunday Shorts is a series where I blog about short fiction – from flash to novellas. For the time being, I’m sticking to prose, although it’s been suggested I could expand this feature to include single episodes of anthology television series like The Twilight Zone or individual stories/issues of anthology comics (like the 1970s DC horror or war anthology titles). So anything is possible. But for now, the focus is on short stories.

I received a review copy of this spring’s issue of Abyss and Apex magazine and here, finally, are some brief thoughts on the stories contained therein:

1. EXHIBIT K by Nadia Afifi. A woman wakes up and finds that she’s not only famous for what she did during wartime but also that she’s become an interactive museum exhibit opposite her most hated enemy. I won’t give away the how of the situation (I really hate spoiling short story twists), but I can say it’s not your standard “person from the past adjusts to an unexpected future” story. The author stays firmly in the viewpoint of the main character, Selma Carmichael, allowing the reader to experience this strange new world alongside her – which means any answers Selma doesn’t get (about how the world got the way it is) the reader doesn’t get either. And while in other stories that might bother me, it doesn’t here because of how much else is going on: the reveals about Selma and her enemy’s pasts, the reveal of what the museum curators are really up to – it’s all very well done and very well paced, with tons of concrete physical and sensory details to help the reader feel connected to the world and to Selma.

2. THE BIRDS THAT FLEW IN WARTIME by Tamoha Sengupta. The second story in the issue is far more ephemeral that the first; alternating points of view and style. Some sections are very middle-Eastern fable-like in tone, while others are more modern in voice. The full story comes together in bits and pieces, and there’s a lot for the reader to speculate about. There are some poetic, beautiful turns-of-phrase throughout.

3. A MISSED DIVERSION by R.S. Alexander.  The third story in the issue veers away from hard SF and ephemeral fantasy into the realm of sf-crime. The setting is clearly the near future, but the story is centered on a man in hiding trying to solve the mystery of a friend’s death – by blackmailing the person he thinks committed the crime. It’s a bit of a crime thriller, a bit of a corporate espionage thriller – and a very, very insular story told mostly through transmitted dialogue between our main character and his target. It felt like it would be equally at home in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine or Asimov’s.

4. ARS POETICA by David F. Shultz.  This was my favorite story in the issue. Sort-of near-future, not-quite post-apocalyptic setting in which the people with the best chance of saving the human race from falling to robot infiltrators are … writers. Well, poets, specifically. It seems the one aspect of humanity the robots (called bugs for the way they attach to and take over humans) can’t quite imitate is the writing of poetry. So communities survive or fall based on their ability to sniff out who is really writing poetry and who is plagiarizing. Scenes discussing the nature of creativity (nature vs. nurture) alternate with serious dissections of the taking in of refugees who may or may not be what they seem, all mixed with several high-energy, high-body-count, very bloody human vs. robot encounters that felt original in the way they were executed. All the stories in the issue are enjoyable, but this one especially kept me thinking long after I was done reading it.

5. SIBLING SQUABBLES by Gregg Chamberlain. This is a very funny bit of flash fiction about a father trying to explain to a daughter why using magic on her magic-less sibling is not acceptable. It’s classic parent-sibling head-butting, enhanced by sharp dialogue and winking references to a variety of television and literary wizards and witches (I think I got all of them, but I’m not sure), and even a kind of nod (I think) to a Disney live-action classic film from the 60s. I smiled all the way through this one.

6. THE GIFTED SOMMELLIER by Grayson Bray Morris.  The fiction portion of the issue ends with a heart-breaking bit of flash fiction about a wine sommelier with a very specific job to do. I hate to say too much, but the lush detail in such a short piece really sets the mood excellently, and the end brought a tear to my eye.

Issue #70 of Abyss & Apex also has a poetry section – but as I’m not an avid poetry reader, I don’t feel qualified to review or discuss the seven poems or the artwork that accompanies them.

SERIES SATURDAY: The original Planet of the Apes franchise

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

I have no idea which of the original Planet of the Apes movies I saw first.

Given that they were released in theaters between 1968 and 1973, when I was at the tender ages of two through seven, I definitely encountered them on television. In the mid-70s through mid-80s, New York City-area television stations WNYW (Channel 5), WWOR (Channel 9) and WPIX (Channel 11), all then local and not network-affiliated, aired a wonderful weekend mix of genre and genre-adjacent movies: everything from the Apes to Japanese kaiju to wire-fu martial arts to classic Universal monsters to Abbott and Costello and the Bowery Boys. Somewhere in that mix, I encountered the original Planet of the Apes franchise. I may have seen them in release order or haphazardly. I may even have seen episodes of the live-action 1974 television series before any of the original movies, since the TV episodes were chopped and combined in 1981 into five two-hour “movie” presentations (but the TV series is a discussion for a different post).

Whatever order I saw the movies in, I fell immediately in lifelong love with the concept, the campiness, the make-up. And that love has only grown as the franchise has been re-worked and re-launched across movie and print media. (One of my greatest regrets is selling my Marvel Comics Planet of the Apes magazine collection; another is throwing away the Mego Planet of the Apes action figures I played with until they’d be worth nothing on the collector market. Hindsight is 20/20, or something like that.)

I recently re-watched the original five movies in release order, and I still love them. The ape make-up may be unrealistic compared to the motion-capture effects of the newest Apes trilogy, but it has such charm, and such consistency across the franchise (slight differences in the facial structure for chimps, orangutans, and gorillas, less diversity between individuals of a sub-set). I did always find the stratification of clothing (all chimps wear the same color, etc.) a bit less realistic. Why is it that SF (definitely in the 50-60s-70s, and even somewhat now) can imagine complex alien races but not imagine that they might have thriving clothing industries similar to our current day? I wonder if any writer has explored the idea that part of the Apes structured society was a dress code? (I’m not as up on the comics and prose canon-adjacent material released in recent years as I am on the filmed/televised canon.)

The body language of the various ape characters, especially in the first two movies, also fascinates me: the way most of the chimps are more hunch-shouldered and subservient despite being the obviously smartest ones in any room (even the teenager Lucius comes across as smarter, if not less impetuous, than the adult gorillas); the orangutan characters always seem to walk with their heads held high and shoulders wide; the gorillas all move like spacially-unaware linebackers. This changes a little bit in the fourth movie, when all of the apes are subservient and non-verbal, but it’s otherwise consistent.

As a kid, the cold war and racial strife allegories went right over my head. As an adult watching with a slightly more critical eye, they’re obvious without being too ham-fisted in the delivery. I can’t accuse them of being subtle, especially in the fourth and fifth movies, but I also don’t feel like every other line of dialogue is telegraphing the issue to the viewers.

Other things I didn’t notice back then but picked up on now: the fact that Roddy McDowell did not play Cornelius in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes,” the only live-action Apes entry of the 60s-70s that he missed out on; that the timing of Cornelius, Zira and Milo fishing Taylor’s original spacecraft out of the sea it crashed in, getting it working, and getting into orbit just doesn’t add up based on Cornelius, Zira and Lucius’ location in the first half of Beneath (there’s a recent novel that tells this story; I haven’t read it yet but I hope it doesn’t just hand-wave the time component); that Natalie Trundy is the Mark Lenard of the Apes franchise, playing a mutant (in Beneath), a human (in Escape), and a chimp (in Conquest and Battle). (Mark Lenard was the first, and maybe still only, actor to hit a similar trifecta in the Star Trek franchise, playing a Romulan, a Vulcan, and a Klingon) …

And the geography. Oh my god, the geography: at the start of the first film, Taylor’s crew crashes into a large lake in a canyon area. (I don’t know where they filmed it, but it sure looks like the American southwest.) At the end of the film, of course, we get the famous reveal of the Statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand of the ocean as Taylor finds out he’s been on Earth the whole time.  In Beneath, Brent and Nova track Taylor into the underground city, and we see mock-ups of famous NYC landmarks, including Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, where the Omega Bomb resides.  In Battle, we find out that the city Caesar led the rebellion in in Conquest is … New York City? Because Kolp is ready to launch that same Omega bomb… but the city we saw in Conquest and Battle looks absolutely nothing like Manhattan or any of the boroughs. I still can’t, even with my willing suspension of disbelief, figure out how the American northeast changes so drastically between the 1991 setting of Conquest and the 3978 setting of the first film. I’m still not even sure of the distance Taylor and crew travel on foot at the start of the first movie: are we to assume the lake/river they crash in is a transformed Hudson River Valley? That feels too close considering the number of days they seem to travel before the landscape changes to greener and they enter Ape territory. Is it the Delaware? That might be a little more plausible. The Susquehanna or Ohio? I just don’t know. it does occasionally keep me up at night.

The things I did notice, even as a kid?

1) The very clear shift in who the audience was supposed to be rooting for. In the first two movies, we’re clearly meant to root for (if not identify with) misanthropic Taylor and chivalrous Brent, lone speaking humans aided, mostly in secret, by one other non-verbal human (Nova) and at most three chimps (Zira, Cornelius, and their nephew Lucius) working in secret against their own obviously oppressive government and a hidden city of mutants. The third movie isn’t subtle about flipping this dynamic on its head: now we’ve got three chimps (Zira, Cornelius and poor, doomed Milo) trying to escape the clutches of an increasingly-oppressive human government with the help of only three humans working in secret (Dixon, Stephanie and Armando). Conquest is almost a complete flip of the dynamic of the first movie, with our solo hero (Caesar) and his non-verbal female interest (Lisa) being aided by only one sympathetic human (MacDonald). Battle completes the transition by relegating even the friendliest humans to supporting cast status (at best) and centering on ape vs. ape politics and those pesky evil mutants again.

2) Those apes looked nothing like the real chimps, orangutans and gorillas in our world. Even then, I wanted some kind of explanation as to how they evolved. How did chimps become human-sized? How did orangutans and gorillas all become so slim? And how did they all become so uniform even within species? It’s what I now call the “one line of dialogue” rule – if it can be explained in one or two lines of dialogue (and this certainly could have been), then the writers need to make that happen. But obviously, in the original Apes franchise, none of the several movie (or TV series) writers cared enough to postulate some kind of human gene-manipulating interference.

And I think that’s the interesting dichotomy of the original Apes franchise: while it did try to comment on weighty topics of the day (not just the Cold War and race relations, but the treatment of women and human abuse of nature vs. stewardship of it and fears of a threat from outer space wiping us out), it also didn’t really expect to be thought about too deeply, and so some gaping plots holes sit in plain view without a patch-job in sight.

Still: plot holes and weird geography are a part of the original franchise’s charm, and I will never stop loving it. It will stay near the top of my Favorite Movie Franchises list, always.

(Since it’s not a part of a series and thus doesn’t really fit into any of the posts I’m planning, this is probably the place to mention Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake/reboot/whatever-you-call-it. I didn’t see it until just last year. I found that it had a lot of the original franchise’s charm in terms of make-up and costumes and plot-holes and that it seemed to be trying to tackle some weightier subjects like the original franchise (militarism in particular, this time). I didn’t hate it as some people did. But I did find the “twist” ending to be gratuitous and unnecessary, almost as if someone (Burton or the studio) thought that in order to make this the start of a new franchise, they had to twist the original twist. And it just didn’t work, on any level. Even as meta-commentary, it fell flat. But I am glad I finally watched it, and I had fun watching Tim Roth and Michael Clarke Duncan chew the scenery.)

Reading Round-Up: April 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading.

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 7 books in April: 2 in print, 2 in e-book format, and 3 in audio. They were:

1.      Lightspeed Magazine #107 (April 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories and novellas. This month’s favorites for me were Caroline M. Yoachim’s “The Archronology of Love,” Mathew Corradi’s “Gundark Island or, Tars Tarkas Needs Your Help,” Shweta Adhyam’s “A Conch-Shell’s Notes,” Carrie Vaughn’s “The Lady of Shallot,” and Ashok K. Banker’s “The Seeds of War.”

2.       Drama Queen (Nicky & Noah Mystery #1), by Joe Cosentino.  The first in a mystery series starring a pair of gay college professors as amateur sleuths has the body count of a crime novel but the tone of a cattier version of cozy mysteries. It’s a light, fun read, and I’m planning to read or listen to the rest of the series at some point.

3.       Sakina’s Restaurant, by Aasif Mandvi. The story of a half-dozen different Indian characters who own or work at the titular restaurant, performed as a one-man show by the author. Not every character portrait works, and the sound design sometimes allows the background to overwhelm the actual dialogue. I think I’d have enjoyed it better if I saw it performed onstage.

4.       A Bloody Business, by Dylan Struzan, with chapter art by Drew Struzan.  Dylan Struzan conducted 50 hours of recorded interviews with crime family member Jimmy Alo, with the understanding that she wouldn’t publish her work until after he was dead. This is an epic piece of creative non-fiction, weaving in Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegal, Al Capone and more. Fascinating. FULL REVIEW HERE.

5.       The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell. A gothic horror novella that’s light on the actual horror but strong on the suspense. It was just the right length for the story being told (man learns of the tragic history of a woman, her daughter, and her granddaughter).

6.       Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, narrated by Jim Dale.  I’m positive I read this in elementary school, but I had absolutely no memory of the events of the story. I kept waiting for a hot air balloon ride that never happened (thanks, movie versions!) and didn’t remember the subplot with Inspector Fix at all. It’s a fun travelogue with quite a few adventure scenes, but of course is also replete with the stererotypes and racism of the era. Jim Dale’s warm, friendly narration makes it almost too easy to ignore the less palatable parts.

7.       F is For Fairy edited by Rhonda Parrish. The sixth in Parrish’s “alphabet anthology” series has 26 stories centered around all kinds of fairies, with tones ranging from comedic to dark, at lengths from flash to almost-novella. Not every story was a total winner to me, but I liked the majority of them. FULL REVIEW HERE.

So only 7 books in April. Not my most prolific reading month of late.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I did read and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too (with some short notes for stories that really stood out to me). If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “The Archronology of Love” by Caroline M. Yoachim, from Lightspeed Magazine #107 (April 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey” by Cory Doctorow

3.       “Gundark Island or, Tars Tarkas Needs Your Help” by Matthew Corradi

4.       “The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin” by Michael Swanwick

5.       “Blur” by Carmen Maria Machado

6.       “The Seeds of War” by Ashok K. Banker

7.       “The Lady of Shallot” by Carrie Vaughn

8.       “A Conch-Shell’s Notes” by Shweta Adhyam

9.       “The Speed of Belief” by Robert Reed

10.   “Of Strange Oaths” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

11.   “Exhibit K” by Nadia Afifi, from Abyss & Apex 2nd Quarter 2019 issue, edited by Wendy S. Dalmater

12.   “The Birds That Flew in Wartime” by Tamoah Sengupta

13.   “A Missed Diversion” by R.S. Alexander

14.    “Ars Poetica” by David F. Shultz

15.   “Sibling Squabbles” by Gregg Chamberlain

16.   “The Gifted Sommellier” by Grayson Bray Morris

17.   “A is for Apple, Who is Love” by L.S. Johnson, from F is for Fairy (Alphabet Anthologies #6), edited by Rhonda Parrish

18.   “B is for Burned” by C.S. MacCath

19.   “C is for Contract” by Jonathan C. Parrish

20.   “D is for Diplomacy” by Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

21.   “E is for Elfshot” by Pete Aldin

22.   “F is for Family” by Steve Bornstein

23.   “G is for Gentry” by Stephanie A. Cain

24.   “H is for Heartkeeper” by Suzanne J. Willis

25.   “I is for Imputation” by Joseph Halden

26.   “J is for Jabberwocky” by Alexandria Seidel

27.   “K is for Kin” by Cory Cone

28.   “L is for Leaving” by Lynn Hardaker

29.   “M is for Maturity” by Rachel M. Thompson

30.   “N is for Neverland” by Brittany Warman

31.   “O is for Oasis” by Lilah Ward

32.   “P is for Promised One” by Michael B. Tager

33.   “Q is for Quiet” by Danielle Davis

34.   “R is for Rusalka” by Megan Englehardt

35.   “S is for Savior” by Samantha Kymmell-Harvey

36.   “T is for Titania” by Sara Cleto

37.   “U is for Unseelie Court” by Andrew Bourelle

38.   “V is for Verisimilitude” by BD Wilson

39.   “W is for Wear Wigs” by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

40.   “X is for Xanadu” by Michael M. Jones

41.   “Y is for Your Song” by Michael Fosburg

42.   “Z is for Zamboni” by Beth Cato

So that’s 42 short stories in April, putting me now slightly ahead for the year so far. (April 30th was the 120th day of 2019.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 2 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  42 read; YTD: 130 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 0 read; YTD: 14 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 7 read; YTD: 50 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 1; YTD: 4 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month, but I set an April goal to try to read primarily books from small press publishers, and I didn’t do good job of it at all (partially due to the smaller number of books read and to commitments to be kept). a pretty decent job of it. Of the 7 books I read, only 3 qualify as from small presses (Drama Queen from Lethe Press; The Poor Clare reissued by Melville House; F is for Fairy from Poise and Pen Publishing). Of the 42 stories, the majority came from small presses (Poise and Pen Publishing: 26; author Patreon: 1; Abyss & Apex magazine: 6; if Lightspeed Magazine counts as a small press among spec-fic magazine publishers, then all of April’s short stories came from small presses of some kind.)

May’s challenge: May is short story month, so the goal is to read mostly anthologies, collections, and novellas. May is also Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish-American Heritage Month. I’m going to try to read some non-fiction in those areas this month as well.

Review of F IS FOR FAIRY

TITLE: F Is For Fairy (Alphabet Anthologies #6)

EDITOR: Rhonda Parrish

440 pages, Poise and Pen Publishing, ISBN 9781988233543 (softcover and e-book)

Description: “Anyone who believes that faeries are wee, golden-haired creatures with dragon-fly wings and sweet intentions has never met a real faerie.” –Suzanne Willis, “A Silver Thread Between Worlds”

Retellings of familiar favorites from new perspectives, and brand-new stories share the pages of this fairy-themed collection. Within these offerings you’ll find fairy music and food, contracts (making and breaking them), changelings, circles and curses–these stories deliver all the things you already love about fairies and a few new tricks as well. A dusting of dragons, shapeshifters and ogres accompany these tales which include feminist fairies overcoming trauma, Norse fairies breaking the rules to interfere in human affairs, intergalactic fairies hitching a ride to a new home, political satire featuring an idiot king and talking animals, a new Robin Archer story, fairy run nightclubs and so, so much more.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Thoughts: Disclaimer: I received a free Advanced Review Copy of this title via Booksprout in return for an honest review on multiple platforms. This is a more detailed version of the review left on Goodreads, Amazon, etc.

F Is for Fairy continues Rhonda Parrish's greatly enjoyable "alphabet anthology" series with 26 stories ranging from flash fiction to almost novella length. Of course, not every story will work for every reader. But the majority of these worked for me.

The authors give us a wide variety of types of faeries, from the high fantasy/Tolkeinesque to tiny troublemakers of the Disney variety. L.S. Johnson’s “A” story treats us to a tweak of the Sleeping Beauty myth that makes the narrative even more timely and topical, touching on gaslighting, victims keeping secrets and women finding power in each other, while Brittany Warman’s “N” is a very dark take on Peter Pan. Sara Cleto’s “T” is not a tweak on a Disney-fication of darker tales but is a really cool tweak on certain events in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pete Aldin’s “E” brings Irish pixies to colonial Australia, touching on inherited and learned prejudices and how easy it is to lose your family history, while Samantha Kymmell-Harvey’s “S” brings World War One to a small French fairy enclave. C.S.  MacCath’s “B” gives us warrior elves of the Nordic variety encountering Church-guided bigotry in the not-so-distant-as-it-seems past. Steve Bornstein’s “F” is perhaps the most High Fantasy concept (a lost fairy is led by a friendly dragon to the only person who can send him home: the Scourge of Dragons) but contains some creative world-building that moves it beyond the glut of formulaic High Fantasy on the market.

One of the few comedic contributions is Jonathan C. Parrish’s “C,” centered around the idea of elves loving to make deals, and all the ways in which greed and rash decisions can make those contracts go wrong. Equally humorous is Michael B. Tager’s “P,” a twist on portal and prophecy tales.

Urban fantasy is well represented. In Stephanie A. Cain’s “G,” we meet Lucy Ruiz and see how she learns about the world of werewolves and fairies that interacts with our own. If this isn’t an origin story for an on-going character, I’ll be greatly surprised. The story has charm and Lucy has real spark with the werewolf character. Laura VanArendonk Baugh’s “W” is touted as “the latest Robin Archer” story. I’m not familiar with the series but based on this story I need to check it out. It’s urban fantasy with a crime noir twist that’s a bit darker than the faux-noir of the Harry Dresden series. (Actually, I can easily see Robin Archer and October Daye teaming up.) But not all of the urban fantasy tales feel like parts of series: Michael M. Jones’ “X” and Lilah Ward’s “O” tales both take place in nightclubs where human girls encounter Ladies of the Fae – but that’s about all they have in common, and both are excellent.

Then there are those genre-blending stories that every anthology needs to have. In Jeanne Kramer-Smyth’s “D,” aliens encounter fairies; Beth Cato’s “Z” brings us to the end of human civilization and how the elves might have both caused it and try to preserve it, and BD Wilson’s “V” posits a post-apocalyptic society guided by fairies.

Notice I'm not sharing story titles: part of the fun of Parrish's anthologies is figuring out what word the author is centering the story on with the letter they were assigned. Some of them might be easy to guess just from the short descriptions I’ve given, but I think most will be a pleasant surprise.

Review of A BLOODY BUSINESS

TITLE: A Bloody Business: The Rise of Organized Crime in America

AUTHOR: Dylan Struzan

640 pages, Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9781785657702 (hardcover)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): On the 100th anniversary of Prohibition, learn what really happened. In 1919, the National Prohibition Act was passed, making it illegal across America to produce, distribute, or sell liquor. With this act, the U.S. Congress also created organized crime as we know it. Italian, Jewish, and Irish mobs sprang up to supply the suddenly illegal commodity to the millions of people still eager to drink it. Men like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone in Chicago and Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, waged a brutal war for power in the streets and on the waterfronts. But if you think you already know this story… think again, since you’ve never seen it through the eyes of one of the mobsters who lived it.

Called “one of the most significant organized crime figures in the United States” by the U.S. District Attorney, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was just fifteen years old when Prohibition became law. Over the next decade, Alo would work side by side with Lansky and Luciano as they navigated the brutal underworld of bootlegging, thievery and murder. Alo’s later career included jail time and the ultimate Mob tribute: being immortalized as “Johnny Ola” in The Godfather, Part II.

Introduced to the 91-year-old Alo living in retirement in Florida, Dylan Struzan based this book on more than 50 hours of recorded testimony – stories Alo had never shared, and that he forbid her to publish until “after I’m gone.” Alo died, peacefully, two months short of his 97th birthday. And now his stories – bracing and violent, full of intrigue and betrayal, hunger and hubris – can finally be told.

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: The only appropriate word to describe Dylan Struzan’s A Bloody Business is “epic.” Dozens of major characters, court intrigue, romance, god-like manipulations, massive bloodshed, a decade-plus time-span in which characters are born, age, and die … change the names and the time period and you’ve got Homer, add mythological creatures and you’ve got Tolkien or Martin. The story of Prohibition, as told here, is every bit the compelling story The Iliad and The Lord of the Rings are.

Struzan’s style, from first page to last, is clipped, staccato, like the tommy-guns the protagonists wield (although not as frequently as gangster movies would have us believe). She keeps the pace fast even in the quieter moments, squeezing 13 years of machinations and scheming into 640 pages in a combination of history text and novel. It’s “creative non-fiction” and Struzan makes it work; the dialogue (mostly, I’m sure, invented from Jimmy Alo’s memories and hearsay) mingled with non-mob-related historical data (mostly confirmable pop culture and government changes) keep the story from feeling stale. The sensory details of city life are used sparingly, but when they pop up they add verisimilitude. There were a few moments when I really felt the cold of NYC winters, the salt tang of Coney Island and Atlantic City boardwalks, thanks to a few well-placed phrases. Interestingly, I don’t recall now the same level of sensory detail used in the Chicago, Cleveland, or Florida scenes.

Struzan resists the twin temptations of setting Lansky, Luciano and company on a pedestal or demonizing them. Meyer Lansky, Benny Siegel and Charlie Luciano are the protagonists of the story, but Struzan doesn’t pretend they were heroes or perfect. All of their flaws and foibles are well on display, alongside the character traits that made them men other men wanted to follow. Al Capone doesn’t come off quite as well-rounded: Struzan concentrates on his unpredictability both before and after the Valentine’s Day Massacre took such a toll on his mental well-being. The antagonists of the story are the Sicilian-Italian “old guard” (Joe the Boss, Salvatore Maranzano, and others) who are waging all-out gang war. Struzan tries to get into their heads as well, but it doesn’t feel as successful. Of the men named in the back-cover copy, I had to feel a little bad for Nucky Johnson. Even the scenes set in Atlantic City barely featured him. Irish mobsters like Legs Diamond and Eddie McGrath get more screen-time, being in New York City and northeast New Jersey, than the more southerly-located Johnson does. The implication is that while Johnson’s control of AC was integral to the movement of booze during Prohibition, he wasn’t as important to the actual growth of organized crime as his peers were.

The author also doesn’t shy away from the violence that was part and parcel of these men’s lives. The gun-play, the beatings, the bombings, are all spelled out – as are the details of who made the decisions and how they felt about it. The Valentine’s Day Massacre isn’t the only big event spelled out in bloody detail. Some scenes are definitely not an easy read.

If there’s any disappointment I felt with the book, it’s that Jimmy Alo – whose fifty hours of recorded stories the book is based on – gets short shrift in his own story. Granted, he came into the picture later than Lansky, Luciano and Siegel. But I expected, once he did join the story, to see more of what he was doing even when it was tangential to the story of the “big three.” Maybe Struzan has another book in the works specifically about Jimmy Blue Eyes. I’d like to read it.

The cover and copious interior illustrations by Drew Struzan enhance the story. They’re almost photo-realistic, a bit Norman Rockwell, a bit art deco, often with an interesting balance between innocence and violence.

SERIES SATURDAY: Beth Cato's Blood of Earth Trilogy

This is the first of a new series of posts about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

For this inaugural edition, I’m going to ramble on a bit about a recently-concluded trilogy which I absolutely loved:  Beth Cato’s Blood of Earth Trilogy.

The Blood of Earth trilogy is a magic-infused alternate history with steampunk trappings. The setting is various cities in the western United States, plus a short jaunt to Hawaii at a pivotal moment. It is 1906, just before the great San Francisco Earthquake. The United States and Japan have formed a powerful alliance called the Unified Pacific. China has been subjugated by Japan while Chinese in America are ghettoized, stereotyped, and removed from all chances at equal opportunities. Tensions along the western seaboard are mounting as Chinese residents are treated with less and less humanity – at the same time that the Unified Pacific also seems to be having political disagreements with the British (who have their own insurrection going on) and Russians (who are moving to control the Alaskan oil market).

Kermanite, a mined ore that can hold earth-generated magical energy for later use, is the “power behind the throne.” It’s used to power items small and great, allowing this alternate Earth to have flying ships and weapons which are steam-punk in design and execution if not operation. Some people are more capable of wielding this earth-magic than others; Wardens are stationed around the world to monitor, absorb, and control the energy released by seismic activity. The Wardens are all men – because the idea that a woman could wield such power is just unthinkable in this society. And the idea of a woman of mixed heritage holding such power is not only unthinkable, it’s unfathomable.

Enter Ingrid Carmichael: a powerful magic-user hiding in plain sight as a secretary to a powerful San Francisco-based Warden because women shouldn’t be able to do even an eighth of what she can do. Trained by Warden Sakaguchi from childhood and past the untimely death of her mother, Ingrid is strong-willed. But also knows how to blend in – half Black, half Pacific Islander, and a woman, she kind of has to be able to navigate the anti-Asian, and specifically anti-Chinese, sentiments around her.

Ingrid’s best friend is Lee – a Chinese teen servant/surrogate son to Mr. Sakaguchi who has secrets of his own that come into play as the series progresses. Mr. Sakaguchi is a surrogate father to Ingrid as well, given the disappearance of her own father when she was a small child.

Early in the first book, Ingrid meets the handsome, smart, secretive Cy, who is on the run as a Deserter, trying to leave warmongering family history behind. Cy is accompanied by his best friend from the military academy, Fenris – an incredible mechanic/engineer/pilot who is full of heart but acts gruff and uncaring. Fenris, as it turns out, is transgender. Cato works this fact in smoothly, as just another character fact no more or less important than Ingrid’s heritage or Cy’s family history.

Outside of Mr. Sakaguchi, the rest of the Wardens we meet are questionable at best, enemies at worst. When we meet Warden Blum – a powerful Japanese politician – and Warden Roosevelt – yes, Teddy Roosevelt – we’re not sure if they will be friends or foes to Ingrid. Roosevelt is the one “real” historical supporting character in the series. His presence grounds the story in our own history. Cato’s portrayal isn’t always flattering, but I think she captures the real Roosevelt very well – for every national park he created, he said or did something to marginalize people of color, and Cato captures that dichotomy so very well.

But while the presence of Roosevelt and cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and such make the world familiar, it’s the magic and the way it works (for peace and for war) that is the most impressive part of the world-building. Magical creatures exist, ranging from the almost-unknowable (giant snakes that live in seismic fault lines and whose movements generate the earth-magic at the core of the story), to the mighty (Chinese guardian spirits called Quilin, the goddess Pele) to the human-ish (kitsune, selkies) to the tiny (colonies of sylphs). Cato’s explanations for how magical energy is generated, the sickening effects it can have on those not talented enough to hold and control it, the way the Kermanite stores it and releases it – all feel so complete, so true, that every time the ground shakes I wonder if someone nearby is absorbing the energy to protect the rest of us. And the uses to which the magic is put feel very true to our own world. Some people just want to use it to heal (Reiki and acupuncture specialists), help (Ingrid) or build (Cy and Fenris, peripherally), while others want to use it to control (various wardens/politicians) or destroy (the Japanese government and certain insurrectionists). And while our main characters clearly choose sides/roles early on, there are many characters who start out believing one choice is correct and come to see the opposite (telling you who would spoil too much of the second and third books).

The character-building is as impressive as the world-building. Almost every main and supporting character has an arc to be explored. Some of those arcs build slower than others, and there’s at least one character I wish had had more of a storyline, but they all get to have their own moments and lives even while serving the main plot. Even tertiary characters have personality and a living energy often missing from characters who come on stage only to serve a brief purpose / propel the action forward. Ingrid is a wonderfully strong-willed lead character, but that’s not her only trait. She’s insecure about her abilities and what effect they will have if she can’t control them; she’s sometimes head-strong to a fault; she swings from too-trusting to too-suspicious (sometimes at inconvenient times); she pushes herself beyond her limits to save others; she is funny, smart, and romantic. In other words, real and well-rounded. And Cy is almost totally the same – the old saying “opposites attract” is put to the lie here – without subverting Ingrid’s lead role in her own story. And make no mistake: though surrounded by interesting subplots for her group of supporting characters, this trilogy is Ingrid’s story – Ingrid’s fight to hone her abilities, uncover her family’s past, defeat the enemies and save the day. Beth Cato is a fantastic author, and I’m sure she could tell interesting stories in this world without Ingrid if she really wanted to – but she couldn’t tell this story without Ingrid involved every step of the way, up to the very satisfactory end of book three, in which all plots and important subplots are wrapped up.

So: read the Blood of Earth trilogy if you like magic-infused alternate history, strong female leads, diverse supporting casts, steampunk-ish technology, and legends come to life. I’d be surprised if you were disappointed at all.

Review of BROTHERS KEEPERS

TITLE: Brothers Keepers

AUTHOR: Donald E. Westlake

304 pages, Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9781785657153 (paperback)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover) “Bless Me Father, For I Have Rented.”  What will a group of monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. “Thou Shalt Not Steal” is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a Park Avenue address.

MY RATING: four out of five stars (check this on Goodreads to be sure)

MY THOUGHTS:

While the cover art by Paul Mann makes the novel look like a Bondian spy adventure, Brothers Keepers is yet another fun caper novel from the great Donald E. Westlake (and seriously, I know I say this every time I review a Hard Case Crime Westlake re-release, but … how did I make it so long without reading any Westlake at all? Every title of his HCC has released, I’ve loved).  It’s almost a Shakespearean comedy: there’s manipulation, mistaken identities, sexual innuendo and actual sex (on the beach and near it), cunning wordplay, and (spoiler alert) a happy ending, of course. It’s light, frothy, funny – but also a bit philosophical.

The monks in question are of the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum – dedicated to the contemplation of Travel, but not to Traveling itself, unless absolutely necessary. Yes. An order founded by an immigrant who was visited by the patron saints of Travel wherein the members actually dislike the very idea of Travel and do their best to stay safely walled off from the world. So of course, some of them end up having to leave the monastery for more than just the time it takes to go buy the Sunday paper at a nearby newsstand, and hilarity ensues. But in among the humorous stuff, Westlake allows us to think about the nature of Travel, of how it’s changed over the past few centuries as technology has made it easier for us to work farther from home and to get from point A to point B, and of how the increased ability to Travel has changed the way people relate and react to each other. That he accomplishes this without browbeating the reader is a testament to his ability as a storyteller.

Our narrator is Brother Benedict, who came to the monastery on the rebound from a failed relationship. If that’s not a trope, I don’t know what is – but Westlake tweaks it in subtle ways, giving Benedict depth and a compelling character voice. He’s a simple man and the life, and lack of temptation, suits him. Of course, temptation gets thrown in his lap, in the form of the daughter of the landlord selling the property.  For me, Eileen Flattery was the weak point in the novel. She never quite rises above being a spoiled, disaffected rich girl, just as the rest of her family and close circle of friends never rise about being selfish (at worst) or self-absorbed (at best). Benedict’s interest in her catches her attention, but it’s more the novelty of getting a monk to renege on his vows, and how her parents will react, than love of Benedict himself that motivates her.

It turns out that while the monastery itself can’t be sold, the land it was built on certainly can be, and the transfer of ownership is virtually complete. There’s a clause in the lease that would give the monks options to fight, but the original lease can’t be found, even though it should rightly be in the monastery office. The shenanigans involved in attempting to find the lease and other primary documents that would support court action are probably the funniest in the novel. Dusty attics, illuminated manuscripts made from mundane documents, art projects left behind by previous Abbots of the monastery … all are props the author uses to shine a light on the personalities, and previous life experiences, of Benedict’s fellow monks. The monks aren’t treated as one-note jokes or as a uniform species; all of their backstories are explored in small moments and bits of dialogue that give them real dimension. There’s a former banker, a former lawyer, a former conman, a former political activist, and more. Each of their knowledge bases comes to play, but it’s Brother Benedict who ends up having to Travel further than any to convince Eileen to help them.

It’s no surprise that our narrator turns out to be the least worldly man among his peers, and this sets up an interesting counterpoint: the monk most willing to Travel on the monastery’s behalf is the one with the least experience in navigating the world outside the monastery. Benedict’s travails and temptations make up the middle of the book and his wide-eyed innocence makes them funnier than they’d be if told in any voice but his own.

I don’t want to give away too much about how that previously-mentioned happy ending comes about, because Westlake slyly tweaks the typical “third act reversal and reveal” model. Suffice to say, the last third of the book is as fun and tongue-in-cheek as the rest of the book.

If you’re looking for a fun romp, this is definitely a book worth picking up.

Review of EXIT PLANS FOR TEENAGE FREAKS

TITLE: Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine

234 pages, Bold Stroke Books, ISBN 9781635550986 (paperback)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): Being the kid abducted by old Ms. Easton when he was four permanently set Cole’s status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down. When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he’s either more deluded than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported.

Now every door is an accident waiting to happen – especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he’s gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they’ll go to any length to make it happen. Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide.

Time for a new exit plan.

MY RATING: five out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS:

‘Nathan Burgoine’s YA science fiction debut is fast, funny, heart-warming, angsty (without being angst-ridden), refreshing, authentic … and it is populated by one of the most diverse casts of teen characters I’ve ever encountered.

The first-person narration by Cole is so authentic -- he’s not just another snappy-sarcastic gay boy (although he has his moments). He is occasionally clumsy (physically and verbally), sometimes confused about where his life is headed, but always thinking about his friends and family. He self-describes as a bit of an obsessive-compulsive when it comes to list-making. He really just wants to be “normal” – and while in other authorial hands that might mean a trip down “self-loathing gay lane” before coming to terms with his sexuality, Burgoine gives us a character who is already out, has a great support system, and really just wishes he could just not be “the kid everyone talks about because of what happened thirteen years ago.” I was drawn to him not because he’s who I was as a teen (I was nowhere near out, nowhere near as organized, and nowhere near as sure of what I wanted to do with my life), but because he expresses himself in such a way that you feel what he’s feeling, all of the anxiety and confusion and exhilaration and joy of his arc.

The supporting cast share a love and concern for Cole, but otherwise they are as different as it’s possible for a group of friends to be. There’s the Rhonda and Lindsay, the intimate lesbian couple: Greyson, a fellow gay boy who is as bombastic as Cole is shy; Nat, the gender neutral calming influence with their own insecurities to overcome; Alec, the asexual best friend at odds with Greyson; and the athletic, somewhat mysterious, outlier of the friend group, Malik. Listed like that, it sounds like Burgoine just ticked off boxes on the queer spectrum, but these characters are more than just “what kind of queer they are.” I loved seeing a YA novel where the main character’s circle is full of other gender and sexual identities rather than being the token gay guy coming out to a group of straight friends. These characters are already out to each other at the start of the book, and most of them are out to their families (although we never see them), to their schoolmates, teachers, even local business folk. I also loved reading a novel where the bullying of queer kids is addressed without it becoming the main plot. The bullies in Cole’s life are tertiary characters at best; acknowledged but not empowered.

But Cole’s friends are not the sum-total of his support group. The adults in Cole’s life, from the local game-and-coffee-shop owner to teachers to Cole’s parents, are actively involved and support him. They may not be aware of the unusual things he’s experiencing, but they do their best to react with love and helpfulness to what they do think is going on (for instance, thinking a bully shoved Cole in a locker, since Cole can’t come right out and admit he teleported himself in there). Not only are Cole’s parents loving and supportive of their son – Dad (who is deaf) is a role model for Cole in terms of personality and career choice (Dad is a translator and advocate for other hearing-impaired folks).

This was the first YA/MG book I read recently where the adult characters are not sidelined, oblivious, or actively working against the main character. (The second was Carlos Hernandez’s Sal & Gabi Break the Universe). Okay, that’s a bit too much of a blanket statement, as the creepy bad guys, when we finally encounter them, turn out to be mostly adults. But they’re the exception which proves the rule governing the rest of the adult characters.

The SF aspect of the book is as well developed as one expects from Burgoine’s short stories – there’s an underlying “science” to how and why the teleportation works, there are hints that this is the same universe as the stories in Burgoine’s collection Of Echoes Borne. The slow reveal of exactly what’s going on with Cole, why he’s being watched, who the creepy watchers are and what they want … it’s all really excellently paced. And even the nominal villains of the piece are more than just tropes. They have personalities.

While the focus of the book is on Cole’s developing teleportation ability and the danger it puts him in, there are also subplots for the friends – interpersonal relationship and trust issues endemic to any high school group – and of course there’s the slow-burn romantic arc around Cole’s crush on Malik. I like slow-burn romance, and this one is so well-paced you can’t imagine the book without it.

Here’s hoping we get to see much more of Cole, his friends, his stalkers, Malik, and this world.

READING ROUND-UP: March 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 14 books in March: 13 in print, 1 in e-book format, and 0 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #106 (March 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories and novellas. This month’s favorites for me were Maria Romasco Moore’s “Self Storage Starts with the Heart,” Ashok K. Banker’s “A Hundred Thousand Arrows,” Kat Howard’s “Those Are Pearls,” and Vandana Singh’s “Of Love and Other Monsters.”

2.       The Backstagers Vol 1: Rebels Without Applause, by James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh, others.  Sort of a “male Lumberjanes in a high school drama department instead of a summer camp” in set-up and tone. Wonderfully diverse cast (gay, straight, trans, white, black), very very cartoony art. The characters are wonderful, but the world-building feels a bit loose and the plot progression a bit slow; I personally would have liked a bit more sense of the underpinnings but your mileage may vary.

3.       The Backstagers Vol 2, by James Tynion IV, Rian Siygh, others. This one swings a bit in the other direction, with tons of details about the world-building and a much faster moving plot, including a resolution I thought would be much further along in an on-going monthly series (and I have no idea if the book is still being published, so maybe the quick resolution was because of impending cancellation?).  I really do like all of these characters, though, and their interactions make the cover price worth it.

4.       Firebrandt’s Legacy (Space Pirates Legacy #1), by David Lee Summers.  It is not easy to take a bunch of short stories published separately and out of order and whip them into a cohesive novel, especially if you’re trying not to lose the episodic feel of the stories themselves. Summers pulls it off excellently. There’s great future world-building, very likeable characters and several consistent believable threats to the main characters’ lives and livelihoods.

5.       Sal & Gabi Break The Universe by Carlos Hernandez. I posted a full review of this earlier. Short version: near future SF with middle-grade protagonists without the usual dystopian trappings and with a very healthy sense of humor. I loved it.

6.       That Ain’t Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) by Seanan McGuire.  The third InCryptid novel featuring youngest Price sister Antimony, her boyfriend Sam, and their friends brings several plot threads to a wild conclusion. In the process we learn more about the legend of the Crossroads and Crossroads Ghosts. Fast-moving and tons of comic-book trivia snark.  There’s also a back-up novella featuring oldest Price child Alexander, his girlfriend Shelby, and their Gorgon friends investigating a mass kidnapping. The novella has hints of what the next novel will likely be about, so perhaps don’t read it until after you’ve finished the main novel.

7.       Hexhunter (Hexworld #4) by Jordan L. Hawk. Hawk continues to develop this alternate history, magic-is-real-and-the-cops-use-it, world full of romance and sex. Each book follows the development of a new witch-familiar pairing, and this volume brings together two long-term supporting characters who must work through much personal baggage while investigating the murder of a nun by a snake familiar. This one also advances the series over-arc about corruption and the distrust between “normal” humans and those who wield magic.

8.       We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. The first book I’ve managed to read this year for the 2019 To Be Read Challenge is one I should have read a long time ago given my love for Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” and novel The Haunting of Hill House.  A full review appeared on this site a week ago.

9.       Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn.  I’m still not completely sure what to make of this novella from 1688. It’s a compelling story by an early female author not writing under a male name, and it’s very clearly anti-slavery. At the same time, it trades on the “noble savage” trope quite heavily.

10.   I Am Malala, by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb.  The second book this year from the 2019 To Be Read Challenge list, I posted a full review earlier this week. I wish there were an audiobook version of this narrated by the author herself; I think I’d have connected more with her voice if I could hear her voice. Still, I learned a lot about Pakistan history as well as Malala’s personal story.

11.   Captain Marvel, Volume 2: Stay Fly, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marcio Takara, David Lopez and others.  This one’s been sitting on the graphic novel pile for a while, and I’m glad I read it a few days before seeing the Captain Marvel movie. It’s a fun read, although not quite as fun or engrossing as the first volume in this iteration of Carol Danvers’ adventures.

12.   Liars, Mistruths, and Perception, by Kate Fox.  I am not, as I’ve said often, a big poetry reader. Still, Kate’s short ruminations on real life speak to me. Definitely recommended.

13.   Ms. Marvel, Vol 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona and others.  I’ve heard good things about Wilson’s Ms. Marvel since the first issue collected in this volume came out back in 2014, but as with DeConnick’s Captain Marvel run, I am only now getting around to reading the series. I really enjoyed the way Wilson set up the origin so that I didn’t have to understand, or run out and buy, a big Marvel event that I missed because I haven’t bought monthly comics issues since approximately 2010. Probably my favorite graphic novel read of the month.

14.   Forget the Sleepless Shores: Stories, By Sonya Taaffe.  A great collection of densely written, horror-tinged short stories. Can’t say more here because I’ll be writing a review for Strange Horizons later this month.

So fourteen books in March, which Goodreads tells me is twelve ahead of goal for the year.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I did read and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too (with some short notes for stories that really stood out to me). If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “The Synapse Will Free Us From Ourselves” by Violet Allen, from Lightspeed Magazine #106 (March 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “On The Shores of Ligeia” by Carolyn Ives Gilman

3.       “A Temporary Embarrassment in Space-Time” by Charlie Jane Anders

4.       “My Children’s Home” by Woody Dismukes

5.       “Self Storage Begins With The Heart” by Maria Romasco Moore

6.       “Ambitious Boys Like You” by Richard Kadrey

7.       “A Hundred Thousand Arrows” by Ashok K. Banker

8.       “Those Are Pearls” by Kat Howard

9.       “Of Love and Other Monsters” by Vandana Singh

10.   “Emergency Landing” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

11.   “Bridge of Sighs” by Kaaron Warren, from Nightmare Magazine #78 (March 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams

12.   “Carry On” by Seanan McGuire

13.   “The Measure of a Monster” by Seanan McGuire, novella published as a free extra story in the paperback of her InCryptid novel That Ain’t Witchcraft.

14.    “Tiends” by Sonya Taaffe, from her collection Forget the Sleepless Shores: Stories (Lethe Press)

15.   “Chez Vous Soon” by Sonya Taaffe

16.   “Little Fix of Friction” by Sonya Taaffe

17.   “On the Blindside” by Sonya Taaffe

18.   “Notes toward the Classification of the Lesser Moly” by Sonya Taaffe

19.   “Another Coming” by Sonya Taaffe

20.   “Last Drink Bird Head” by Sonya Taaffe

21.   “The Boatman’s Cure” by Sonya Taaffe

22.   “The Dybbuk in Love” by Sonya Taaffe

23.   “Like Milkweed” by Sonya Taaffe

24.   “Imperator Noster” by Sonya Taaffe

25.   “The Salt House” by Sonya Taaffe

26.   “And Black Unfathomable Lakes” by Sonya Taaffe

27.   “The Face of the Waters” by Sonya Taaffe

28.   “The Creeping Influences” by Sonya Taaffe

29.   “Drink Down” by Sonya Taaffe

30.   “Exorcisms” by Sonya Taaffe

31.   “When Can a Broken Glass Mend?” by Sonya Taaffe

32.   “On Two Streets, with Three Languages” by Sonya Taaffe

33.   “The Trinitite Golem” by Sonya Taaffe

34.   “All Our Sal-Bottled Hearts” by Sonya Taaffe

35.   “The Depth Oracle” by Sonya Taaffe

36.   “Latvian Angel” by Matthew Lansbaugh, from One Story #250 (February 14, 2019), edited by Will Allison

So that’s 36 short stories in March, leaving me still slightly behind for the year so far. (March 31th was the 90th day of 2019.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 2 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  36 read; YTD: 88 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 4 read; YTD: 14 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 14 read; YTD: 43 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 1; YTD: 3 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month, but since March was Women’s History Month, I decided to try to read primarily women authors, and I did a pretty decent job of it. Of the 14 books I read, 8 were written by women. Of the 35 stories, 9 women authors wrote the majority (32 total; Sonya Taaffe accounts for 22 of them, Seanan McGuire for 3).

April’s challenge: read titles primarily from small press publishers.