Scott Graham
Wow… This book deserves 6, nay 10 stars. Twelve children are taken from their families to be taught by “father”, a man of unbending standards and draconian methods. There is an immediate sense of something *like* magic in the air as the ultimate “Lord of the Flies” plays out and coincidences accumulate. The fantastic meets the mundane as talented people of the real world act with and against the adult versions of the 12 children who have all been taught special yet differentiated skills in the titular place of higher learning by a “father” whose person, values, and methods are revealed in flashbacks - because “father” is missing. Did he leave? Was he taken? Are his enemies involved? Fantasy meets cosmology meets suspense in the Garrison Oaks development with the Library at Mount Char at its center.
I will admit up front that I have not read any Brandon Sanderson prior to this short story amd novella collection. That being said, I found Tailored Realities to be an entirely engaging collection of scence fiction based narratives with some fantasy injected where appropriate. After all, doesn’t every science fiction tale involve a little fantasy to get it going?
The strongest selections are the long novellas that bookend the collection, although Snapshot, the first, does seem a bit derivative of the Dennis Lahane novel Shutter Island. But it uses a different modality in creating the world and ends with an Inception-esque result. The last, longer novella, Moment Zero, looks at a wormhole created apocalypse, multi-universe theory, and a little fantasy planted in the form of the true menace. It was compelling and I found it to be the strongest piece in the collection. All the remaining stories are varying levels of good, but that undersells some of them to refer to them as “good”. The world building ranges from adequate for the tale, to lush and full, generous for a short story or novella.
The postscript for each story is a welcome touch. Brandon Sanderson indulges the reader with the germ of the story and/or some information about its publication if it appeared elsewhere in the past.
I wholeheartedly recommend the volume to any fan of imaginative literature and look forward to dipping my second toe into other Sanderson worlds. I think I have the forst volume of The Stormlight Archive in my stacks somewhere. Wish me luck…
This anthology of popular Christian belief topics examines the Biblical source texts for support. As you would guess from the title of the book, the author, popular social media scholar of ancient Hebrew and Christian texts Dan McClellan, finds shaky evidence for some of the beliefs, but argues against God inspired sources for such as the virgin birth, the condemnation of abortion and homosexuality, Satan as God’s enemy, and Hell as the place of eternal punishment. If this was already your bag*, there isn’t much new here, but the running citations are an invaluable reference. The book loses a point for its dense prose, and lack of almost any definitive answers. Mr. McClellan provides a verdict for each questionable belief, but the justification is rarely absolutely convincing. Believers will walk away believing and doubters will leave the exercise continuing to doubt.
*with apologies to Mike Myers as Austin Powers
To start I’ll address he buffalo in the room, and admit that this book would only appeal to a cohort of readers either already of the belief that Native Americans were, and continue to be, better stewards of the land of North America than the European colonizers, or are willing to approach that thesis with an open mind. Anthropologist Jordan Thomas weaves a history of the suppression of the practice of proscribed burns in America’s forests, grasslands, and prairies by its indigenous peoples, with the travesty of a policy of fire suppression at all costs on the environment, and the valiant efforts of understaffed, undersupplied, and underpaid front line firefighters of California. By regaling the reader with a selection of tales from his season as a Los Padres Hotshot with the history and politics of fire suppression in the American West (mostly), he provides a strong argument for adopting the traditional practice of proscribed burns. Thomas argues that they act as a prophylactic against the ever increasing number of megafires ocurring due to rising global temperatures and more frequent and longer lasting droughts. A very interesting peek behind the curtain on the practices of the frontline firefighters on the ground, their stressors, and their lifestyle for more than half of the year.
A vampire mind manipulating tale of being able to identify the greater of two evils in time to make a difference. Imagine Let The Right One In on steroids, dialed up to 11, then cross it with the Godfather and go to the mattresses. I am going to ruminate over this novel for several days before I can finally set it aside.
Contains spoilers
This utterly sublime fairy tale for adults successfully combines Russian folk stories with light horror and fantasy, bringing the reader into the world of the unforgiving Russian winter and the creatures of natural religion that maintain a balance between the bitter and sweet parts of life for the lord of an estate and his family. When the zealously Orthodox Christian new stepmother brings the religion of man to the story in the guise of a shrewd and grasping man of God and forbids the tributes to the natural creatures and creates an imbalance on the land, a long held battle between brothers of two different types of death is given fresh opportunity to the detriment of the lord and his family and the peasants on the estate. A struggle between the lord’s second wife, his youngest daughter from his first wife, the monk sent at the stepmother’s request, and the elementals that represent death of two forms develops until a deciding battle ensues.
Like an old friend, my yearly read of Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a tradition engaged in each year to kick off the month of December. From the grasping and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, to the saintly nephew Fred and the hard working and worshipful Bob Cratchit, the characters exist as only Dickens could write them, a mixture of repulsive and sympathetic, comic, dastardly, kind and good intended, to poor ot pocket but rich in spirit. The story is so well known as to be trite, but it isn't, because it reflects the best in most of us despite the worst of some of us, with the hope that redemption is possible for those who would hold us down, and in their redemption, the redeeming of our own future is possible. True, it's a fantasy as much today as it was in the Victorian Era, of the "if only" variety. It offers a moment of belief in the way things could be before you must return to the way things are: a world where living in a tent or your car while working 80 hour weeks at three jobs has become a not uncommon occurrence, rather than the poorhouse, the treadmill, and the Union Workhouse of Dickens' day. The similarities are jarring.
Very amusing storyline involving Madame Shibawa's prediction and it's aftermath. Easy read with numerous full page spreads representing single cells; it was a short issue with 3 bonus storylines. The story author's tongue has been firmly embedded in their cheek, and the art has been variable, with Saitama looking like a aimple stick man at times, and a fully fleshed out character more infrequently.
A welcome harking back to the Garp through Owen Meany years with Dickensian characters and situations revolving around the main character Jimmy Winslow, son of the titular character Esther Nacht. Once a foundling at the St. Cloud orphanage, Esther is adopted as an au pair to the Winslow family’s youngest daughter and ultimately acts as a surrogate birth mother for her to have a child without all the trappings and processes that go into conceiving, gestating, and delivering. The greater part of the book follows this young Winslow boy, Jimmy, born of Esther but raised by the youngest Winslow daughter, through his formative years, into his colorful years as an exchange student in Vienna Austria, and finally as an adult novelist, always with his adoptive Winslow mother hovering over his daily life, and in the background, in the shadows, is Esther, safeguarding his well being. This novel strikes this reader more than any of Irving’s other books as both a bildungsroman and roman à clef for his younger days through the peak of his writing career. Immersive, compelling, and captivating through to the last sentence.
Mark Ronson's memoir of rising up in the 90s club life, DJing for audiences of the NYC young and beautiful or rich and influential suddenly devolves into playing court jester for the people who made the music and took over the club scene. He gives the reader a quick look at the sordid underbelly of the people who create new music by chopping up and and stitching the bits back together, matching beats or lyrics together where they didn't originally come from, as a sort of Frankenstein's monster, but of the Peter Boyle variety rather than the Boris Karloff; at least you can dance to Peter Boyle's mumbled sample of "Puttin' on the Ritz" if you can overlap it with the hip hop song of the moment.
Contains spoilers
More standard glitch in the matrix than grief in the matrix like his other novels, Dustin Thao's third story is more evocative than emotive. One can't help but think about the paths not taken and be left a little wistful at the end. Oliver, from You've Reached Sam, has earned his own tale of love and sacrifice, and what you may lose in making things right in your life and the lives of your loved ones. While continuing to talk wih his dead best friend Sam via text msg, Oliver makes a real connection with the new owner of the phone number. The only problem is that the connection spans alternate universes, with subtle differences between the two worlds, casually inserted at first, until Oliver realizes he must act in everyone's best interests, if not his own. Mr. Thao's best character has been written into Oliver, and his story is not finished.
A walk through Tim Curry’s entertainment career on stage, screen, and television is dry as dust with any revelations limited to which directors or costars he didn’t like at the time but has subsequently made friends with. His childhood is presented at short length but he offers no relections on how it affected his work. One also would surmise from the memoir that Mr. Curry maintained a pretty celibate lifestyle; I wasn’t hoping for a tell-all, but I wasn’t expecting a no-tell either. Not ho-hum, but relatively humdrum.
Contains spoilers
A gothic horror story of a set of Caroline era wooden stand-up figures with a suspect provenance and possible malignant intention. The plot builds trepidation well across two timelines, one during the reign of Charles I and the other timeline contemporary to the main story during tge Victorian era. The earlier timeline explains the cause of the apparent fall of the Bainbridge family and the latter details its final demise. The author created enough murkiness in the narrative to leave the reader unsure of what, if any of it, actually happened. The narrator is unreliable, and all of the tragic events are unbelievably presented as either the act of one person, or of a set of painted wooden stand up likenesses that can change personality at will. Witchery, possession, murderous intent, and unbelievable coincidence come together to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Recommended only for someone who likes a good tale of building dread only to be left with one of multiple conclusions to come to at the end, none of which would tie up all the threads woven into the story.
T. Kingfisher’s Alex Easton wanders into H.P. Lovecraft territory in a West Virginia coal mine in this third outing of her Sworn Soldier series. Easton rejoins friend Dr Denton from What Moves The Dead in the search for Denton’s missing cousin, deep in an abandoned mine in WV. There they run into something somewhat reminiscent of Journey To The Center Of The Earth crossed with The Blob. This story is the weakest of the trilogy so far. The incipient danger is hinted at very much in passing and comes and goes in the space of a page or two. Overall, this was a tasty looking but ultimately unfulfilling nothing sandwich action-wise, but the characters continue to be entertaining and very likeable so I will follow Kingfisher into Easton’s fourth adventure which, if What Stalks The Deep is to be believed, will also take place in the states.
Alex Easton as the Gallacian Carl Kolchak, takes on his second paranormal adversary in the form of a moroi, kind of a succubus without the sexual tension. The action has moved from the House of Usher to a hunting cabin owned by Easton. Not much world building occurs and the other-worldly enemy is not well fleshed out but that’s the way it is in dreams. This outing was not as well imagined as a complete world as the one described in What Moves The Dead, but the supporting characters, including Easton’s batman Angus, and his new acquaintance Miss Potter, a housekeeper and her grandson, were all described well and were quite likeable, and the reader is fervently rooting for them once the threat is defined and manifests itself. A quick enjoyable read.
Contains spoilers
This suspense/horror graphic novel in 6 parts is effectively told in story by Joe Hill and artwork by Gabriel Rodriguez. The Locke family, traumatized by the violent murder of their husband and father, return to the ancestral paternal home, known as the Keyhouse to regroup and mentally convalesce, but the house’s property houses the root cause of the father’s death, and it has more machinations in store for the family with the ultimate goal of possessing all the special keys that are hidden around the house, forged hundreds of years ago, each holding a special power. The Locke children are instrumental to the entity’s plans and he spans 2 of the 3 timelines explored in the story: the father’s timeline with his friends, his children’s (and current) timeline, and a short, slightly explored timeline explaining the source of the keys and the ultimate evil source behind the entity that plagues the Locke family and their friends, from both generations. Although the entity wants all the keys, it especially seeks the one that will grant it access to the source of the evil with an obvious objective which may not be exactly as it appears. Violence, death, racism, abuse, sexuality, and homosexuality themes are represented.
Setting aside the reading of the prose from the Regency Period and Victorian Era, this novel was an incredible disappointment. I think that the praise heaped upon the novel is more for the story from subsequent adaptations than this source novel. Victor, the coddled son of a well off family goes off to study anatomy and physiology and quickly knows more than his mentors (ohhhhkaaaay) and in seeing a tree rent asunder by lightning suddenly knows the secret of creating life (ohhhhkaaaaay). A few lab jars and some time later, he has created his “monster” and immediately abandons him, completely. Some may consider the question of the nature of monstrosity in the story to be stridently determined by the later adaptations of the work, but I suggest that Frankenstein is more the monster than his creation, in the utter abandonment of him to an unsympathetic and superstitious public who shun and attack the creature. The creature reacts in kind, coincidentally hitting Frankenstein close to home, twice in one night. Time passes and a few more incredible coincidences later, a vendetta is formed, the chase is on and no one ends happily. The book reads like the piffle of an 18 year old 4th year high school student or university freshman. I suggest that history agrees with me in that no faithful adaptations of the novel have been made; copious additions have been made in all cases to flesh out the story, pardon the pun, to much greater effect. Give me Igor (an addition), torch and pitchfork wielding mobs (an addition) and a burning windmill (an addition) any time. Actually, give me Frau Blücher, a performance of Puttin’ on the Ritz, and Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth, even better.
Classic longform poetic tale of a doomed ship voyage complete with dead crew, from which we get the classic phrase (paraphrased): “water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”, “a sadder but wiser man”, and the concept of an albatross around your neck as a great burden. A great insight into the phantasms one might see on a long voyage, being trapped in the doldrums, in times long ago, complete with the exquisite Gustave Doré illustrations.
The story of an everyman who died and is condemmed to a short stay in hell. Short = not infinite. Hell is a library that contains, somewhere in its stacks, the perfect story of your life. It is housed there, along with every other book that could have possibly been printed with no regard to rhyme or reason. Any combination of the characters in the Roman alphabet, grammar and actual words not required. Your task is to find the book of your life, at which point you get sent to paradise.
You leave your time reading this book with a infinitesimal understanding of the time frames of infinity and forever, and it is frightening.
The classic tale of vampires and staunch heroes lives up to its reputation as the progenitor of modern vampire lore, with sunrise and sunset, garlic, stabbing through the heart and beheading, and permission to enter a home required, all figuring into the story prominently. The story is generally easy to follow despite its Victorian prose, save for the pieces authored by Van Helsing. Stoker made his Netherlander understanding of the English language variably stilted, so a careful and close reading was warranted in those passages. Oddly, Dracula does not appear in the action too often once he has left Castle Dracula; he is felt mostly through his effects on the other characters, most notably Renfield, Lucy, and Mina, hardly a fitting role for Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or Gary Oldman. Except for the final chase, the story is more drawing room drama than horror story, and even that is mostly told from the point of view from the intercepting party rather than the pursuing parties. Overall I am very glad to have read it and be able to judge the adaptations against the source material and appreciate them all the more for the literary license taken by each. The tone most closely matches the Lugosi movie, but the story is very faithfully reproduced by Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation.
A book with the slow burn of a 1000 foot fuse, but an explosion does occur in the last 5 chapters. A haunting, residual magick, and family dysfunction weave together like a DNA helix to threaten the daughter and granddaughter of an autodidactic witch, and their landscaper, and friendly neighborhood wiccan. Well written with a real life flavor for the mixture of humor with the serious even in the darkest of times, all the little clues come together in a creepy satisfactory conclusion. Let the lesson be learned that one should warn their guests before they come to stay in your threatening haunted house.
Contains spoilers
17 issue comic series read in a graphic novel compendium format mixes a sci-fi world with a historic medieval earth sensibility to relate the tale of a family that has sequestered from the larger society to remain pure from the rot that infests it. The title of the series starts as a loose confederation of creatures to bring an end to society’s ills by separating the king from his thrall and restoring justice to the world and the good name of the protagonist and his family, but turns out to be a double entendre that we don’t learn until the close of the story, when all is lost and corrupted. Our hero is the villain, the villain sought an end, and all the other characters were playing the angles for a piece of their own small part of the world. A very nihilistic story told during nihilistic times. Great art and a very entertaining dark tale.
Contains some but not all of the charm of Cerulean book 1. A slow, somewhat tortuous start takes off once the protagonists finally decide to take off their gloves. The children remain the stars of the novels, and as they mature, grow out of their sullenness, and start to show some more personality, the reader can’t help but be enchanted, especially by Lucy, Sal, and newcomer, David the yeti.
The urge to call this tale Lovecraftian is strong, but I pull back from that description. I will go so far as to say that there is a Lovecraft inspiration present in the incarnation of the fantastical aspects in the narrative, but it’s missing the demented nature, i.e, the craziness of a Lovecraft story. Two friends and coworkers pursue all the fishing holes of the Catskill Mountain region, and ignore the warnings of one stream, the ill omened Dutchman’s Creek. Told in two timelines, one historic, incorporated within and bisecting the other more contemporary tale. The historical story stands separate from the contemporary tale and is effective on its own. The contemporary tale builds on the historical story that exists as a warning to the curious. The reader is given all the information they need to suss out the way the story goes, but the narrative imagery is described so well that it plays out very vividly in the reader’s movie screen of the mind. Nightmarish and shudder inducing.