Category: Reading

Local by Brian Wood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book deserves all the hype it’s gotten. The total package, from start to finish, is an evolution in every sense of the word–the evolution of the character, the writing, the art, even the series concept. And I could tell that even before I read as much in the backmatter.

The main character, Megan, sums up her story and the point of the book (not just as a whole, but in each of the interconnected stories in each issue) thus:

You need to do what’s best for you, even if it means leaving some people behind, burning some bridges, severing some ties. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t. You only get one shot. Take it when you can, and don’t blow it.

This sort of advice can only be given by someone who did just that, and who took shots and actually did blow them sometimes. Most writers fall back into the grosser antisocial behaviors–alcholism, drug use, and other Raymond Carver-type stuff–to illustrate dirty and gritty. Here, Wood & Kelly show that the pain of just making mistakes and learning from them can be just as dramatic.

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Fell Volume 1: Feral City by Warren Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Why the hell did I put off buying this for so long? I’ve read about it for years, Ellis’s experimental 9-panel 16 pg comic with art by Ben Templesmith.

Fans of Ellis’s writing will find a lot to love, here: a flawed hero who wins some and loses some, odd and sometimes disturbing facts seamlessly woven into the story, and not too much of, as another reviewer said, the usual ranting.

Two nits: The style of Fell’s dialogue sometimes blends into that of the minor characters, which is to say into Warren Ellis speak. Consider my favorite line, a bit from a narration box by Detective Richard Fell:

Grab a death coffee from Mr. Yang, the food pervert. He melts a Hershey bar into a pot of filter coffee, pours a 1602 and then drops a depth-charge of espersso on it. And maybe crystal meth. I don’t know anymore what feels worse: Having one death coffee a day, or skipping it. I can already feel my internal organs going into crisis mode. At the end of my shift, the world’s going to fall out of my butt.

As much as I’d love this coffee, the writing is the same stuff I read daily on Ellis’s blog.

Second nit is that, like Desolation Jones, I’m left hanging, waiting for more adventures. The last issue published was #9, which I bought awhile ago. I didn’t realize that I now have the entire series! 🙁

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The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories by John Kessel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Genre-blending,” to me, usually means”genre+literary” (whatever “literary” means). But a lot of the blending in this collection is “genre + genre,” as in the historical-crime/fantasy story “Every Angel is Terrifying,” or the future-crime/sci-fi first movement of the Lunar Quartet, “The Juniper Tree.”

Kessel’s historical/literary mash-ups were brilliant, too: Orson Welles in a sci-fi story (“It’s All True”)–who’d have thought? The name and spirit of Tyler Durden carrying on in a lunar colony in the second movement of the Lunar Quartet, “Stories for Men.” “Pride and Prometheus” is a Nebula award winner for good reason!

My favorite thing, from a technical standpoint, is the near-flawless worldbuilding in each story, done such that the story’s obvious themes are never heavy-handed or preachy.

What made it one star short of five was the third movement of The Lunar Cycle. The cycle is comprised of 4 stories, one of them almost 80 pages long–and we all know how I feel about stories that go on longer than the average story by Etgar Keret or Lydia Davis. Oddly enough, I loved the longest story (“Stories for Men”). It was the significantly shorter story immediately after it, “Under the Lunchbox Tree.” It’s obviously supposed to be more low-key, but it still seems anticlimactic.

You can download the collection for free, from Small Beer Press, in multiple formats. I did, and I immediately knew I had to have the TPB.

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Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow, if I’d taken a precious few different turns in life, I might have ended up exactly like the protagonist of this story, Ben. Definitely hit close to home.

This may be the first time, though, that I’ve come across a protagonist I didn’t like. And I’ve read lots and lots of Carver (with whose work Tomine’s is often compared). Yes, the ending of Ben’s story is open to interpretation, but to me it’s pretty clear. Based on what I read, what Ben sees at the end is what he has and maybe all he’ll ever have.

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[Note to self: How come I’ve never used this feature from goodreads before???]

The newest edition to my all-time favorite books list is We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle, which is surprising given how long a lot of these pieces are. Remember all the Etgar Keret and Lydia Davis I’d read recently. But the pieces kept me engaged.

The reviews are everywhere. If you’re a goodreads member, you can read some of my story-by-story status updates/reviews.

Not that I didn’t read. I just didn’t read much; was busy writing!! So, please excuse these truncated, unvarnished reviews…

• Carol Emshwiller, “Modillion” (3/5)
• By Etgar Keret…
  • “An Exclusive” (How the hell does he cram that story into 9 pages??–5/5)
  • “Painting” (4/5)
  • “Yordan” (I want to write like this!–5/5)
  • “Vacuum Seal” (Like a literary/magical-realist version of Full Metal Jacket–5/5)

I know it looks like I read a fair amount this week. I really didn’t, seeing as the last bunch of stories were flash. So, here’s the roundup.

The first two are from the collection Report to the Men’s Club (from the local library, but I just ordered my own copy).

“Grandma” by Carol Emshwiller. A nice tale that took its time getting to the SF/F element, but was well worth the wait. Not your standard plotted story; it seemed more like a series of vignettes and flashbacks skillfully arranged into a narrative. 5 out of 5.

“The Paganini of Jacob’s Gully” by Carol Emshwiller. You just need to read this! Just do it! It is without a doubt the absolute fucking best lit/genre-blended love story I have ever read! 5 out of 5!

“The Rookers” by Bobbie Ann Mason. Another piece from Shiloh and Other Stories. I’ve took my time reading this one, remembering how well-crafted I remembered the story “Shiloh” was. “The Rookers” didn’t disappoint. Her character and setting descriptions are proof positive that “minimalism” doesn’t mean “2,000 words or less.” While the ending wasn’t as shocking as the one in “Shiloh,” it made me think just as hard. 5 out of 5!

I don’t know why I waited so long to get a copy of The Girl on the Fridge. That was just dumb. Before I knew it, I read these stories in one sitting during my lunch break one day…

“Asthma Attack” by Etgar Keret. Not a story, but it’s the piece that sets a metaphorical rationale for the economic for the economy of word use in rest of the book. Very, very nice. 5 out of 5.

“Crazy Glue” by Etgar Keret. Another valuable lesson for me that fantasy doesn’t have to mean magic and such. 5 out of 5.

“Loquat” by Etgar Keret. Another story involving a grandmother, this is simultaneously a piece on the socio-political complexities of Israeli daily life and on the lengths anyone, anywhere might go to for family. 5 out of 5.

“Hat Trick” by Etgar Keret. Definitely loved the “gonzo magical realism” thing this story had going. Wasn’t too big on the non-ending ending, well-written as it was. 4 out of 5.

Through the hustle and bustle of school, trying to fire off stories to markets, and eeking out some new stuff, I’ve been reading like I haven’t been in awhile. I’ve actually read quite a bit since my last set of reviews, but I haven’t had the brainspace to sit and give more than a passing thought to them before now. So, here’s the latest batch.

This first four pieces are from the Trampoline anthology…

“The Force Acting on the Displaced Body” by Christopher Rowe. A journey always makes a great metaphor, especially when a piece is as well-written as this. It’s a good example of something that skirts around the stricter genre definitions of fantasy. No magic as such–that is to say, no wizardry or the like. I guess it’s more on the lines of myth-making. 5 out of 5.

“Well-Moistened with Cheap Wine, the Sailor and the Wayfarer Sing of Their Absent Sweethearts” by Ed Park. Slightly long and slightly too descriptive for this Carver-lover but that’s my issue, not the story’s. The premise of the story more than makes up for it. You could almost call this piece Soft-Science-Fiction. 5 out of 5!

“Angel” by Shelley Jackson. This is the second or third Jackson story I’ve attempted. I really can’t put my finger on why I’ve been less than enthusiastic, thus far. Any idiot can see how good the writing is. I really don’t know what I’m not getting. As far as this piece though, it read like something calculated to be a bizarro, if well-written, version of Raymond Carver’s “So Much Water, So Close to Home.” Still, the writing rules, so 4 out of 5!

“Impala” by John Gonzalez. Straight-up sci-fi joint–almost! Loved it! Gonzalez took a risk with the choice of POV character, but I still found it compelling. 5 out of 5.

“Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason. I searched high and low for a copy of Mason’s collection Shiloh and Other Stories, and finally found one (actually, three) in a second-hand bookstore around me that I didn’t know about until about a month ago. I see why this story’s a classic. Believable characters in a well-structured piece with the least amount of “writing” necessary. What more could a reader want? 5 out of 5.

“The Garden of Time” by J.G. Ballard. Another classic, this from his Best Short Stories. The line between sci-fi and fantasy blurs with this one because of Ballard’s skillful writing. A little light on characterization for me, though. 4 out of 5.