Susan Hated Literature

Author: Poppy Z. Brite
ISBN: 04402179890 DDC: 813.54
Read for the RIP Challenge
See Also:

“Can’tcha see the time is here for us to fine … Rivers, mountains, nothin’ can be far behind … Can’tcha see… You gotta find out this one for yourself… Can’tcha see…”
Throaty Carolina voice full of gravel and gold, growling deep, rising to a fluttering crescendo that skimmed over the terrible guitar playing.

I’ve said before that in most cases for me to really love a book I have to have well written/developed characters which is possibly why short stories don’t always grab me; they just don’t have the time or space to develop the characters. So is the case with these short stories by Brite. For the most part the writing is excellent. The stories themselves very atmospheric and, in the main, creepy and so perfect for the RIP Challenge, but I just didn’t care about the characters at all. In the first story maybe I could have gotten to like Ghost and Steve, I was pleased when they showed up in a later story, but most of the time I was quite disconnected from the writing.

That may sound too negative. It isn’t really meant to be, because there are stories that really work. Maybe I’m just not that into the stuff she writes, but two in particular I really liked; The Elder and The Sixth Sentinel. Others had parts that I liked, and she certainly has some style in her writing, but they just weren’t my cup of tea.

Magical Tales from Masters of Modern Fantasty
Editor: Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
ISBN: 9780747590569 DDC: 813.0876608377
See also: LibraryThing

There was a witch buried at the edge of the graveyard; it was common knowledge.

This is a collection of 18 short stories, and as the title of the collection seems to have been Wizards in the USA there is a common theme running through them all. That being wizards

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Author: Margo Lanagan
ISBN: 0575077816 DDC: 823.914
A Once Upon A Time reading challenge read.
See also: Margo Lanagan’s blog ; LibraryThing ; Scooter Chronicles ; The Merchant Princes ; The Genre Files ; Emerald City ; Infinity Plus ;

We all went down to the tar-pit, with mats to spread our weight.

This was an impulse purchase; my reason being the cover. It grabbed my eye and passed my usual “read a random sentence or two” test. So I bought it. And I am glad to say that I loved it. It is a collection of short stories, many told in the first person, and as usual with short stories there are some I loved and some I thought were merely okay. None were bad though.

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Short Fictions and Illusions
Author: Neil Gaiman
ISBN: 0755322835
DDC: 823.914
At LibraryThing

They do it with mirrors. It’s a cliché, of course, but it’s also true. Magicians have been using mirrors, usually set at a forty-five-degree angle, ever since the Victorians began to manufacture reliable, clear mirrors in quantity, well over a hundred years ago.

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. Partly because you are never quite sure what you are going to get. He has his wonderful Sandman, graphic novels/comics I’ve yet to finish, his “novel” American Gods, his comic novel Anansi Boys, and so much more. This is a collection of his short stories, gathered with no particular theme, which I think is fitting for Gaiman.

My favourite three, just to limit it, stories are The Price, Chivalry, & Snow, Glass, Apples. But there are plenty more worth reading here too.

The Price I was already familar with, from Creatures of the Night, but that is a graphic version. This, in Smoke and Mirrors, is all text. And it was interesting to compare the two.

Snow, Glass, Apples is a retelling, or maybe, a revision, of the old fairy tale Snow White. And Chivalry is just a lovely, charming story about finding the Holy Grail.

The great thing about Gaiman is that not only does he have great ideas and vision, but that he also has a wonderful turn of phrase.

“How can you see a growl or a cry?” … In the eye of the mind we see many things”

Richard was young, and innocent in his fashion, and believed that authors should be trusted, and that there should be nothing hidden beneath the surface of a story.

ISBN: 1902197011
Author: Grant Morrison
6 short stories plus an introduction by Stewart Home.

First line:
Blind in the city of light, Patricia walked carefull back through the Cimitiere Pere-Lachasie

Contents:
• The Braile Encyclopaedia
• The Room Where Love Lives
• Red King Rising
• Lovecraft in Heaven
• Depravity
• I’m A Policeman

I suppose weird would be a good one review of this collection, but I already knew that from the blurb. The blurb I didn’t actually read until after I bought the book. Weird, disturbing, but very readable would be a slightly longer review. Actually considering some of the descriptions and occurances, these stories are very readable.

Two of the 6 stories here are scripts, Red King Rising is a discussion/confrontation between a 13 year old Alice, and her creator, in the form of Lewis Carroll. The other Depravity features Aleister Crowley. Actually the majority of the prose here uses figures that you will be familar with. Lovecraft, for example^[1] features as well as those I’ve already mentioned.

If you’ve liked other work by Morrison you may enjoy this. Personally I doubt I’d reread it, but it was interesting, in a wtf way.

Grant Morrison.com | Pop Image | Book Diary | Crack Comics

ISBN: 0698119606
Author: Robin McKinley
DDC: 813.54

This is a collection of four short novellas, two of which are retellings of old fairy tales, the other two are originals. At least I think they are, I haven’t heard or read any other versions of them. The four stories are:

• The Stolen Princess
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Hunting of the Hind
• The Twelve Dancing Princesses

The lack of characterisation was off putting, but I still enjoyed the writing in this book. McKinley has a lovely style that just lets the words flow creating wonderful scenes and worlds. I didn’t devour this book at all, still, the stories are interesting, my favourite was The Hunting of the Hind and I’m sure that any fans of McKinley would enjoy this book.

Both the original and retold stories are almost simplistic in their plots, but that is to be expected with fairy tales and stories inspired by them. I did however notice that the writer of the blurb may not have actually read the stories. The blurb says that in the world of The Stolen Princess Linadel lives in a world where princesses are stolen on there 17th birthday, but that isn’t actually true. Yes, teenage girls are stolen, but they don’t have to be princesses, and not every princess is taken.

Enough of the giving out about the blurb though, this is a well-written collection, and although they won’t be listed among my favourites I still enjoyed reading it.

Author: Alexandre Dumas
Trans: A.Craig Bell
ISBN: 075091467X
DDC: 843.7
Sticking with the French theme I picked up The Masked Ball and other stories by Alexandre Dumas when I was wandering around various book shops over the weekend.
I really enjoyed the Dumas books I read a while ago, my fav. is probably The Count of Monte Christo, but I haven’t read everything by him. I haven’t even read nearly everything. It is very easy to find Monte Christo, The Man In The Iron Mask and The Three Muskateers but hard to find anything else.