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Kelly Link’s Some Zombie Contingency Plans

Kelly Link’s Some Zombie Contingency Plans

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pretty-monstersSo I’ve been listening to Podcastle episodes while processing my usual insurmountable citadel of books here at Top Shelf.

Podcasts are cool. Especially Podcastle podcasts, because, hey, FANTASY!

They’re usually 30-50 minutes, entertaining, with experienced narrators and great introductions and afterwords by Dave Thompson or Anna Schwind. Since I don’t read as many short stories as I’d like to, when I listen in on these things, I feel like I’m also learning something from my fantasy writing peers (and superiors). Something about structure. Something about character. Something about plot and dialogue and pacing. Lots of somethings, in fact!

Today, I listened to Kelly Link’s Some Zombie Contingency Plans. Now, whatever you think when you read that title, I have to tell you, you can’t possible predict what this story is actually about. Whoa.

And since I’m still feeling shocked and queasy (and astonished at the craft that went into this story, although I don’t know why I should be astonished, because it’s not like I don’t know who Kelly Link is or how highly she’s thought of) after listening to this story, I thought I’d hop on over here and tell you, tell you…

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Sue Granquist Reviews The Vampire Tarot

Sue Granquist Reviews The Vampire Tarot

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vamptarotThe Vampire Tarot
Created by Robert M. Place
St. Martin’s Press (Boxed set, $27.95, June 200)
Reviewed by Sue Granquist

When I got asked to write a review of The Vampire Tarot I thought I was being made fun of. OK, ha ha, ask the Goth chick to review a tarot deck inspired by Buffy and see what she says, very amusing.
Just because I like horror movies and Halloween is my favorite holiday, does not mean I fall into a swoon over every marketing trick with fangs. And so what? I have been known to make the occasional pilgrimage down to the French Quarter in New Orleans where I do get my tarot cards read, but that’s no reason to throw a ridiculous assignment at me just to get a reaction.

I mean, are you kidding? Anyone who has ever read the submission rules for Black Gate is aware of the “no vampire stories” rule. That rule exists for a reason, and the reason is that ever since Stoker penned Dracula authors and movie makers of varying degrees of talent have taken up the vampire and morphed it from a monstrous metaphor for all that is evil in mankind into a handsome vegetarian with a century’s worth of teen-angst. Vampires are supposed to be eating virgins, not taking them to prom, but you’d never know if you’ve ever had to wade through the teen fiction section at the book store.

And now it’s come to this; The Vampire Tarot. A clothing line, jewelry and all manner of home décor just wasn’t enough apparently. I would say Vlad Tepes is spinning in his grave if you wouldn’t think I was making a joke. But I refuse to take this bait. I’m a professional with a job to do and like Professor Van Helsing taking up his mallet and wooden stake, I mean to get it done properly.

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A review of Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic

A review of Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic

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hellebore-and-rueHellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic
Edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff
Drollerie Press (Ebook [Kindle], 238 pp., $9.99, February 2011)
Lethe Press (Trade Paperback, 238 pp., $15.00, May 2011)

Fantasy allows us to see the world not as it is, but as it might be.

Worlds where mortals have powers and abilities we can only dream of; where women neither need nor expect to rely on a man; where genders and orientations are equal, or face inequities starker than our own.

You’ll find all these possibilities, and more, in the twelve worlds of Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic, the new anthology edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff.

In opening story “Counterbalance,” Ruth Sorrell’s impressive first fiction publication, the world isn’t too different from ours. It initially resembles a typical urban fantasy milieu: magic’s real; the setting’s a modern metropolis; there’s a vampire slayer; there’s a nightclub/bar/safe space for the supernatural set. But the protagonist, Riley, isn’t the vampire slayer–she’s the most powerful being in Toronto. And the safe space? It isn’t, leaving Riley facing a newcomer much too powerful to oppose alone.

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Howie Bentley Reviews The Drums of Chaos

Howie Bentley Reviews The Drums of Chaos

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the-drums-of-chaos-2The Drums Of Chaos
Richard L. Tierney
Mythos Books (440 pages, $45, Sept 2008)
Reviewed by Howie Bentley

Simon of Gitta, Richard L. Tierney’s famous escaped gladiator turned student of the occult, has returned to the Holy Land to take revenge on the Roman officials who killed his parents and sold him into slavery. The Drums of Chaos shows Simon at his most savage as he slays his foes and writes messages on the wall in their blood. Simon is a hell hound on his enemies’ trail, but his plans start being disrupted as apocalyptic supernatural events unfold and cross his path. It seems that there are a handful of different factions of sorcerers, all with their own agendas; not excluding Jesus Christ, the son of Yahweh Zava’ot (A.K.A. Yog-Sothoth).

Although this is a Sword & Sorcery novel in the grand Howardian tradition, it is just as much about the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as it is about Simon’s adventures in the Holy Land. Imagine the Christ Passion viewed through the eyes of H.P. Lovecraft and you start to get an idea where this is going. Some may scoff at this portrayal of biblical events but I think, looking at it objectively, you have to admit that Tierney’s account of the crucifixion is just as plausible as the stories you hear in church, and a hell of a lot more interesting – as I often found myself on the edge of my seat while reading Drums, as opposed to slumped down in my seat asleep. This might well be considered the most blasphemous yarn of the whole literary body termed “the Mythos,” and considering the nature of the field, that’s saying something.

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E.E. Knight Reviews Deader Still

E.E. Knight Reviews Deader Still

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deader-stillDeader Still
Anton Strout
Ace (303 pp, $7.99, March 2009)
Reviewed by E.E. Knight

Good news for fans of urban fantasy detective stories: Anton Strout hits one well into the bleachers with his sophomore publishing effort. Deader Still is the worthy follow on to last year’s Dead To Me. Strout is writing a first-person paranormal gumshoe saga about investigator Simon Canderous, a baseball bat-swinging sleuth. Simon works for the city government’s Department of Extraordinary Affairs, an underfunded law enforcement organization. Think Bill Murray’s college-basement departmental digs in Ghostbusters without the glamour. And the rest of officialdom feels much the same way about the Department as Murray’s outraged Dean. They’re on a shoestring budget for everything but paperwork.

Simon is a mix of beefy, quirky, and a little intense that makes me think of a young Jon Voight. He makes a nice pivot for the other characters in the series. There is more to Simon than his trusty baseball bat. He is a user of psychometry, able to get a read off an object and some idea of what was on the mind of the last person to handle it. This is fun for readers and impresses me as an author. One of the big problems with writing first person (or third person limited to a single character) is getting glimpses of other characters’ inner lives. Simon’s reading of objects nicely bridges the gap between points of view and the author in me finds the device brilliant. Ordinary readers will simply find it fun and interesting. I thought some of the best parts of the first book were Simon’s readings of objects, and that trend holds true for the sequel.

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If, October 1957: A Retro-Review

If, October 1957: A Retro-Review

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if-oct-57This is the fourth installment in Rich Horton’s retro-reviews of science fiction and fantasy digest magazines from the mid-20th Century. The first three were the February 1966 Analog, the December 1965 Galaxy, and the January 1966 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Click the images for larger versions.

Back to the ’50s for this one. If is a magazine I remember with affection, even though I never saw a precisely new copy — the last issue, except for an abortive one issue 1986 revival, appeared in December 1974, just a couple of months after I started buying magazines, but my source (Alton Drugs in Naperville, IL) didn’t carry it. But its evident sense of playfulness, at least in the Pohl years, has always appealed to me.

At any rate, this issue appeared at a portentous time – its issue date is October 1957, the same month that Sputnik I was launched. So this magazine is from the very cusp of the Space Age.

Indeed, I have a few magazines on hand from roughly the same time (1957, or up to January 1958 – which certainly went to press before the news of Sputnik), and I propose to cover them in the next few old magazine reviews.

The title is one odd aspect. Is it If: Worlds of Science Fiction? Or is it Worlds of If? Apparently the original title was officially If: Worlds of Science Fiction, but it wobbled early on, at least as to its display. In 1972 the then publishers, UPD, officially changed it to Worlds of If. (All this from Phil Stephenson-Payne’s wonderful Galactic Central site.)

At any rate this issue appears fairly unambiguously to be If: Worlds of Science Fiction. The editor (and publisher, and indeed founder) was James L. Quinn. (Confusing because a later publisher was named Guinn.) (And I should note that though Quinn was publisher from the start, the first editor was Paul Fairman.)

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Gamer Fantastic

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Gamer Fantastic

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gamer-fantasticGamer Fantastic
Edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes
DAW Books (309 pp, $7.99, July 2009)
Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Gamer Fantastic contains thirteen stories about games and gamers, taken in unusual fantasy and science fiction directions. Seven concern classic roleplaying games, while five are about computer gaming. (The other story, “Mightier Than the Sword” by Jim C. Hines, is harder to classify, more about authors and conventions than about gaming itself. Despite this, it was one of my favorites.)

A couple of the stories have no real “fantastic” elements at all. For example, in “Roles We Play” by Jody Lynn Nye, we are exposed to a historical narrative about how roleplaying games could have been used to develop an effective form of psychotherapy. Though aspects of the story are surreal, the “fantasy” is more psychological than literal, and the parallels between fantasy gaming elements and psychological elements are precisely what lend the story believability.

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Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, A Review

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, A Review

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wastelandsJohn Joseph Adams has a well-earned reputation as The Man Who Delivers Anthologies. Barnes & Noble.com has dubbed him “the reigning king of the anthology world.” By my count he’s published at least nine of them. I own one, The Living Dead, which contained enough zombie goodness (along with a few stiffs) to prompt me to buy his Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse.

To be honest, I probably would have bought Wastelands regardless of its editor. I’m a big fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, from novels like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, to films like Escape from New York or Mad Max. Why? As an inhabitant of the northeastern seaboard of the United States I’m not often confronted with existential issues. I know that I’m going to die one day and suffer separation from all that I know and love, but because civilization affords me everything I need—and much of what I want, too—I tend not to think about these issues much. The panaceas of electricity and refrigeration, and healthcare and schools, and television and the internet and books, masks the skull beneath the skin. I’m effectively insulated from the hard life and death struggle that’s woven into so much of human history. But what if it was all stripped away, and life was reduced to its essentials? That’s the question post-apocalyptic fiction asks, and one I occasionally like to ponder. With my feet up on the couch of my air-conditioned living room, of course.

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Sue Granquist Reviews Drood

Sue Granquist Reviews Drood

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drood-coverDrood
Dan Simmons
Little Brown (976 pages, $9.99, January 2011 mmp (originally February 2009))
Reviewed by Sue Granquist

In National Lampoon’s Vacation, a family goes on a cross-country road trip, enduring hardship and danger, seeing cheesy landmarks and ultimately arriving at an amusement park that was closed for construction. In other words, a long and harrowing journey with no pay off, but still a lot of fun to watch.

Sort of how I feel about Dan Simmons’ latest suspense thriller, Drood. Weighing in at a hefty 784 pages in hardback (976 in mass market paperback!), I was somewhat reluctant to devote the time to this behemoth of a novel. However, enticed by the premise and my somewhat love / hate relationship with Simmons, I picked up a copy and got help from a stock guy with carrying it to the car. And I must say, the premise is genius.

The last, and unfinished work of Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was published in 1870 and became famous in its time, largely for being a mystery with no ending. The serialized work was intended to unfold over twelve installments, however Dickens died after completing only six. Now before you go having high-school-literature-class flash backs, hear me out. You don’t have to be at all familiar with The Mystery of Edwin Drood in order to read Simmons’ book; I sure wasn’t, though I did look into it out of curiosity.

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A Review of The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr

A Review of The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr

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isle-of-glass2The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr
The Hound and the Falcon Trilogy, Volume 1
St. Martins Press (276 pages, hardcover, February 1985)

Isle of Glass is the sort of book that will work excellently for some people and not for others, based both on the knowledge needed and the subject matter.

It’s fairly short, but dense and somewhat challenging. For instance, I think I have a fairly decent vocabulary, but I encountered a few words, like “crozier” or “thurifer,” that I didn’t know.

(According to my dictionary, both words are church terms. A crozier is an abbot’s staff; a thurifer is someone who carries a censer.)

The story centers around Alfred of St. Ruan’s Abbey, a monk who doesn’t seem to age. He was found in the snow, on the solstice, being warmed and protected by three white owls. Between his origin, his age, his inhuman beauty, and his ability to work magic, it’s quite clear to anyone who knows Alf that he is one of the Fair Folk, and the fact torments him.

Although Isle of Glass is technically an alternate history – this world contains at least one extra country, and the real countries seem to have somewhat alternate names – it’s still set in a version of medieval Europe, and not a sanitized or tolerant one. It’s widely accepted that sorcery is evil and elves have no souls.

Alf buries himself in the small world of the monastery so he doesn’t have to think about such things – he’s only somewhat successful – but his isolation is broken by the advent of an injured knight named Alun. Alun is a member of Alf’s species, the first he’s ever met, and he was trying to prevent a war before he was captured and brutalized.

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