Tag Archives: Down the Rabbit Hole

There’s No Place Like Here by Cecelia Ahern

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Synopsis:
When a missing persons investigator goes missing herself, she discovers a world where the lost can be found–but can she find her way back home?

Review:
There’s No Place Like Here is the second book by Cecelia Ahern, author of the immensely popular PS, I Love You, which I have not read. I picked up an ARC of this book at Book Expo, but put off reading it because I was anticipating something light and fluffy and not worth my time.

I was certainly mistaken. There’s No Place Like Here captivated my attention from page one, with the distinctive voice of protagonist Sandy Shortt (who is tall with black hair), and Ahern’s imaginative premise. I loved the use of magical realism in dealing with very deep issues of memory, loss, and longing.

We’ve all wondered where our lost socks go. And some of us have ached more poignantly for someone who has simply disappeared. Ahern imagines an answer to these questions, but what could have been a precious conceit comes to life with vivid emotional honesty.

Tangentially, There’s No Place Like Here was a refreshing change of pace from the grim ‘n’ glum fantasy I’ve been consuming lately. And it’s a reminder to me that my taste in reading is much broader than I sometimes think.

The Fair Folk edited by Marvin Kaye

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Synopsis:
An anthology of short stories about elves.

Review:
The Fair Folk was put together in 2005 by the Science Fiction Book Club, and consists of stories written about elves and their kin from some luminaries in the field. I enjoyed each one immensely, differing as they do in style and tone.

“UOUS” by Tanith Lee takes the familiar “three wishes” story and turns it on its head. An unhappy Cinderalla-esque young woman calls out three wishes, conjuring a fairy who is more than happy to comply with her request. However, thanks the the usual caveat to be careful how you wish for something, Lois finds herself on the giving, not receiving, end of the wishes. Lee employs an engaging first-person point of view filled with dry humor and wry wit.

“Grace Notes” by Megan Lindholm employs a contemporary setting to tell the story of an urban man visited by a brownie, a housecleaning sprite who can’t be eradicated unless given clothing. Think JK Rowling’s house elves. At first glance, it hardly seems likely that one would want to kick out someone who happily cleans your apartment and cooks you dinner, but Lindholm’s protagonist finds himself wishing for a way out–and unable to come up with the right gift.

Kim Newman, the author of “The Gypsies in the Wood,” is a new author to me. His story is set in Victorian England, and reminded me very much of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. The story revolves around the abduction of two children, both of whom were returned to their family. However, the boy came back many years older than he should have been, and the girl came back without memories of certain family traditions. Those predisposed to believe in such things suspect that changelings are involved, but it’s not until a grisly murder in a funhouse designed to be the land of Faerie that the investigation is brought to a close.

“The Kelpie” by Patricia McKillip is set amongst a circle of artists patterned after the Pre-Raphaelites. I loved the story McKillip crafted, rife with jealousies and intrigue and artistic inspiration. The kelpie, or sea-horse, doesn’t take center stage; rather, it’s a catalyst for the love story at the tale’s heart.

Craig Shaw Gardner’s “An Embarrassment of Elves” and Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder’s “Except the Queen” left me cold. The first is a comedy, and that’s a mode I have very little patience with when married to fantasy. The latter is told through letters written between two disgraced fairy sisters. The writing was beautiful, but I just couldn’t get into the story.

The anthology closes with a glossary of different types of elves. The Fair Folk is a great collection with anyone who has an interest in folklore.

Dreamsongs (Volume 1) by George RR Martin

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Synopsis:
The first of two anthologies featuring short stories by George RR Martin, ranging from fantasy to science fiction to horror to genre hybrids.

Review:
I am one of those readers who had never heard of George RR Martin before encountering A Game of Thrones, book one in his Song of Ice and Fire series. What I did not know is that Martin has had a prolific career as a short story writer, primarily in the genre of science fiction. Dreamsongs Volume 1 includes some of Martin’s most famous stories, as well as some highlights from his early career. The anthology is broken into segments, each with an introduction by Martin describing the publication history for each story as well as offering insight into his creative state of mind while writing. Naturally, his essays touch upon matters of genre and the craft of storytelling, and would be worth reading on their own.

Dreamsongs opens with four stories written when Martin was a very young man, and I found them interesting as artifacts. As stories themselves, the pieces didn’t hit their stride until “With Morning Comes Mistfall,” a tale about a world covered in an all-obscuring mist rumored to hide strange monsters. A scientist is out to disprove the existence of sentient life forms on the planet, and in doing so threatens to destroy the foundation for dreams and poetry.

The rest of the stories certainly show off Martin’s imagination and storytelling skills. “A Song for Lya” explores the intersection of psychic abilities and religious faith. “And Seven Times Never Kill Man” is a horrific look at the underpinnings of genocide. “The Way of Cross and Dragon” explores the development of a heretical branch of Christianity, one that reveres Judas Iscariot as a saint and posits him as a dragon rider who brought a dismembered Christ back from the dead.

I was most taken by two stories in the section in which Martin discusses his transition from science fiction to epic fantasy. “The Ice Dragon” takes a familiar type of story–that of the dragon rider–and adds a twist. The dragon in this story is made of ice, scaled in rime, and breathes a searing arctic chill. “In the Lost Lands” starts out seemingly as a mystical love story, but takes a dark turn towards an ironically tragic ending.

The last section in the book covers what Martin calls his horror hybrids. The first story, “Meathouse Man” was a bit too relentlessly grim for me, and “Remembering Melody” had a gimmick I spotted a mile away (knowing that Martin wrote for “The Twilight Zone” puts me on the lookout).

“Sandkings” deserves its acclaim as one of Martin’s best pieces. It’s a sci-fi/horror reimagining of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and concerns a man who purchases a sort of ant farm, with the promise that the sandkings will go to war for his entertainment. When they don’t start fighting fast enough, he starves them, and go to war they do–with horrifying repercussions.

The next story, “Nightflyers,” is just as compelling, though not quite as scary. It’s got a little bit of 2001 in it, and reminded me of the movie Event Horizon, which was billed as Hellraiser in space. “Nightflyers” has the same feel, but is a much better story.

A fantastic collection–can’t wait for volume 2!

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book One)

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Synopsis:
Five Toronto college students are pulled into an alternate world where they discover their true destinies at the outset of a war that could affect all worlds, including their own.

Review:
Yep, another hard-to-synopsize epic fantasy book. The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay employs one of the standard fantasy templates–ordinary people drawn into an extraordinary world–making the book “execution dependent.” That means that Kay has to work twice as hard to make the story feel fresh and exciting. Continue reading →

Sunless by Gerard Donovan

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Synopsis:
Bereft and aimless, an ex-meth head signs up to test a new drug promising to cure anxiety of all kinds.

Review:
I picked up Sunless because it promised a Chuck Pahlaniuk-esque satirical romp through all the woes of our modern age, dressed up in off-kilter post-apocalyptic trappings and with an addictive prose style.

Instead, I suffered through a lazily written, incoherently plotted, almost aggressively aimless stylistic exercise that I had to force myself to finish reading. Thankfully it’s not very long, so I could get through it in a subway ride. There was no forward movement in the plot, and since there was a plot, author Gerard Donovan can’t hide behind the “it’s about character” defense. Nor was the prose such that I wanted to keep reading just to see what he’d do with language–while that’s not my favorite kind of read, I can at least appreciate someone who loves words and wants to push them to the limit.

No, Sunless wants to be what I initially hoped it would be, and fails miserably.

Breathing Water by T. Greenwood

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Synopsis:
After learning of the death of her abusive ex-boyfriend, a woman returns to the home by the lake she once loved to build a new life and exorcise old ghosts.

Review:
I am a very big fan of T. Greenwood’s second novel, Nearer than the Sky, and I have no excuse for why it took me so long to read Breathing Water, her debut. Simply put, Greenwood is a beautiful prose stylist who isn’t afraid to explore dark and scary places with characters who feel like people you’ve known all your life. Continue reading →

The Manticore by Robertson Davies

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Synopsis:
The son of a wealthy industrialist enters Jungian therapy to discover why he feels that his life is at a point of crisis.

Review:
In The Manticore, Robertson Davies continues the story he began in his masterful Fifth Business, turning his acute eye for the majesty of the quotidian on David, the son of Boy Staunton, a prominent figure in the first book. David feels himself to be a stunted man, and hopes that rigorous Jungian psychoanalysis will yield revelations enabling him to shake off the burden of his family’s history and the pain of his father’s recent death. Continue reading →

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

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Synopsis:
A young man with severe amnesia comes to realize that he is being stalked by a conceptual shark (which is much, much scarier than you might think).

Review:
What surprised me most about The Raw Shark Texts was how fast it moved. For all its high-minded metaphysical aims and experimental underpinnings, the book has the pacing of an airport thriller or Stephen King horror book. There were some sequences in this book, such as protagonist Second Eric’s Sanderson encounter with Nobody, that were are frightening as anything I’ve ever read. Continue reading →

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

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Synopsis:
A new house in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood spells disaster for all its inhabitants.

Review:
It’s awfully hard to be frightened when you’re sitting on a rooftop deck in West Hollywood, letting the setting sun dry your bathing suit after discovering that you can float like a cork in the saltwater pool. Continue reading →

Beauty Junkies by Alex Kuczynski

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Synopsis:
An investigation into cosmetic surgery, mainly in America, with a focus on the extremes to which people have gone. Continue reading →