Review of BLOOD SUGAR

TITLE: Blood Sugar

AUTHOR: Daniel Kraus

224 pages, Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9781789091939 (paperback)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): In a ruined house at the end of Yellow Street, an angry outcast hatches a scheme to take revenge for all the wrongs he has suffered. With the help of three alienated kids, he plans to hide razor blades, poison, and broken glass in Halloween candy, maiming or killing dozens of innocent children. But as the clock ticks closer to sundown, will one of his helpers – an innocent himself, in his own streetwise way – carry out or defeat the plan?

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: While the Paul Mann cover art of a beautiful, scantily-clad witch on a broomstick surrounded by candy (which reminded me of a Dave Stevens poster I had back in the 80s) seems almost light-hearted at first glance (until you notice the razor-blades, that is), be assured that Daniel Kraus’ BLOOD SUGAR is not light-hearted in the least. This is a dark, dark book, ranking with Joyce Carol Oates’ The Triumph of the Spider-Monkey and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange as books that disturbed me so much I almost couldn’t finish them. Almost couldn’t … but did, because in each of these books there’s a narrative voice that pulls you in despite how much you might want to walk away.

Like the Oates and Burgess books, BLOOD SUGAR is a deep descent into the mind of a killer. But where the Oates and Burgess books are largely a single monologue by the main character, Kraus gives us a look into the minds and motivations of three of the four main characters: Jody, the streetwise helper; Dag, the suburban girl slumming for a thrill; and Robbie, the gang-leader.

Most of the story is told from Jody’s point-of-view, a kid trying to make himself out to be cooler, more street-smart, than he really is. There are shades of Holden Caulfield in Jody’s inflated self-defense mechanism as much as there are shades of Burgess’s Alex. Like both of those characters, Jody’s insecurities are illuminated by his choice of targets for ridicule and actual physical violence. This is a kid who has been mistreated by the system and the adults in his life, who has had to fend for himself from an early age. He’s learned when to lash out and when to be subservient, as illustrated by the way he replaces curses with language deemed “more appropriate” by gang-leader Robbie. Jody uses phrases like “mightyducker” and “sharkweek” throughout most of the book, which can take a little getting used  to (much like Alex’s slang in A Clockwork Orange) but when he finally lets the actual curse words fly, it’s a stunning moment of catharsis for him, as well as insight into how much he’s been holding back for the reader.

Jody’s narration is interrupted occasionally by Robbie and Dag. The differences in presentation and character voice provide the reader a respite from Jody’s stream-of-consciousness tumble of linguistic glitches and substitute curse words, and provide insight into his “friends” that Jody would never be aware of on his own. What Jody knows of their backstories allows him to ridicule one and somewhat idolize the other; what we see in the few chapters that show us letters written by Robbie and Dag give us a good view of why Jody is wrong on both counts.

Robbie’s chapters are letters he’s written to various authority figures who have let him down in the aftermath of a violent crime he perpetrated years before the book’s main events. The details of that event, and what led up to it, are teased out through these letters, providing clarity as to what has brought Robbie to his current state (on the verge of homelessness, squatting in his parents’ abandoned house, sharing drugs with young teenagers). The style of these chapters is still very stream-of-consciousness, but Robbie’s mind works in a completely different way from Jody’s, and these letters help us understand why.

Dag’s chapters are also letters, to a sister ensconced in a mental health facility post-suicide attempt. They start out very organized and formal; Dag is the least “if I think it, I’ll write it” of the three narrators, even towards the end of the book. She is also perhaps the coldest and most calculating of the three. But she has her own set of psychoses that propel her, just as much as Jody’s and Robbie’s propel them.

The only main character we don’t hear from directly is Jody’s foster sister Midge, who plays a pivotal role at several moments. She’s the youngest of the characters and, as presented, the most divorced from reality because of her experiences. Perhaps it’s good that we never see anything from her point-of-view; it would either be too disturbing or too heart-breaking.

There are enough twists and turns in the narrative that you’re never really sure how the story is going to play out – will Jody stop the plan or follow through on it; will some innocent secondary characters become victims of the violence or will they somehow skate past it; will the characters’ dark pasts only provide background to their present or will things somehow come full circle? Kraus keeps the tension high by changing narrators at pivotal moments, reverting to back-story to forestall the denouement just a little bit longer. And the shifting narrators also call into question exactly who is running this particular show. Each one thinks they are in control of themselves and manipulating the others. I really had no idea how it was all going to play out.

Daniel Kraus’s BLOOD SUGAR is a disturbing, dark read. Perfect for a series of late October nights for fans of first-person psychological horror. But definitely not for the squeamish.

Reading Round-Up: August 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 14 books in August: 11 in print, 2 in e-book format, and 1 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #111 (August 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Carlos Hernandez’s “The Macrobe Conservation Project,” Rhajan Khanna’s “Card Sharp,” Sam J. Miller’s “Calved,” and Domenica Phettleplace’s “Robot Country.”

2.       Desdemona and the Deep by CSE Cooney. CSE Cooney gives readers a wonderful new fantasy world to explore in this novella with overlapping layers of human, faerie and goblin realms linked by a mysterious house and an ancient pact. Full review coming soon.

3.       In The Shadow of Spindrift House by Mira Grant. When Seanan McGuire writes as “Mira Grant,” I expect the work to fall in to the “science-horror” realm (things like fungal/epidemiological end-of-world scenarios, or killer mermaids, or computer/AI-based horror). This one is a mash-up: part Scooby Doo pastiche, part haunted town, part Lovecraft … but the parts add up to a fun, genre-blending whole I found really enjoyable and scary.

4.       The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, by Philip Jose Farmer. This was my third, or possibly fourth re-read of Farmer’s classic “story behind the story” take on Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. Farmer adds science fiction and world conspiracy flavors to Verne’s already fun adventure story, along with his classic penchant for sly (and sometimes not-so-sly) literary references. This book is one of the cornerstones of Farmer’s Wold Newton Family world.

5.       Hunt the Avenger by Win Scott Eckert. When you think of classic Pulp Magazine adventurers, you think Doc Savage, the Shadow, and Richard Benson, The Avenger. This “fix-up”/mosaic novel pulls together several of Eckert’s previously published Avenger short stories and adds two new chapters to the mix to tell a complete story about Justice Inc.’s battles with The Countess and The Iron Skull alongside pulp heroine The Domino Lady. A fun romp full of Farmerian winks and nods to other classic characters. Full review for this one also coming soon.

6.       Phileas Fogg and the War of Shadows by Joshua Reynolds. Meteor House is the official publisher of all authorized continuations of Philip Jose Farmer’s works. This novella picks up a few decades after The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and continues the story of Fogg, Passpartout, Nemo and the remaining Eridanean and Capellian agents on Earth. It’s a fast-paced adventure romp and of course has nods to other classic literature, as does….

7.       Phileas Fogg and the Heart of Osra by Josh Reynolds. Reynold’s second Fogg novella picks right up where War of Shadows left off, moving Fogg further across Europe, this time visiting the nation of Ruritania and revealing more folks we never knew were connected to the Eridanean/Capellian conflict. Just as fast and fun as the first book. Sadly, Meteor House has to date not continued this series (although I believe Reynolds planned five novellas total).

8.       The Shadow: Midnight in Moscow by Howard Chaykin. The art is classic Chaykin, the story a nice mix of Chaykin and the feel of the pulps. There’s lots of gunplay, lots of mind-control, and plenty of blood around cutting edge technology and the Cold War. (Kudos to Chaykin for including a short scene featuring The Shadow having dinner with his Wold Newton lineage cousins, with a shot of the Wold Cottage Meteor Monument in the background.)

9.       Lumberjanes Volume 12: Jackalope Springs Eternal by Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevenson, Brooklyn Allen, and others. Another fun Lumberjanes adventure, with a twist. This time it’s their counselor Jen urging them to go out and do something potentially dangerous (search for the legendary Jackalope!) instead of the girls heading into trouble while Jen tries to keep them in their cabins and safe. There’s lots of character growth in this one stemming out of the events in the previous volume.

10.   Tarzan and the Valley of Gold by Fritz Leiber. Leiber was the first writer officially authorized by the Burroughs estate to write a new Tarzan novel, based on the script for the movie of the same name. Leiber doesn’t just deliver a novelization, he delivers a fully-realized, totally Burroughsian take on the story. It’s easy to see why this one is considered by the Burroughs estate to be a part of the Tarzan canon. I intend to get around to watching the movie and then writing a blog post comparing book to movie.

11.   Books of Magic Volume 1: Moveable Type By Kat Howard, Tom Fowler and others. I was a fan of the tossle-haired, bespectacled British boy wizard Tim Hunter long before Harry Potter came along, and I followed the character in his original Vertigo series(s) from adolescence to adulthood. Part of me wanted to be skeptical when DC Comics announced that their “new” Sandman Universe would include a Books of Magic series that returned Tim Hunter to his starting point – but then I saw that Kat Howard was writing the book and I knew our boy Tim was in good hands. And I was correct. This is a great new take on the character, a slow-boil version of Tim coming into his magic and the forces trying to stop him. And Tim Fowler’s art is expressive in a slightly cartoony way that further sets this new iteration apart from the source material, in a good way.

12.   The Quest of Frankenstein by Frank Schildiner. Like Win Scott Eckert, Frank Shildiner is one the current masters of “new pulp,” especially the type with a classic horror bent. This is the first in his new series of novels following up on the French “Frankenstein” novels which were in their turn sequels to the Mary Shelley original. This is a bloodier, more coherent-minded Monster than fans of the Universal movies of the 30s and 40s might be comfortable with, but I enjoyed the book. Oh, it also features a lot of classic vampires and weird scientists.

13.   Untranslatable by Alma Alexander. The theme of this short story collection is words from other languages that are not directly and simply translated into English. Some of the stories are reprints and some are new, and all are intriguing and excellent. I’m planning a longer review, but speculative fiction short story lovers should be picking this one up.

14.   Justice, Inc. by Michael E. Uslan, Giovanni Timpano and others. A graphic novel that gives us an alternate original for Richard Benson, the Avenger, and his ties to Doc Savage and The Shadow. Uslan tells a fun, high-stakes story, and the art is solid throughout. There are beautiful covers painted by Alex Ross as well.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “Robot Country” by Domenica Phettleplace, from Lightspeed Magazine #111 (August 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “Calved” by Sam J. Miller

3.       “No Matter” by Kendra Fortmeyer

4.       “The Macrobe Conservation Project” by Carlos Hernandez

5.       “The Rock Eaters” by Brenda Paynado

6.       “The Final Blow” by Scott Sigler

7.       “Card Sharp” by Rajan Khanna

8.       “A Leash of Foxes, Their Stories Like Barter” by Cassandra Khaw

9.       “Dreams and Sighs” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

10.   “Death and the Countess” by Win Scott Eckert, from his mosaic/fix-up novel Hunt The Avenger.

11.   “Happy Death Men” by Win Scott Eckert

12.   “According to Plan of a One-Eyed Trickster” by Win Scott Eckert

13.   “The Glass Lady” by Win Scott Eckert

14.   “Toil and Trouble” by Win Scott Eckert

15.   “Black Wings of Kjellmar” by Alma Alexander, from her collection Untranslatable.

16.   “Dreamshare” by Alma Alexander

17.   “The Bucket List” by Alma Alexander

18.   “Equinox” by Alma Alexander

19.   “To Remember Riobarre” by Alma Alexander

20.   “Color” by Alma Alexander

21.   “Go Through” by Alma Alexander

22.   “Leaving Via Callia” by Alma Alexander

23.   “Night Train” by Alma Alexander

24.   “She Wore Yellow” by Alma Alexander

25.   “Something That Would Shine” by Alma Alexander

26.   “The Flying Dutchman” by Alma Alexander

27.   “The Painting” by Alma Alexander

28.   “The Bones of Our Ancestors, the Blood of Our Flowers” by Alma Alexander

So that’s 28 short stories in August, keeping me way ahead for the year so far. (August 31th was the 243th day of 2019.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 3 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  28 read; YTD: 319 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 4 read; YTD: 21 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 14 read; YTD: 92 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 5 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month but August’s monthly special challenge was in honor of PulpFest and FarmerCon, the annual overlapping conventions that celebrate the fiction of the Pulp magazine era and the work of author Philip Jose Farmer. By my count, I read 8 books towards this mini-challenge. One by Philip Jose Farmer, two directly inspired by and involving his creations with his estate’s approval, and 5 featuring pulp characters like The Avenger, The Shadow, Domino Lady, Tarzan, and the French pulp version of Frankenstein’s Monster, Gouroull.

September is Hispanic Heritage Month, so I’m setting a goal to read as much stuff by Hispanic/Latinx authors as possible.

Review of ORMESHADOW

TITLE: Ormeshadow

AUTHOR: Priya Sharma

176 pages, Tor.com, ISBN 9781250241443 (softcover)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.

Uprooted from Bath by his father's failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.

MY RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS:  Note: I received an electronic Advance Review Copy of this book from the good people at Tor.com Publishing.

Priya Sharma’s Ormeshadow is of that particular type of fantasy wherein the reader wonders if the fantasy aspect actually exists at all or is completely in the characters’ minds. It’s hard to walk that “is it real or isn’t it” line without confirming one way or the other and still satisfy the reader; Priya Sharma pulls it off magnificently, putting me often in mind of one of my favorite fantasy novels (and possibly one of my favorite novels of any genre), Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman’s The Fall of the Kings. Even after two re-readings of Ormeshadow, I find myself happily vacillating as to whether the fantasy element, especially the story’s denouement, is real or the product of the main character’s fevered and wishing mind.

There is no doubt in my mind that main character Gideon Belman truly believes his father John’s stories of how the Orme Valley was formed and what is hidden in the mountain’s depths. His belief, forged in the fire of being young and impressionable, sees him through family tensions and tragedies as he grows up and has immense value in that alone. But many areas of the world have legends of being created by mythical creatures the modern world has no record of every existing, and I think Sharma makes it very clear that no-one else in the story aside from Gideon, John, and one other minor character, believe that dragons ever existed. Gideon’s mother, uncle, and aunt all seem to think John less of a man for telling such stories no matter how hard he works upon his return to the family farm, and Gideon’s cousins seem to have had all sense of wonder in childhood whimsy driven out of them by their stern and often drunken father. Only one or two locals seem to be even passingly aware of the legends John works so hard to keep alive for his son.  (The adults’ attitude that a storyteller is less worthy of respect than those who do physical labor is prevalent in our own world. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “oh, you’re a writer? So what do you really do to make money?”)

There is one part of the legend that Gideon’s uncle Thomas seems to believe, although he only speaks of it when drunk, and even then obliquely: that great wealth is hidden somewhere in the Orme, and specifically part of the family land bequeathed to Gideon, regardless of how it got there (magical dragon or simply humans skilled at burying things). It’s also clear Thomas thinks Gideon will someday find that treasure. This doesn’t make him treat Gideon any kinder, and in fact makes him even more abusive.

The family dynamic overall is an unhappy and violent one, and so parts of this novella will be difficult for some readers. How Gideon stays so innocent, so caring, in the midst of so much faithlessness, resentment, and anger is a testament to either the positivity instilled by his father or the boy’s own obliviousness to what’s going on around him. As with the overall fantasy elements, Sharma seems to leave it up to the reader as to which option is the more accurate. Ultimately, I came away from the story loving and feeling bad for Gideon and for John, liking one of two of the supporting characters – particularly those introduced in the second half of the story – and disliking/borderline hating the rest of Gideon’s family.

Although Gideon is the focus of the story, I couldn’t help but notice how the author works in a very real assessment of the treatment of women in pre-industrial times. Mistreatment of Gideon’s mother by her husband’s former employer (the exact nature of which is hinted at but never fully explicated) leads to the family’s return from Bath to the farm of John’s birth and childhood, where Clare effectively becomes a weapon between John and his brother Thomas, who fears that John’s return brings problems. There is clearly no love lost between Clare and Thomas’ wife Maud, whose role has been mostly one of brood-mare and servant even before John and his family arrival. When Gideon and his cousin attend school, Gideon cannot help but notice the uncomfortable extra attention the schoolmaster gives certain girls, like the already-downtrodden Eliza Dorcas.

There is about the book a sense of claustrophobia, a sense that Gideon’s world was vaster in the confines of the city of Bath than it is in the rural Orme. Sharma’s descriptions of the hills and valleys are beautiful, especially whenever John relates new aspects of the dragon legend. But those bucolic descriptions are the exception to the rest of the story, brief moments in which Gideon, and the reader, can gulp fresh air and feel relaxed before the claustrophobia and tension of farm and school return.

Weather also plays a part in these alternating feelings of claustrophobia and airiness. Two scenes in particular are so intense that the terror of the events almost becomes beautiful. These second of these scenes is also the closest the author ever comes to telling us whether the dragon legend, and thus the fantasy aspect of the story, is true or not.

Ormeshadow leaves a lot up to the reader to decide, from the truth of the fantasy to what really happened in Bath that precipitate John’s return to his childhood home. And I think that’s what will make this book unforgettable and ultimately re-readable.

Review of FROM A WHISPER TO A RIOT

TITLE: From A Whisper to A Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted an American Literary Tradition

AUTHOR: Adam W. Burgess

226 pages, Kindle Direct, ISBN 9781797500072 (paperback, e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): For many decades, the two dominant areas of study for gay literature in America have centered on the periods of Stonewall Riots and the AIDS crisis. These examinations are critical and understandably exhaustive; however, the abundance of attention paid to studies within them further explains why less attention has been given to literature published before these momentous events. The truth is, the gay literary tradition in America is much longer and richer than we have acknowledged.

In this extensively-researched academic text, queer studies scholar Adam W. Burgess, Ph.D., examines the genesis of the gay literary tradition in the United States, which developed between 1903-1968. Burgess employs close literary analysis of critical but lesser known texts alongside sociocultural and historical perspectives in order to explain how and why gay authors managed to write and published in a time that was openly hostile to homosexuality and homosexual themes.

From A Whisper to A Riot contributes a critical missing component to the study of gay literature in the United States. It covers a range of authors, from Charles Warren Stoddard and Henry Blake Fuller to James Baldwin and Mart Crowley. The book is a must-read for academics, students, and scholars of American literature, history, and LGBT Studies.

MY RATING: Four out of Five stars

MY THOUGHTS: Adam Burgess’ From A Whisper to A Riot is a well-reasoned argument for the development of a deeper body of criticism and analysis of American gay fiction, and especially that work by known gay authors, that comes after Oscar Wilde but pre-dates Stonewall.

This is not an exhaustive index of every pre-Stonewall novel published in America that centers gay characters. That type of work would be valuable as well, but Burgess here is more concerned with the dearth of critical writing about such works: what might, without too much hyperbole, be considered the erasure of several decades worth of works which can be either uncomfortable reads (due to societal attitudes), inscrutable (due to the need to express homosexual aspects in carefully “coded” language to avoid censorship laws), or both. Using a relatively small selection of novels and one play, all originally published between 1903 and 1968, Burgess proposes an easily-followable methodology for such criticism. As such, Burgess’ first (and hopefully not last) exploration of the topic is not a breezy overview; he does some heavy lifting in dissecting works such as Edward Prime-Stevenson’s Imre: A Memorandum, Forman Brown’s Better Angel, Charles Warren Stoddard’s For The Pleasure of His Company, and Henry Blake Fuller’s Bertram Cope’s Year. Burgess also explores the popular-at-the-time Gay Pulp Novel genre and the harm it did in perpetuating the stereotype of gay men as perverted and effeminate and often suicidal. This is not an easy aspect of the gay American literary tradition to explore, bringing as it does so many triggering topics to the fore. Burgess handles them with delicacy and academic remove.

Burgess divides his analysis into four topics: how character displacement (for instance, sending an American character overseas to explore his sexuality) eased skittish readers into accepting the narrative; how the pulps perpetuated harmful stereotypes as opposed to the novels that preceded and followed the genre; how coding was used to signal a character’s homosexuality and actions in order to subvert obscenity laws; and how the novels handle the intersectionality of gender and sexuality. I think each section could probably be a more detailed book on its own, allowing for an even more detailed and nuanced analysis of the concerns brought up. I found the “coding” and “pulp” chapters to be more interesting than the “displacement” and “intersectionality” chapters, but your mileage may vary. Either way, I think the reader is likely to come away, as I have, with a lengthy list of previously-unfamiliar (to me) books to add to the To Be Read list.

Burgess does also acknowledge that some American gay fiction of the period has already been subject to deeper critical analysis (works by Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Gore Vidal for instance). He doesn’t ignore it, but also doesn’t re-hash it.

Tracking the movement of gay-centered (and more broadly, queer-centered) fiction from “the love that dare not speak its name” (a whisper) to “society-changing” (a riot) is not the easiest of tasks, but Burgess makes an excellent start with this volume.

Review of ACRES OF PERHAPS

TITLE: Acres of Perhaps: Stories and Episodes

AUTHOR: Will Ludwigsen

195 pages, Lethe Press, ISBN 9781590213650 (paperback, audiobook)

DESCRIPTION: (from back cover): Creepy late night television shows. Disco-dancing mass murderers. Sky-gazing psychopaths. Cursed pirate treasure. Haunted presidents. Viewer Discretion Advised.

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: The stories in this collection exemplify what I love about Will Ludwigsen’s writing. Two of the five give subtle fantastic/horrific twists to the world outside our own front door (to steal a phrase from Philip Jose Farmer), while two are character-driven alternate histories. The fifth story very neatly splits the difference. All five are propelled by strong voices or character points-of-view. The narrators may not always be reliable, but they are compelling.

“Perhaps” is what this book is all about. Or more properly, “what if?” ‘Perhaps’ what these characters are experiencing is supernatural, but it could all be in their minds. ‘What if’ one detail of our history was different, what would the ramifications be?

I’ve read or listened to the title story, “Acres of Perhaps,” several times now, but it was cemented as a new favorite on the very first read back in 2015. Ludgwigsen posits the existence of a 1960s horror/sf/fantasy anthology TV series that becomes a hit with fans due to the quality of the episodes but then flames out thanks to a sudden drop in quality in the second season. A fate many television shows fall victim to. But what if … what if that drop in quality was because the writer behind the most popular episodes experienced supernatural phenomena not once, but twice? Narrated in retrospect by the (in his own terms) “less talented” member of the writing staff, Barry Weyrich, we are privy not only to the rise and fall of the show and its staff, but also to the decades-long aftermath of cult fandom, tense convention appearances, and regret both professional (his role in the show’s fall) and personal (his long closeted life with his partner Tony). Each time I read it, I tease out some nuance in the characters of Barry Weyrich and David Findley that I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t been paying attention to, before. And I still vacillate, with each reading, as to whether there’s really something supernatural going on in the story or not.

“The Leaning Lincoln” likewise teases the reader with a supernatural aspect – is the narrator’s childhood bad luck because of a possessed piece of leaden pirate treasure, or is it all just the luck of the draw – that sits behind a tale of a dysfunctional family, a sick friend, and a shattered friendship. The author’s notes at the back of the book reveal that this is one of Ludwigsen’s most personal stories, and I think it shows in the language of the narrator, who sways from conviction that the supernatural exists to conviction that it doesn’t, and back again – an ever-shortening pendulum of belief that motivates his positive and negative choices throughout the story. Other than the possibly-haunted (or maybe radioactive?) titular figurine, this story is straight out of the house down the road, and it feels both intimate and an intrusion. The real life horror exposed is far more frightening than the idea of a haunted toy.

When Ludwigsen takes on alternate history as a genre, he eschews the big socio-political events (like the outcomes of major wars or political campaigns) for more immediate (as in personal) changes that still have major impacts on the timeline.

“Night Fever” hinges on a seemingly-small thing: Charles Manson getting out of prison a decade after he did in our world, after a botched escape attempt. In some hands, this would lead to Manson having a positive effect on society, following the prevalent theory that it was the culture of the 1960s that led him to do the things he did. Ludwigsen thinks Manson would have been Manson regardless – his cult would have just developed in a different city, with different music as inspiration/justification. The story unfolds in a documentary/epistolary format: details given to the reader from various newspaper accounts, magazine profiles, tell-all memoirs, essays by Truman Capote, courtroom and interrogation room recordings. Charlie himself is quoted and described but never gets his own chance to tell his side of the story, which allows him to be exposed for what he is while still retaining an aura of mystery.

The alternate history of “Poe at Gettysburg” also hinges on a personal moment: what if the orphaned Edgar Poe had been adopted not by the Allans, but by theatre folk friends of his late parents? In this world, his rebellion against the wishes of his adoptive family leads him to law practice, which leads to his Presidency, rather than Lincoln’s, during the Civil War, and thus to a very different, but no less moving, Gettysburg Address.

“The Zodiac Walks on the Moon” could be considered a touch of alternate history, in that it’s presented in the form of a letter to the newspapers that the real Zodiac Killer never wrote. But it’s also a bit of the supernatural-tinged world outside our door, in that there’s no reason to think the real Zodiac Killer wouldn’t have been affected by the first Moon Landing. This is the shortest story in the book, relying on the audience’s familiarity with the real events mentioned at the start and on the reader’s sketching in their own mental image of the man writing this letter about how stunning human achievement can be and how it’s motivating him on his chosen path. It’s emotionally raw in a different way from “The Leaning Lincoln,” and it’s as distinctly voiced as Poe’s speech in “Poe at Gettysburg.”

In between each of the five stories are short “excerpts” from a non-existent (as of yet, anyway) episode guide to the Acres of Perhaps television show. Ludwigsen not only captures the essence of the 60s anthology shows (Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, even Alfred Hitchcock Presents), he captures perfectly the tone of books that analyze the episodes for their socio-political commentary both in and out of the context of the times. On Facebook, I petitioned Ludwigsen to please get in touch with Barry Weyrich and David Findley and any other crew of Acres of Perhaps to get their memories of the show and create a full episode guide before they pass away. Because yes, I’m convinced that there must actually have been such a show, even if the episodes themselves are no longer extant. (My favorite summary, of the episode “Dark Horse Candidate,” includes mention of a character played by an “uncharacteristically oily Leslie Nielsen”.)

In fact, any of the five stories in this collection could easily be episodes of the titular television show (although maybe “Night Fever” would need to be a tv-movie-of-the-week-length installment). If Netflix is looking for an anthology challenger to CBS’s streaming Twilight Zone, (and a creepy-horror sister series to their own more SF-based Black Mirror), this would be the ideal basis. And I mean, come on, what genre fan wouldn’t watch a show called “Acres of Perhaps”?

Review of Under The Sunset

TITLE: Under the Sunset

AUTHOR: Bram Stoker

136 pages, Wildside Press, ISBN 9781592249779 (paperback)

(editions available from several publishers, though)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Far, far away, there is a beautiful Country which no human eye has ever seen in waking hours. Under the Sunset it lies, where the distant horizon bounds the day, and where the clouds, splendid with light and color, give a promise of the glory and beauty that encompass it. Sometimes it is given to us to see it in dreams. This Country is the Land Under the Sunset. This is the story of that Country, and what happened when evil came to abide there. It is a story all of us must hear.

MY RATING: Three stars out of Five

MY THOUGHTS: Over the past few years, I’ve been attempting to read through all of the works of Bram Stoker. It’s been a slow project. I usually put one owned-but-unread Stoker work on my TBR Challenge list each year, but there have been years where I don’t complete the Challenge and the Stoker choice for that year goes unread. I’m also pacing myself on the Stoker books I do own until I get around to buying the ones I don’t. Semi-regular re-reads of Dracula, and less frequent re-reads of The Jewel of the Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm, don’t help my pace either. All of this to say that I’ve been meaning to read Under the Sunset for years. I finally got around to it in May – and I’m tempted to say that’s a couple of hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But it’s certainly not Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories in terms of consistent quality, either.

I’d first read some of Stoker’s short stories in a tidy little volume called The Bram Stoker Bedside Companion, acquired at a library book sale somewhere in my teen years during my early fascination with Dracula and Lair of the White Worm. I liked most of the stories in that volume, many of which felt very Poe-like, and only later found out that a number of them were either novel excerpts or pulled from other collections, like this one. So I was prepared to enjoy a collection of fairy tales set in a land like our own distant past but a little bit different. A land where Evil hasn’t take root, except when it has. Or maybe it hasn’t, and all the bad things that happen are just because people are stupid and selfish? Or they’re stupid and selfish because Evil did sneak past the angelic guardians at the borders? So maybe it is all Evil’s fault after all? I’m not sure, by the end of the collection, that even Stoker knew exactly what his point was for the over-arching theme.

The title story theoretically sets the tone for the book as a whole, and the tone this one sets is stilted direct address to the reader, flowery almost purple-prose writing that is archly Victorian without any of the whimsy that makes the fairy tales of, say, Oscar Wilde so enjoyable. Not every story employs this tone, but the damage is kind of done after the first couple of pages: Stoker warning his (theoretically young and impressionable) readers that they had best pay attention and learn the lessons of the stories to follow, to think upon the fate of the Land Under the Sunset once they (knowingly or not) let Evil in to do its will. But then that thread, as I mentioned, seems to drop from most of the stories – Evil isn’t really behind most of what happens in the succeeding stories despite the overblown introduction.

My favorite story in the collection, “The Invisible Giant,” feels very Wildean: a young girl is the only one who can see an oncoming Giant, a race the humans of the Land have long since stopped believing exists, and the only one who believes her is an old hermit from outside the town. Everyone ridicules the both of them, until people start dying and the Giant turns out to be Plague. Another story of battle with a giant, “The Rose Prince,” is also enjoyable if slightly longer than it needs to be. If you can get past the awkward pre-teen romance and some very repetitive segments, it’s a good yarn about a Prince who saves the day when whole armies are incapable of the feat. And Stoker employs the “story within a story” model well in “How 7 Went Mad,” which is at once a morality play about paying attention in school and being careful what you wish for and also a surrealist farce where numbers and letters have life and talk. The ridiculousness of the final few pages of the story put me in mind of the zanier parts of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Other stories don’t work as well. The moral of “Lies and Lilies” is so blunt, and the characters so one-dimensional, that Stoker may as well have written “Don’t Lie, It Ends Badly” and saved a dozen pages or so. “The Castle of the King” is circuitous and feels unending as it slogs its way along. And I fell asleep twice trying to read “The Wondrous Child,” whom I didn’t find so much wondrous as manipulative and annoying. (It’s possible the title character is a call-back to the angelic babe who features in the title story of the collection, but I came to a point where I no longer cared if the connection existed or not simply because the characters in “Child” are so annoying.) And I’m still really not sure what to make of “The Shadow Builder,” another story that feels overwritten but also manages to include some wonderfully creepy scenes and (dare I say it, Lovecraftian?) turns of phrase.

I think ultimately my problem with this collection is that the stories feel derivative. Now I realize that a) at the time they were published they probably were not derivative even of Stoker’s peers and b) it’s impossible to be derivative of works that weren’t published until decades later (like Lovecraft and the Phantom Tollbooth). But I do think that anyone coming to this collection for the first time at this late date and after having already read Wilde, Poe, Lovecraft and Juster (not to mention the more well-known traditional fairy tales of Perrault, Grimm and Andersen) is likely to feel, as I did, that the stories in Under the Sunset feel a bit overwritten and a touch too familiar.

Review of ALGORITHMIC SHAPESHIFTING

TITLE: Algorithmic Shapeshifting: Poems

AUTHOR: Bogi Takács

142 pages, Aquaduct Press, ISBN 9781619761650 (paperback/ebook)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Algorithmic Shapeshifting is the first poetry collection of Bogi Takács, winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Algorithmic Shapeshifting includes poems from the past decade and previously unpublished work. The scope of the pieces extends from the present and past of Jewish life in Hungary and the United States to the far-future, outer-space reaches of the speculative—always with a sense of curiosity and wonder.

MY RATING: Four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: I should start out with an admission, for those who don’t already know: I am not a huge poetry reader in general, and don’t consider myself enough of such to provide deep critical analysis. I actually thought I was requesting a copy of Bogi’s upcoming debut short story collection when I asked for a review copy of this (I got the titles and release dates confused. Not anyone’s fault but my own.). This review will be more about the feelings Bogi’s work elicits than about any critical analysis of structure or style.

Obviously, if I gave the book four out of five stars, the writing affected me. There’s so much here to be moved by: so much pain and love and hope and history and speculation. As a white, gay, cisgender male born and raised in the northeast United States and in the Roman Catholic faith, most of Bogi’s poems don’t speak to my lived experience: I’m not agender trans, not an immigrant, not of the Jewish faith. I needed to approach this work at least partially from a place of understanding that I am not necessarily the intended audience, and with an eye towards listening, learning, absorbing and considering life outside my own bubble. I am so thankful to Bogi for this book, for these poems E has written and shared with us. E is not responsible for educating me, but does so with every poem, every paragraph.

Another admission: there was a time when I struggled mightily with any first-person narrative that didn’t include clear indications of the character’s gender. (Interestingly, I never had a problem with genderless or gender-fluid characters described in third-person narratives – just with stories in which I could not discern the gender of the narrator.)  I’ve long since gotten over that, and I have to thank writers like Bogi – by writing about emself, E and others expanded my horizons. (Again – not their responsibility!)

The book is divided into conceptual sections: “Trans Love Is,” “A Gentle Introduction to Talmudic Argument Structure,” “Daily Dispatches From the Land of the Free,” “The Up-and-Out.”  You can guess what you’re going to get in each section, and you’re mostly right.

“Trans Love Is” is mostly poems that describe, sometimes obliquely and sometimes straightforwardly, the experience of being trans, agender, neuroatypical.  Not that Takács’ experience is everyone’s experience, which the author acknowledges in “The Handcrafted Motions of Flight.” The narrator remembers pasts and presents: “some are me, some only similar to myself / and some carry more of me / than my self living and writing in the present.” The same poem, just a few lines later, addresses how some people just can’t accept the form of the messenger: “They are bothered by the pronouns.” (There are more subtle references to anti-trans and anti-gender-neutral sentiment throughout the book, and more obvious references as well. But this one, coming after a stanza in which the pronouns used are E and eir, is particularly powerful for its brevity, for what it leaves understood but unstated (that it’s more than just the pronouns, and the people in question are likely more than just “bothered,” which is a mild word for what anyone not cisgendered is likely to face). The poem from which this section of the book derives its title, “Trans Love Is” is a list type of poem that shows that Trans Love is, in the end, really not different from “straight love” or “gay love:” buying non-dairy items and blackberry sage tea for the ones you love, microwaving hot dogs and taking joy in the gigglecry of your child. It’s verbal shorthand between partners. It’s finding the commonality of the spaces between labels. It might be my favorite poem in the collection because it is everyday-sweet with a tinge of the wider world’s lack of acceptance (“Trans love elicits surveillance”) and a dollop of neuroatypicality (“the burning desire to do FIVE loads of laundry / and tell the interrogation officer / there are no terrorists in Hungary”). The poem that lends the collection’s title, “Seven Handy Ideas for Algorithmic Shapeshifting,” is also wonderful, subversion couched in fantasy terms. And I would love to see “The Iterative Nature of the Magical Discovery Process” performed live; it’s powerful in written form and I can only imagine how much more powerful it could be when spoken out loud and coupled with creative lighting.

Looking over the section titled “A Gentle Introduction to Talmudic Argument Structure,” I’m not sure it was quite accidental that I read this book just before Barbara Krasnoff’s mosaic novel The History of Soul 2065, as random as the choices seemed at the time. Both deal heavily in Jewish tradition and how it migrates from the Old World (in Krasnoff’s stories, Germany and Ukraine, in Takács’ poems, Hungary) to the New (for Krasnoff, mostly New York City, for Takács, mostly Kansas). Takács draws more directly from the Talmud and Rabbinic teachings than Krasnoff does. The poems touch on reconstructive surgery, reincarnation, interacting with harmful spirits, exploring other planets, and our responsibility to pass on the knowledge of our forebears to our descendants, all through that lens of Jewish faith and history. This section made me want to reread what the tradition I grew up in calls the Old Testament, but also to talk more deeply with my Jewish friends about these poems and about their faith in general.

The poems in the section titled “Daily Dispatches from the Land of the Free” are more political in nature. I am unsure if “Radiation Hormesis” is really about life in Eastern Europe right after the Chernobyl disaster, or if I’m making the connection because Chernobyl is back in the public consciousness thanks to the HBO mini-series: but either way, the poem’s description of outdoor desolation and indoor claustrophobia and the “how bad could it really be” mentally that so many of us exhibit when confronted with something that’s designated dangerous but isn’t visibly so is deeply moving. I had tears welling while reading and rereading this one. “Replicate Personal Experience” starts out as a description of being the lonely, different, new kid in town, but takes a SFnal twist that opens the poem up to even more meaning. “The Oracle of DARPA” put me in mind of Orwell, of the double-speak of 1984 and how it can be used for good or ill.

The poems in “The Up-and-Out” are perhaps more future-looking that the other sections, with focuses on bonding with colony worlds, the limited bounds of memory and physicality. “You Are Here / Was: Blue Line to Memorial Park” is an interactive poem meant to be viewed and read, blending computer science with the art of poetry.

I got a lot out of this collection and as I said, I’m not a big fan of reading poetry. I think people who love poetry will get a lot more out of it that I did, and I highly recommend it.

Review of UPON A BURNING THRONE

TITLE: Upon A Burning Throne (The Burnt Empire Saga, Book One)

AUTHOR: Ashok K. Banker

669 pages, John Joseph Adams Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 9781328916280 (Hardcover and e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): From international sensation Ashok K. Banker, pioneer of the fantasy genre in India, comes the first book in a ground-breaking, epic fantasy series inspired by the ancient Indian classic, The Mahabharata.

In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible—one that incinerates the unworthy.
 
Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empire… but there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an outlying kingdom. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing to tear the Burnt Empire apart—leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos....

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: I mostly burned out on “epics” of all genres about a decade ago, give or take. Books topping out over 600 pages (many significantly over) just stopped appealing to me. The most “recent” book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series sits unread alongside a good number of Stephen King’s recent novels and countless others I bought with every good intention. Then in 2015 Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings, the first novel in his Dandelion Dynasty series, came along, and I realized that maybe the issue was less the size of the books and more the content – the idea that no matter how good the writing or beloved the author (and believe me, I love Stephen King’s work), I got tired of reading the same types of epics. This idea was cemented by my great enjoyment of Dylan Struzan’s A Bloody Business (a Prohibition tale writ as sweeping, operatic epic if ever there was one) and now of Ashok K. Banker’s Upon A Burning Throne.

I was prepared to like Upon A Burning Throne because of how much I enjoyed Banker’s “Legends of the Burnt Empire” short stories (novelettes?) in recent issues of Lightspeed Magazine. While you can read this novel without reading those stories, they do provide a lot of the world-building backbone. Past events hinted at in the novel are given full detail in the stories, which build with a growing sense of inevitability to the event that directly precedes the opening scene of the novel: the birth of the princes Adri and Shvate.

If there’s one thing the Liu and Banker books have in common, it’s that their structural (if not narrative) basis is in epic poetry of the distant past as opposed to the epic fantasy tropes of more recent times. There’s little, if any, trace of Tolkien here, but plenty of moments that put me in mind of The Iliad (which I have read) and what I’ve heard of the Mahabharata (which I haven’t read). Gods and demi-gods abound in Liu and Banker’s books, directly and indirectly affecting key moments in human history, but there’s nary an orc or dragon to be found. Which to me is just damned refreshing.

The book is sweeping in time-span (covering more than 20 years of character time), in location (cities and sub-nations across the Krushan Empire and their warring neighbor Reygistan) and in cast (by my count 14 major/important characters, almost as many secondary characters who momentarily get the spotlight, and a score of gods and goddesses). Epic is not an overstatement or a cliché here.

Like many ancient epic poems, Banker does not always reveal events in chronological order, sometimes breaking off mid-battle or mid-political-intrigue to introduce a new character and give their backstory only when they become important to the narrative. In lesser hands, this could make the story disjointed or make it feel disorganized. Banker handles it with a deft ease that belies how hard this kind of storytelling actually is, and the shifts in point-of-view actually heighten, rather than confuse or diminish, the reader’s interest. Every time the story took a seemingly disconnected jump to a new character or new place, I found myself eagerly asking how this was going to tie back to the main story. And it always did. It all does. There’s not a wasted scene. And while Banker may be laying the seeds of future volumes throughout this one, not a single seeming digression fails to loop back to the main narrative before the book’s final pages.

Okay, that’s not completely true. There is one character introduced in a major way in the prologue who I thought would be an important presence throughout this book but who disappears almost immediately. Even once I recognized the absence in scenes the character surely should have been present for, it didn’t bother me; something has to held back for Book Two (currently due in the spring of 2020) after all.

Although there are, as I mentioned, over a dozen main characters to contend with, the real focus is on the Princes Adri and Shvate – one blind, the other albino – and their struggles to prove they are capable of leading the vast Krushan Empire (note: not whether they are worthy – that issue is settled in the prologue – but whether they are capable; two very different concerns). If there is any similarity to the high/Euro-centric fantasy of Tolkien and Martin, it is in this. The Princes are viewed as “disabled” and thus, like Tolkien’s Hobbits, not seen as capable of accomplishing the task set before them. Other strive to convince them they should hand the task over to someone(s) more “normally-abled.” Like Frodo and Sam, Adri and Shvate have moments where their so-called disadvantages are what saves the day, moments where they fail, and moments where they are buoyed by loved ones or boon companions. Like Martin’s Stark siblings, the Princes are good men buffeted by the political machinations of less-good to downright-evil people. Also like Martin’s characters and like the protagonists of so many ancient epics, the Princes and their closest allies are good but not perfect. They make mistakes; are lustful and insecure and bold by turn; they are sometimes incisive and sometimes oblivious. In short, they are real people rather than archetypes. I can’t think of a single character, other than perhaps the “big bad” Jarsun, who fails to reveal complexity as the action progresses.

Up until now, I’ve only read some of Banker’s short stories (not all of them connected to this book) and enjoyed them all. Upon A Burning Throne has inspired me to seek out more of Banker’s novels. Yes, even if they’re more than 600 pages long!

Review of IN RE SHERLOCK HOLMES

TITLE: In Re: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Solar Pons (Solar Pons #1)

AUTHOR: August Derleth

288 pages, Belanger Books, ISBN 9781720599623 (paperback, ebook, audiobook)

DESCRIPTION: (from the Publisher’s description): Once again in old London, "the game is afoot." In these pastiches of the Sacred Writings, written when he was nineteen and twenty, August Derleth has recreated the London of Sherlock Holmes. It does not matter that the familiar name has become Solar Pons, or that the familiar Baker Street has become Praed Street — something of the nostalgic charm and fascination, of the remembered quickening of the pulse and the familiar settings of the original London of Sherlock Holmes, has been recaptured in these pages. And what intriguing titles there arc to these twelve pastiches, chosen from among a greater number! Here are "The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" — about a spectral image of Siva seen at a country estate beyond London; "The Adventure of the Purloined Periapt" — which is the purest of pastiches and perhaps the closest of all the tales in this book to the original spirit; "The Adventure of the Norcross Riddle" —containing some of the neatest deduction in the book; "The Adventure of the Man with the Broken Face" — a tale of "dark waters"; and eight others. "No doubt," writes Vincent Starrett in his Introduction, "we — and by we, I mean those frantic and incurable Sherlockians who, with August Derleth, deplore the paucity of canonical entertainments — should rather have more of the great originals, but we accept the imitations, faute de mieux, to satisfy a normal appetite. And we accept them with enthusiasm. They are the work of affectionate minds and hands. There is no intention to deceive. These stories, and others in their field, are intended only to please. They are nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street."

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: I’m sure I knew of Solar Pons, as one of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches I read in middle and high school. But I didn’t really become consciously aware of him, or just how many stories comprise the Pontine Canon, until I started regularly haunting used book stores and participating in various pulp magazine and “Wold Newton Universe” online groups about a decade and a half ago. Whether the Pontine Canon is composed only of the original stories by August Derleth or includes the later stories written by Basil Copper is for more knowledgeable minds than mine to debate; I bought all of the Pons 70s paperbacks I could find in those used bookstores with the intent of reading the whole series once I had them all. What inspired me to finally start (having finally read/listened to the entire Holmesian canon in order a few years ago) is the re-issue of the Derleth books by Belanger Books under the editorship of Pons expert David Marcum. And, more specifically, the offer from the publisher of a free audiobook of this first book in the series in exchange for an honest review.

For those not in the know (and who somehow missed the book description just above): August Derleth created Solar Pons to be the successor to Sherlock Holmes. Pons and his amanuensis, Doctor Lyndon Parker, are very much like their literary predecessors -- Derleth wasn't trying to create something new and daring, but was rather paying tribute to characters who had given him so much joy and for whom new adventures would not be forthcoming (I wonder, did Derleth ever suspect the overwhelming amount of new Holmes fiction that would be written, authorized or otherwise, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s passing? Did Derleth suspect that there would be more Pons stories written and published beyond his originals?)

The stories in this first collection, therefore, feel very much like Derleth writing Doyle: the stories are short and punchy; Parker spends a few paragraphs in each story talking about Pons’ amazing skills of ratiocination; Pons constantly tries to get Parker to deduce what’s really going on but of course the Chronicler is, if not clueless, at least not as intuitive as his friend. There are detectives and beat cops from Scotland Yard who are impressed by the detective but also a bit off-put by him; there’s a criminal mastermind with hinted-at history that we never quite get enough information about; there are even street-urchin “Irregulars” to help Pons in situations where multiple suspects need to be under surveillance.

It sounds sort of derivative, doesn’t it? And yet … in the reading, it doesn’t feel derivative at all. Derleth’s narrative voice, through Lyndon Parker, is lighter than Doyle’s, less serious but not lacking in tension.  The Pons-Parker dynamic is a bit more playful than that of their predecessors, without sacrificing the mutual respect they have. Pons’ relationship with Scotland Yard is less condescending (although he still pokes at the fact that he can find clues they seem incapable of finding on their own), and so the various officers’ attitude to Pons is more openly respectful. And Derleth doesn’t wait until he’s ready to kill his lead character off to introduce an arch-nemesis: Baren Ennesfred Kroll is mentioned in one story in this collection and actually appears in another. I assume he recurs in later volumes as well.

Steve White’s narration of the audiobook is at its best in the voices of Parker and Pons, who feel distinct from each other (Pons is a little more nasal in delivery, Parker a bit broader-toned). I didn’t always feel like the supporting character voices worked; some felt like the accent was more South African, some felt at odds with the character descriptions (for instance, Parker describes in one story a beautiful young woman as their client, but White’s character voice is more middle-age matronly). But overall, White does a wonderful job keeping the stories tense and exciting, and finding the humor in both Parker and Pons’ lines where appropriate.

This first Solar Pons collection is full of fun mysteries, some more predictable than others, with an engaging lead detective and sidekick. If you’ve read all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, you’re likely to enjoy this as a follow-up. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series, or listening if Belanger Books brings out more audiobook editions.

Review of F IS FOR FAIRY

TITLE: F Is For Fairy (Alphabet Anthologies #6)

EDITOR: Rhonda Parrish

440 pages, Poise and Pen Publishing, ISBN 9781988233543 (softcover and e-book)

Description: “Anyone who believes that faeries are wee, golden-haired creatures with dragon-fly wings and sweet intentions has never met a real faerie.” –Suzanne Willis, “A Silver Thread Between Worlds”

Retellings of familiar favorites from new perspectives, and brand-new stories share the pages of this fairy-themed collection. Within these offerings you’ll find fairy music and food, contracts (making and breaking them), changelings, circles and curses–these stories deliver all the things you already love about fairies and a few new tricks as well. A dusting of dragons, shapeshifters and ogres accompany these tales which include feminist fairies overcoming trauma, Norse fairies breaking the rules to interfere in human affairs, intergalactic fairies hitching a ride to a new home, political satire featuring an idiot king and talking animals, a new Robin Archer story, fairy run nightclubs and so, so much more.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Thoughts: Disclaimer: I received a free Advanced Review Copy of this title via Booksprout in return for an honest review on multiple platforms. This is a more detailed version of the review left on Goodreads, Amazon, etc.

F Is for Fairy continues Rhonda Parrish's greatly enjoyable "alphabet anthology" series with 26 stories ranging from flash fiction to almost novella length. Of course, not every story will work for every reader. But the majority of these worked for me.

The authors give us a wide variety of types of faeries, from the high fantasy/Tolkeinesque to tiny troublemakers of the Disney variety. L.S. Johnson’s “A” story treats us to a tweak of the Sleeping Beauty myth that makes the narrative even more timely and topical, touching on gaslighting, victims keeping secrets and women finding power in each other, while Brittany Warman’s “N” is a very dark take on Peter Pan. Sara Cleto’s “T” is not a tweak on a Disney-fication of darker tales but is a really cool tweak on certain events in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pete Aldin’s “E” brings Irish pixies to colonial Australia, touching on inherited and learned prejudices and how easy it is to lose your family history, while Samantha Kymmell-Harvey’s “S” brings World War One to a small French fairy enclave. C.S.  MacCath’s “B” gives us warrior elves of the Nordic variety encountering Church-guided bigotry in the not-so-distant-as-it-seems past. Steve Bornstein’s “F” is perhaps the most High Fantasy concept (a lost fairy is led by a friendly dragon to the only person who can send him home: the Scourge of Dragons) but contains some creative world-building that moves it beyond the glut of formulaic High Fantasy on the market.

One of the few comedic contributions is Jonathan C. Parrish’s “C,” centered around the idea of elves loving to make deals, and all the ways in which greed and rash decisions can make those contracts go wrong. Equally humorous is Michael B. Tager’s “P,” a twist on portal and prophecy tales.

Urban fantasy is well represented. In Stephanie A. Cain’s “G,” we meet Lucy Ruiz and see how she learns about the world of werewolves and fairies that interacts with our own. If this isn’t an origin story for an on-going character, I’ll be greatly surprised. The story has charm and Lucy has real spark with the werewolf character. Laura VanArendonk Baugh’s “W” is touted as “the latest Robin Archer” story. I’m not familiar with the series but based on this story I need to check it out. It’s urban fantasy with a crime noir twist that’s a bit darker than the faux-noir of the Harry Dresden series. (Actually, I can easily see Robin Archer and October Daye teaming up.) But not all of the urban fantasy tales feel like parts of series: Michael M. Jones’ “X” and Lilah Ward’s “O” tales both take place in nightclubs where human girls encounter Ladies of the Fae – but that’s about all they have in common, and both are excellent.

Then there are those genre-blending stories that every anthology needs to have. In Jeanne Kramer-Smyth’s “D,” aliens encounter fairies; Beth Cato’s “Z” brings us to the end of human civilization and how the elves might have both caused it and try to preserve it, and BD Wilson’s “V” posits a post-apocalyptic society guided by fairies.

Notice I'm not sharing story titles: part of the fun of Parrish's anthologies is figuring out what word the author is centering the story on with the letter they were assigned. Some of them might be easy to guess just from the short descriptions I’ve given, but I think most will be a pleasant surprise.