Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 130
November 7, 2018
Trick or Treat Reveals - My Stories
Trick or Treat authors are revealed! Sort of. The anonymizing glitch struck again. To manually reveal your stories, remove them from the collection (just delete trickortreat2018 from "collections") and post. Then edit the collection back in and repost. They should appear with your name on them.
Here are the stories I wrote.
Kilo India Tango Tango Echo November, for Yhlee. Original Work. For the inspired character prompt "Grizzled Soldier Who Keeps Adopting Abandoned Kittens." I added an alien invasion and a propaganda campaign centered around the ubiquity of towns named Springfield. Given my fondness for cats and Marines, the authorship of this story was apparently less than mysterious to several sharp readers.
Several real cats have cameos in this story. Snoozer, the black kitten with huge yellow eyes, is my Erin Burr as a kitten. She still likes to sleep in my lap. Remington, the leaping, shoulder-sitting gray tabby, is my Alex Hamilton.
Bat Thing was a neighborhood cat from when I was a kid, named by myself. I still don't know what kind of cat he was. He looked very much like a Ukrainian Levkoy, with huge ears and that strange face. He was covered with an extremely short plush of velvety black fur, more like suede than anything else, which frequently provoked debates over whether or not he was technically hairless. He had very long flaps of skin between his front and back legs, and could jump very far and very high. When he did, he spread out the flaps and seemed to glide like a flying squirrel. Since he really did look like a cross between a bat and a cat I named him Bat Thing. To this day I don't know exactly what he was. He was a stray kitten in a middle-of-nowhere Indian town. No one had ever seen anything like him. Everyone theorized that the mama cat had booted him out for being weird. I said he must have been a spontaneous mutation similar to that which produced other weird-looking cats, but in my heart of hearts, I still think he was the escaped product of genetic experimentation to create a cat-bat hybrid. Na na na na na na na na BAT THING!
Eilonwy Wanderer, for Scioscribe. The Prydain Chronicles - Lloyd Alexander. Title says it all. She had prompted this last Yuletide as well, and I regretted not having a chance to write it then, so I was very pleased to see the same prompt pop up again. The jobs she tries out were intended to save me from having to do too much research, as I know a bit about both, but I ended up having to anyway as I still had to look up what they would have been like in medieval Wales. Thanks to Cyphomandra for answering questions like, "When did doctors figure out what nerves do?"
Men Sell Not Such In Any Town, for Selden. "The Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti. Warning: contains incestuous longing, though no actual incest. It's a space opera AU with lots of alien fruit descriptions, and a nod to Ursula K. Le Guin's "Semley's Necklace."
I also wrote four stories for Stephen King books.
Twelve More Months In Tarker's Mills, for Escretoireazul. Cycle of the Werewolf - Stephen King. That obscure novella has a werewolf vignette for each month of the year adding up to a complete story; I wrote a sequel with a drabble for each month adding up to a complete story.
Lost Girls, also for Escritoireazul. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King. My recipient's enthusiasm for werewolves, which I share, inspired me to write two stories for them. This one combines two different prompts they had for this canon, which were werewolves and "weird west." Thanks to Scioscribe for helping me come up with an actual plot.
A Spread of Cards, for Skazka. The Dark Tower - Stephen King. The man in black never tires of fucking with Roland. This was a response to their prompt, "The palaver at the end of The Gunslinger, once more with banging. I had a lot of fun coming up with Tarot cards. Thanks for Scioscribe for suggesting some of them.
A Yellow Sky, for PositivelyVexed. The Long Walk - Stephen King. A fix-it for the world's least fixable canon. The book is so relentlessly, inexorably grim and tragic, I really enjoyed giving the characters some hope, comfort, and a chance to get off their feet.
comments
Here are the stories I wrote.
Kilo India Tango Tango Echo November, for Yhlee. Original Work. For the inspired character prompt "Grizzled Soldier Who Keeps Adopting Abandoned Kittens." I added an alien invasion and a propaganda campaign centered around the ubiquity of towns named Springfield. Given my fondness for cats and Marines, the authorship of this story was apparently less than mysterious to several sharp readers.
Several real cats have cameos in this story. Snoozer, the black kitten with huge yellow eyes, is my Erin Burr as a kitten. She still likes to sleep in my lap. Remington, the leaping, shoulder-sitting gray tabby, is my Alex Hamilton.
Bat Thing was a neighborhood cat from when I was a kid, named by myself. I still don't know what kind of cat he was. He looked very much like a Ukrainian Levkoy, with huge ears and that strange face. He was covered with an extremely short plush of velvety black fur, more like suede than anything else, which frequently provoked debates over whether or not he was technically hairless. He had very long flaps of skin between his front and back legs, and could jump very far and very high. When he did, he spread out the flaps and seemed to glide like a flying squirrel. Since he really did look like a cross between a bat and a cat I named him Bat Thing. To this day I don't know exactly what he was. He was a stray kitten in a middle-of-nowhere Indian town. No one had ever seen anything like him. Everyone theorized that the mama cat had booted him out for being weird. I said he must have been a spontaneous mutation similar to that which produced other weird-looking cats, but in my heart of hearts, I still think he was the escaped product of genetic experimentation to create a cat-bat hybrid. Na na na na na na na na BAT THING!
Eilonwy Wanderer, for Scioscribe. The Prydain Chronicles - Lloyd Alexander. Title says it all. She had prompted this last Yuletide as well, and I regretted not having a chance to write it then, so I was very pleased to see the same prompt pop up again. The jobs she tries out were intended to save me from having to do too much research, as I know a bit about both, but I ended up having to anyway as I still had to look up what they would have been like in medieval Wales. Thanks to Cyphomandra for answering questions like, "When did doctors figure out what nerves do?"
Men Sell Not Such In Any Town, for Selden. "The Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti. Warning: contains incestuous longing, though no actual incest. It's a space opera AU with lots of alien fruit descriptions, and a nod to Ursula K. Le Guin's "Semley's Necklace."
I also wrote four stories for Stephen King books.
Twelve More Months In Tarker's Mills, for Escretoireazul. Cycle of the Werewolf - Stephen King. That obscure novella has a werewolf vignette for each month of the year adding up to a complete story; I wrote a sequel with a drabble for each month adding up to a complete story.
Lost Girls, also for Escritoireazul. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King. My recipient's enthusiasm for werewolves, which I share, inspired me to write two stories for them. This one combines two different prompts they had for this canon, which were werewolves and "weird west." Thanks to Scioscribe for helping me come up with an actual plot.
A Spread of Cards, for Skazka. The Dark Tower - Stephen King. The man in black never tires of fucking with Roland. This was a response to their prompt, "The palaver at the end of The Gunslinger, once more with banging. I had a lot of fun coming up with Tarot cards. Thanks for Scioscribe for suggesting some of them.
A Yellow Sky, for PositivelyVexed. The Long Walk - Stephen King. A fix-it for the world's least fixable canon. The book is so relentlessly, inexorably grim and tragic, I really enjoyed giving the characters some hope, comfort, and a chance to get off their feet.
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November 5, 2018
Trick or Treat Recs - Part III
Hell Sick. Original Works. A failboat demon accidentally locks himself out of Hell. The tone and jokes reminded me a bit of The Good Place.
Chjtolene. "Jolene," a song by Dolly Parton. Tagged "crack taken seriously," this works nicely as a standalone horror story but also has some interesting commentary on both the song and Lovecraft.
Two sweet and funny Black Panther stories with fun uses of Wakanda technology and great character interaction. In The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms!, Shuri seeks inspiration from imported movies to prank her brother; in Slip and Slide, T'Challa and Nakia go ice skating while Shuri takes a seat in the peanut gallery.
Just Around the Corner. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King. An adult Trisha once again confronts the God of the Lost in this thoughtful look at fear and courage, trauma and moving on, and what does and doesn't change in us when we grow up.
Art: Animals That Are Not Cats
XVII. Watership Down. A beautiful Rider Waite-esque Tarot card of Hyzenthlay as the Star.
The Finer Points. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Spectacularly detailed apes.
A Vist. Does anyone remember the adorable "Tea House Foxes" Gmail theme? Here, have the tea house fox visited by ancestral fox spirits.
Fin. The ghost of an extinct whale.
comments
Chjtolene. "Jolene," a song by Dolly Parton. Tagged "crack taken seriously," this works nicely as a standalone horror story but also has some interesting commentary on both the song and Lovecraft.
Two sweet and funny Black Panther stories with fun uses of Wakanda technology and great character interaction. In The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms!, Shuri seeks inspiration from imported movies to prank her brother; in Slip and Slide, T'Challa and Nakia go ice skating while Shuri takes a seat in the peanut gallery.
Just Around the Corner. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King. An adult Trisha once again confronts the God of the Lost in this thoughtful look at fear and courage, trauma and moving on, and what does and doesn't change in us when we grow up.
Art: Animals That Are Not Cats
XVII. Watership Down. A beautiful Rider Waite-esque Tarot card of Hyzenthlay as the Star.
The Finer Points. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Spectacularly detailed apes.
A Vist. Does anyone remember the adorable "Tea House Foxes" Gmail theme? Here, have the tea house fox visited by ancestral fox spirits.
Fin. The ghost of an extinct whale.
comments
November 2, 2018
Trick or Treat Recs: Part II
I read and look in a very scattershot manner, so reccing one work but not others in a fandom doesn't mean I disliked them, it means I probably haven't gotten to them yet. Here are some recs for works that are not my gifts.
Stories
Nobody's Idea of a Vacation. Black Panther. Ross grinned. “As always, you’ve come to the right place. I’m guessing your overlap on ‘obviously non-Wakandan people’ and ‘people you sort of trust’ and ‘people who aren’t Captain America’ is pretty slim, but I’m always happy for a vacation.” Nakia, Ross, and Shuri collaborate on a mission. The story feels like an outtake from the movie, with banter and friendship and action and cool Wakanda tech.
Rag and Bone. Carrie - Stephen King. Carrie resurrects her mother. Chilling and heartbreaking.
Three MASH stories. Linked as a group because I liked them all and for the same reason: in different ways, they all capture the feel of the show.
Nobody Likes a Skinny Liver. Original Works. Disclaimer: I beta'd this. A fox spirit in art school just wants to be left alone to paint, but her relatives want her to get with the program, and hurry up and seduce and eat someone already. Her roommate is right there!
Bright Threads. The Prydain Chronicles - Lloyd Alexander. A perfectly characterized day in the life of Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch, bickering and puttering about their cottage and weaving the world.
Cat Art
In Which Beruthiel's Cats Explore Middle Earth. Adorable and hilarious, but also very Middle-Earth-like; Old Man Willow has a distinct Charles Vess vibe.
Follow Me. Three kittens follow a soldier to his barracks. Adorable and expressive; I kept coming back to look at it again.
Jean Grey Holding Emma Frost Who Has Been Transformed Into A Cat. The incandescent fury of fluffy kitty Emma Frost has to be seen to be believed.
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Stories
Nobody's Idea of a Vacation. Black Panther. Ross grinned. “As always, you’ve come to the right place. I’m guessing your overlap on ‘obviously non-Wakandan people’ and ‘people you sort of trust’ and ‘people who aren’t Captain America’ is pretty slim, but I’m always happy for a vacation.” Nakia, Ross, and Shuri collaborate on a mission. The story feels like an outtake from the movie, with banter and friendship and action and cool Wakanda tech.
Rag and Bone. Carrie - Stephen King. Carrie resurrects her mother. Chilling and heartbreaking.
Three MASH stories. Linked as a group because I liked them all and for the same reason: in different ways, they all capture the feel of the show.
Nobody Likes a Skinny Liver. Original Works. Disclaimer: I beta'd this. A fox spirit in art school just wants to be left alone to paint, but her relatives want her to get with the program, and hurry up and seduce and eat someone already. Her roommate is right there!
Bright Threads. The Prydain Chronicles - Lloyd Alexander. A perfectly characterized day in the life of Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch, bickering and puttering about their cottage and weaving the world.
Cat Art
In Which Beruthiel's Cats Explore Middle Earth. Adorable and hilarious, but also very Middle-Earth-like; Old Man Willow has a distinct Charles Vess vibe.
Follow Me. Three kittens follow a soldier to his barracks. Adorable and expressive; I kept coming back to look at it again.
Jean Grey Holding Emma Frost Who Has Been Transformed Into A Cat. The incandescent fury of fluffy kitty Emma Frost has to be seen to be believed.
comments
November 1, 2018
Trick or Treat Recs - My Gift Stories and Art
I got so many wonderful gifts for Trick or Treat that I haven't read much else; recs for other stories will come later. (Though I will say that all the Carrie stories I've read are GREAT. This has been a very good Trick or Treat for Stephen King fandoms. I think all the King books that were requested have at least one story in the archive.) Meanwhile, enjoy browsing the archive! I wrote seven stories; maybe you will spot one.
The minimum word count is 300 words, so these are all on the short side; the longest are around 5K and many are under 1K. Please comment if you enjoy any of these, or something else!
Annihilation (movie, but also uses elements from the book).
The Third Expedition. An expedition into the Shimmer that we didn't see finds horror, wonder, and confusion of identities; imaginatively creepy imagery, killer conclusion.
Carrie - Stephen King.
while I drive. An AU where Sue and Carrie drive away together post-prom. Haunting, touching, does a lot in a very short length.
The Monster in the Lake. An AU where Carrie's powers manifest at a Christian Youth Camp. Scary and vivid and sad, this reads exactly like a lost Stephen King short story.
This Little Light of Mine. Sue's in a coma post-prom, but Carrie (or Carrie's ghost, or the part of Carrie that lodged in Sue's mind, or maybe something else) is still talking to her. Ambitious, complex, and intense, with great Sue-Carrie dialogues.
Chinatown.
speak low. Short, beautifully written, mythic and eerie response to my prompt of "What if Evelyn returns from the dead to rescue her daughter?"
The Punisher
Eyes Turned Skyward, by Sholio. This was not a Trick or Treat story, but I didn't get a chance to rec it before Trick or Treat and it's great. It's wingfic done in canon style, so dark/serious rather than fluffy/cracky. Great imagery, character relationships, hurt-comfort, and action sequences, just excellent all-round.
Sanctuary. Post-series, a wounded, feverish Frank bangs on the Liebermans' door in the middle of the night. This is everything you want from that premise, with perfectly in-character reactions and dialogue. A lot of it is also really funny, again in a true-to-canon way.
Fear. A drabble about the feelings behind the mask.
Death's Doorstep. Frank turns up injured at the Liebermans' house; no matter how frustrating it gets, they care too much to not take him in.
Rose Madder - Stephen King
Oils. Lovely glimpse into Rosie's life post-book; healing and spookiness and a very unique art gallery.
A Rose Between the Years. How the woman who became Rose Madder might have gotten into the painting.
True Detective
Juxtaposition. A series of haiku (and one tanka), reluctantly written by Rust Cohle as a therapy assignment.
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Rabbit-of-the-Heart. A haunting, shivery story about Silverweed, the rabbit poet in love with death.
The Wheel Turns Ever Onward. A bit of rabbit mythology very much in the tone of the book, life and death and compassion in the realm beyond the world we know.
Marli. Completely adorable story featuring a determined and kind Hyzenthlay, a "what have I gotten myself into" Bigwig, and a litter of kittens. No, not rabbit kittens. Kitten kittens.
X-Men comics
A Phoenix for a Phoenix. I GOT AN ART TREAT. A determined Rachel Summers, an exuberant phoenix, and tons of lovely detailing.
comments
The minimum word count is 300 words, so these are all on the short side; the longest are around 5K and many are under 1K. Please comment if you enjoy any of these, or something else!
Annihilation (movie, but also uses elements from the book).
The Third Expedition. An expedition into the Shimmer that we didn't see finds horror, wonder, and confusion of identities; imaginatively creepy imagery, killer conclusion.
Carrie - Stephen King.
while I drive. An AU where Sue and Carrie drive away together post-prom. Haunting, touching, does a lot in a very short length.
The Monster in the Lake. An AU where Carrie's powers manifest at a Christian Youth Camp. Scary and vivid and sad, this reads exactly like a lost Stephen King short story.
This Little Light of Mine. Sue's in a coma post-prom, but Carrie (or Carrie's ghost, or the part of Carrie that lodged in Sue's mind, or maybe something else) is still talking to her. Ambitious, complex, and intense, with great Sue-Carrie dialogues.
Chinatown.
speak low. Short, beautifully written, mythic and eerie response to my prompt of "What if Evelyn returns from the dead to rescue her daughter?"
The Punisher
Eyes Turned Skyward, by Sholio. This was not a Trick or Treat story, but I didn't get a chance to rec it before Trick or Treat and it's great. It's wingfic done in canon style, so dark/serious rather than fluffy/cracky. Great imagery, character relationships, hurt-comfort, and action sequences, just excellent all-round.
Sanctuary. Post-series, a wounded, feverish Frank bangs on the Liebermans' door in the middle of the night. This is everything you want from that premise, with perfectly in-character reactions and dialogue. A lot of it is also really funny, again in a true-to-canon way.
Fear. A drabble about the feelings behind the mask.
Death's Doorstep. Frank turns up injured at the Liebermans' house; no matter how frustrating it gets, they care too much to not take him in.
Rose Madder - Stephen King
Oils. Lovely glimpse into Rosie's life post-book; healing and spookiness and a very unique art gallery.
A Rose Between the Years. How the woman who became Rose Madder might have gotten into the painting.
True Detective
Juxtaposition. A series of haiku (and one tanka), reluctantly written by Rust Cohle as a therapy assignment.
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Rabbit-of-the-Heart. A haunting, shivery story about Silverweed, the rabbit poet in love with death.
The Wheel Turns Ever Onward. A bit of rabbit mythology very much in the tone of the book, life and death and compassion in the realm beyond the world we know.
Marli. Completely adorable story featuring a determined and kind Hyzenthlay, a "what have I gotten myself into" Bigwig, and a litter of kittens. No, not rabbit kittens. Kitten kittens.
X-Men comics
A Phoenix for a Phoenix. I GOT AN ART TREAT. A determined Rachel Summers, an exuberant phoenix, and tons of lovely detailing.
comments
October 25, 2018
Original Fiction rec
Singing Again at Seven Bells. Being the journal of Captain Annabel Blackwater, terror of the deep. A short and disproportionately delightful story of a mermaid and a female pirate captain, drenched in briny atmosphere. The style is great and idiosyncratic, without a word wasted, and the central relationship is creepy and beautiful and compelling. (This isn't the harmless kind of mermaid, but more of a siren.)
She planned to eat me, after all, when she first sang me out.
She told me so herself, tho - I confess - I knew it from the start.
We all have our indelicate desires.
The story is from Original Works Exchange. I haven't had a chance to read much, but there's a lot that looks good.
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She planned to eat me, after all, when she first sang me out.
She told me so herself, tho - I confess - I knew it from the start.
We all have our indelicate desires.
The story is from Original Works Exchange. I haven't had a chance to read much, but there's a lot that looks good.
comments
I Remember You, by H. L. Logan
An F/F amnesia romance with all the tropes, plus a nicely done mystery and more emotional realism than I expected.
Cara wakes up in a hospital with a bunch of people she doesn’t recognize, including one very hot woman, calling her “Care,” a nickname she despises. The last thing she remembers is prom. But they tell her she’s been in college for three years. Apparently she got retrograde amnesia after jogging into a tree. (I give Logan points for making the accident both ridiculous and the sort of ridiculous thing many of us have actually done. I have not jogged into a tree. But I have walked into a lightpost.)
Cara had intended to come out when she went to college, so she jumps to the not-unnatural conclusion that she did and that Bibi, the sexy woman she lives with who is very concerned and also handsy, is her girlfriend. But she’s baffled by a number of other things: how did she change from a shy bookworm to an outgoing party girl? Why does she now drink and party (and jog!) when she remembers hating all those things? Why is her family being so weirdly cagey about the last three years? And when will Bibi stop being so standoffish and get back to having the awesome sex they must have been enjoying for years?
You will not be surprised that, as we immediately learn from Bibi’s POV, she and Cara are roommates, not girlfriends. Also, Cara was not out, and Bibi is straight (she thinks). But Cara is so devastated by the amnesia (which is likely to force her to drop out of school, among other things), it seems cruel to immediately drop what will feel like a breakup on her. Surely it would be better to just be extra-affectionate for a little while, until she’s stronger, of course without doing anything actually sexual…
This leads exactly where you expect: once Bibi steps into the role, she finds it surprisingly comfortable and tempting, and Cara herself surprisingly desirable. Meanwhile, Cara is more and more disturbed by the changes from the person she was to the person she apparently became. Everyone says college changes you, but this much?
The writing is clunky (though some of the dialogue is pretty funny) but the story is well-done. The mystery aspect makes it a page-turner, and it has a satisfying resolution. (Not involving sexual assault, just FYI.) Bibi’s sexual awakening is believable and hot, the minor characters all have just a little more depth and complexity than you’d expect, and tropes aside, the character interactions and emotions feel real. Cara is naturally upset when Bibi finally confesses all, but is most bothered by the question of why she’s still in the closet.
I want a tropey amnesia romance to be hot, play out certain tropes, and explore some questions of identity. This isn’t great literature but it does do all that, and I enjoyed it more than some more polished books that don’t follow through on their own premises.
I Remember You[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
Cara wakes up in a hospital with a bunch of people she doesn’t recognize, including one very hot woman, calling her “Care,” a nickname she despises. The last thing she remembers is prom. But they tell her she’s been in college for three years. Apparently she got retrograde amnesia after jogging into a tree. (I give Logan points for making the accident both ridiculous and the sort of ridiculous thing many of us have actually done. I have not jogged into a tree. But I have walked into a lightpost.)
Cara had intended to come out when she went to college, so she jumps to the not-unnatural conclusion that she did and that Bibi, the sexy woman she lives with who is very concerned and also handsy, is her girlfriend. But she’s baffled by a number of other things: how did she change from a shy bookworm to an outgoing party girl? Why does she now drink and party (and jog!) when she remembers hating all those things? Why is her family being so weirdly cagey about the last three years? And when will Bibi stop being so standoffish and get back to having the awesome sex they must have been enjoying for years?
You will not be surprised that, as we immediately learn from Bibi’s POV, she and Cara are roommates, not girlfriends. Also, Cara was not out, and Bibi is straight (she thinks). But Cara is so devastated by the amnesia (which is likely to force her to drop out of school, among other things), it seems cruel to immediately drop what will feel like a breakup on her. Surely it would be better to just be extra-affectionate for a little while, until she’s stronger, of course without doing anything actually sexual…
This leads exactly where you expect: once Bibi steps into the role, she finds it surprisingly comfortable and tempting, and Cara herself surprisingly desirable. Meanwhile, Cara is more and more disturbed by the changes from the person she was to the person she apparently became. Everyone says college changes you, but this much?
The writing is clunky (though some of the dialogue is pretty funny) but the story is well-done. The mystery aspect makes it a page-turner, and it has a satisfying resolution. (Not involving sexual assault, just FYI.) Bibi’s sexual awakening is believable and hot, the minor characters all have just a little more depth and complexity than you’d expect, and tropes aside, the character interactions and emotions feel real. Cara is naturally upset when Bibi finally confesses all, but is most bothered by the question of why she’s still in the closet.
I want a tropey amnesia romance to be hot, play out certain tropes, and explore some questions of identity. This isn’t great literature but it does do all that, and I enjoyed it more than some more polished books that don’t follow through on their own premises.
I Remember You[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 24, 2018
A Castle of Bone, by Penelope Farmer
I have written before about my fondness for British children’s fantasy of a certain vintage. It’s atmospheric and well-written in a particular way that I like and don’t often see elsewhere. Even if I don’t think it’s entirely successful or to my taste, I’m never sorry I read it.
A Castle of Bone (1972) is an odd melding of two subgenres, the wacky adventures with a magical item, and the numinous journey into a magical world of psychological or symbolic significance.
It starts with a literal bang, when a live pig bursts out of a closet in a boy’s room and goes madly rampaging through the house and then the city, then backtracks to explain what led up to that. Two sets of brothers and sisters (brash Penn and more-than-meets-the-eye Anna; artist Hugh and practical Jean) live next door to each other. Hugh acquires a cupboard which returns objects to earlier states of being; the pig was originally his leather wallet. The kids begin experimenting with it, in a pleasingly scientific manner, but find that it does not follow any discernible rules beyond that.
Meanwhile, every night Hugh dreams of a mysterious landscape, with strange people, a forest, and a castle he feels compelled to enter. Every night, he gets just a little bit closer…
The prose is precise and evocative, a pleasure to read just for itself. The characters work fine as convincing light sketches, but don’t quite bear the weight of the more psychological/symbolic parts. (Anna comes closest, possibly because it’s not from her point of view.) However, those parts are beautifully written and feel genuinely magical, concluding in a revelation that would have worked even better with more character depth, but works anyway of its own force.
I’m a little surprised this book isn’t better-known. Maybe it’s too weird or too flawed, but it seems like the kind of book that would stick in one’s memory, if only for the climax. Definitely recommended if you like this sort of thing.
Now available on Kindle: A Castle Of Bone[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
A Castle of Bone (1972) is an odd melding of two subgenres, the wacky adventures with a magical item, and the numinous journey into a magical world of psychological or symbolic significance.
It starts with a literal bang, when a live pig bursts out of a closet in a boy’s room and goes madly rampaging through the house and then the city, then backtracks to explain what led up to that. Two sets of brothers and sisters (brash Penn and more-than-meets-the-eye Anna; artist Hugh and practical Jean) live next door to each other. Hugh acquires a cupboard which returns objects to earlier states of being; the pig was originally his leather wallet. The kids begin experimenting with it, in a pleasingly scientific manner, but find that it does not follow any discernible rules beyond that.
Meanwhile, every night Hugh dreams of a mysterious landscape, with strange people, a forest, and a castle he feels compelled to enter. Every night, he gets just a little bit closer…
The prose is precise and evocative, a pleasure to read just for itself. The characters work fine as convincing light sketches, but don’t quite bear the weight of the more psychological/symbolic parts. (Anna comes closest, possibly because it’s not from her point of view.) However, those parts are beautifully written and feel genuinely magical, concluding in a revelation that would have worked even better with more character depth, but works anyway of its own force.
I’m a little surprised this book isn’t better-known. Maybe it’s too weird or too flawed, but it seems like the kind of book that would stick in one’s memory, if only for the climax. Definitely recommended if you like this sort of thing.
Now available on Kindle: A Castle Of Bone[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 22, 2018
My FemslashEx story
If any of you have ever wanted Legally Blonde femslash in which Elle and Vivian must go undercover as a couple at a lesbian bar, I have provided it here.
comments
comments
October 21, 2018
The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession, by Adam Leith Gollner
A nonfiction book about fruit. If you're thinking, "That's an awfully broad topic," yep.
Gollner is obsessed with fruit (which instantly endeared him to me), and decides to do some traveling and research, try some cool fruit, and write a book about it. The result is fitfully delightful but extremely scattershot, with a tendency to go in-depth on topics I do not care about (fruit anatomy, fruit marketing), skimp on what he is by far best at (describing the deliciousness and coolness of specific fruits), and reference a whole bunch of things that I would have liked a citation for, but alas, there are no citations.
For instance, he mentions a "proverb popular in Brazil": "A woman for duty, a boy for pleasure, and a melon for ecstasy." It's certainly possible that the proverb is popular in Brazil, but if you're going to haul out an extremely famous apocryphal proverb about fruit in a book about fruit, you should probably mention that it is typically attributed as an ancient Arabian/Persian/Turkish proverb, is very likely fictional, and may be a joke about foreign perverts rather than a source for the use of fruit as sex toys. That is, I'm sure people have indeed fucked melons because people will fuck fucking anything, but I don't think that old chestnut is evidence of it.
This may seem picky, but the book has an erudite gloss, and if I can find dubious statements without even looking anything up, it makes me wonder about the rest of it.
I feel like I've made this critique of about 500 nonfiction books, but the author was really good at ONE THING, which in this case was describing fruit he'd actually eaten, and if he'd stuck to making the book about that, it would have been way better. (Possibly the all-time worst offenders: Julie and Julia, which intersperses a small number of absolutely delightful accounts of the author cooking Julia Child dishes with endless tedium about her otherwise-tedious life, and Cleaving, which intersperses a tiny bit of fascinating details about learning to be a butcher with an appallingly cringey mass of TMI detail about cheating on her husband, both by Julie Powell.) Perhaps that was not enough for a full book (but I think it would have been; maybe a shorter one) but if you only have enough material for a great long article, I'd rather read the article.
Here, enjoy my favorite part.
The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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Gollner is obsessed with fruit (which instantly endeared him to me), and decides to do some traveling and research, try some cool fruit, and write a book about it. The result is fitfully delightful but extremely scattershot, with a tendency to go in-depth on topics I do not care about (fruit anatomy, fruit marketing), skimp on what he is by far best at (describing the deliciousness and coolness of specific fruits), and reference a whole bunch of things that I would have liked a citation for, but alas, there are no citations.
For instance, he mentions a "proverb popular in Brazil": "A woman for duty, a boy for pleasure, and a melon for ecstasy." It's certainly possible that the proverb is popular in Brazil, but if you're going to haul out an extremely famous apocryphal proverb about fruit in a book about fruit, you should probably mention that it is typically attributed as an ancient Arabian/Persian/Turkish proverb, is very likely fictional, and may be a joke about foreign perverts rather than a source for the use of fruit as sex toys. That is, I'm sure people have indeed fucked melons because people will fuck fucking anything, but I don't think that old chestnut is evidence of it.
This may seem picky, but the book has an erudite gloss, and if I can find dubious statements without even looking anything up, it makes me wonder about the rest of it.
I feel like I've made this critique of about 500 nonfiction books, but the author was really good at ONE THING, which in this case was describing fruit he'd actually eaten, and if he'd stuck to making the book about that, it would have been way better. (Possibly the all-time worst offenders: Julie and Julia, which intersperses a small number of absolutely delightful accounts of the author cooking Julia Child dishes with endless tedium about her otherwise-tedious life, and Cleaving, which intersperses a tiny bit of fascinating details about learning to be a butcher with an appallingly cringey mass of TMI detail about cheating on her husband, both by Julie Powell.) Perhaps that was not enough for a full book (but I think it would have been; maybe a shorter one) but if you only have enough material for a great long article, I'd rather read the article.
Here, enjoy my favorite part.
The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
October 20, 2018
This literally set the record for the fastest I have ever wanted to hurl a book across the room
My zero-to-fling with great prejudice occurred on PAGE ONE of Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov, temptingly blurbed "sudden death at the publishing world's glittering annual convention." How could that premise, written by a publishing veteran like Asimov, be anything other than delightful?
Here is how. Remember: page one.
She was scheduled to face the members of the press at 4:00 PM and she had to decide what to wear. There, it seems to me as I try to reconstruct her motives in my own mind, she was faced by a dilemma. On the one hand, she was young and good-looking and had a body in which all parts fell smoothly into place, so she had the natural desire to display said body to the world. On the other hand, she was a feminist, and the book she was pushing was feminist, and there was the possibility that to use the lure of the body to promote the book would be a non-feminist thing to do.
I don't know whether she hesitated at all; or if she did, how long. I don't know if she tried on different dresses or settled the matter by pure reason in her mind.
The point is that she ended with a white dress which, above the waistline, was made up of generous swatches of open network, and under it she had above the waistline nothing at all but her own gorgeous self. When she remained in repose, her breasts remained safely behind the small, strategically placed opaque sections. When she raised an arm, as she might, the dress hiked up on that side and one nipple went peek-a-boo.
He then goes on to say that if she'd dressed more modestly, maybe she'd still be alive. However, I will never know how her peek-a-breast caused her death, because that book is now in the "donate" box, there to titillate or appall some unsuspecting reader who, like me, was presumably expecting something different.
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Here is how. Remember: page one.
She was scheduled to face the members of the press at 4:00 PM and she had to decide what to wear. There, it seems to me as I try to reconstruct her motives in my own mind, she was faced by a dilemma. On the one hand, she was young and good-looking and had a body in which all parts fell smoothly into place, so she had the natural desire to display said body to the world. On the other hand, she was a feminist, and the book she was pushing was feminist, and there was the possibility that to use the lure of the body to promote the book would be a non-feminist thing to do.
I don't know whether she hesitated at all; or if she did, how long. I don't know if she tried on different dresses or settled the matter by pure reason in her mind.
The point is that she ended with a white dress which, above the waistline, was made up of generous swatches of open network, and under it she had above the waistline nothing at all but her own gorgeous self. When she remained in repose, her breasts remained safely behind the small, strategically placed opaque sections. When she raised an arm, as she might, the dress hiked up on that side and one nipple went peek-a-boo.
He then goes on to say that if she'd dressed more modestly, maybe she'd still be alive. However, I will never know how her peek-a-breast caused her death, because that book is now in the "donate" box, there to titillate or appall some unsuspecting reader who, like me, was presumably expecting something different.
comments
