Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

Lena said (talking again about “The Mist”): You’ll be 105 and have forgotten your own birthday before you forget that ending.

Well, certainly the opinions of the author, Stephen King, and one his foremost cinematic interpreters, Frank Darabont, count more than mine. Seriously. But I still find myself resisting and even disliking Darabont’s alternate ending and I’ll try and explain why. (view spoiler)[At the end of the film, David shoots his young son and the other survivors in the car in what he deems to be an act of mercy. At that point I was still more or less on board with the Darabont version. But immediately thereafter, the viewer learns that David’s actions were completely needless as we see the mist suddenly dissipating and nearby soldiers engaged in what appears to be a mop-up operation, killing off a few surviving creatures. This is the point where Darabont lost me. It struck me as tragedy porn — a manipulative piling on of misery whose sole purpose was to play on audience emotions rather than support the storyline. Which brings me to the other reason why I disliked this last bit. It seemed to me that it undermined some of the preceding themes and ideas in the movie. We’re constantly led to believe that we are witnessing an apocalypse of epic proportions. Man’s comeuppance for fooling around with stuff that should best be left alone. But then, suddenly, nope, guess not. It wasn’t that big a deal after all. Ha, ha! Fooled you. And the fact that we see that those who remained in the store were rescued really irked me. Well, I thought, I guess Mrs. Carmody was right after all. Maybe they should actually have sacrificed a few people. The mist might have dissipated more quickly. Yuck. (hide spoiler)] Certainly this is all just my opinion and I can appreciate how others, yourself included, Lena, might not see Darabont’s ending the way that I do…or be bothered by its implications.

J. said: How oh how did we miss this popcorn and Everclear moment in cinema history?
Prisoners of the Ghostland

Just a first impression, but based on the trailer this looks pretty bad. The plot seems vaguely reminiscent of the old John Carpenter movie, Escape from New York.

Lena said (about “The Mist”): Yet, not nearly as brutal as the movie version. I can’t decide if I liked it better this way.

While in the main I enjoyed Frank Darabont’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, I’ve always preferred the latter, particularly when it comes to the ending. (view spoiler)[I find King’s far more ambiguous ending rather bleakly apocalyptic. In a way, it’s more brutal than the Darabont twist ending, which, although tragic for the main character, ties everything up in an unconvincingly neat bow. (hide spoiler)]

“Brimstone and Marmalade”, Aaron Corwin

(view spoiler)[A young girl desperately yearns for a pony, but instead winds up with a kinda pathetic demon for a birthday gift. Corwin does a good job of demonstrating that it’s often hard to predict what it is that we end up loving. He also reminds us that children can often be needlessly cruel to one another. I share Lena’s disappointment in the story’s conclusion. If I had written this, Mathilde’s nemesis, the callous Becky, would not have been let off so easily. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Fiona wrote: That looks absolutely great - I love Michael Caine at top grump, and with Aubrey Plaza? Hell. Yes.

The problem is that after seeing the trailer, you don’t need to see the movie.

“The Litany of Earth”, Ruthanna Emrys

(view spoiler)[This Emrys novelette is one of a growing number of works that have in recent years borrowed some elements of H. P. Lovecraft’s mythos, but have subverted the racism often found therein. Examples that spring to mind include Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country and Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom. In “Litany”, the experiences of Aphra Marsh, a young Deep One, are rather pointedly compared to the travails of Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. What follows over the course of the tale is sometimes interesting and often quite nuanced. If I have a complaint, it’s that the effort strikes me as somehow incomplete. This might be because “Litany” serves as a prelude for Emrys’ two “Innsmouth Legacy” novels, Winter Tide and Deep Roots. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Although I may chime in on the occasional story, I’m afraid in large measure I will be passing on this month’s read. Not because I think the selection is a bad one. On the contrary, as a sometime reader of Stephen King’s shorter fiction, I actually think that Skeleton Crew , although a bit uneven, is one of his better collections — certainly better (just my opinion) than the other big vote getter in the poll, Night Shift. However, by a sad coincidence, I just re-read Skeleton Crew about a year and a half back; that’s a bit too recent for me to want to dig into the contents once again, but yet far enough in the past that any story-specific observations I offer here might not be particularly cogent.

I hope I won’t offend anyone by making a few general observations about the book. There are, as I implied, some real clunkers in this collection. There are a few older pieces that struck me as amateurish — reminiscent perhaps of some of the poorer tales found in Night Shift. There are a pair of “Milkman” stories that are basically excerpts from an unpublished King novel and hence do not stand well on their own. And there are a couple of sci-fi stories. Frankly, I’ve never cared for King’s science fiction — his ideas about the genre seem derived in large measure from the kind of stuff that appeared in 50s pulp magazines and comic books. On the other hand, some of my very favorite King stories appear in this volume, including “The Mist”, “Mrs. Todd's Shortcut”, and “Survivor Type”.

For what little they may be worth, here are my ratings for the individual stories.

“The Mist” (1980) ✭✭✭✭½
“Here There Be Tygers” (1968) ✭
“The Monkey” (1980) ✭✭✭✭½
“Cain Rose Up” (1968) ✭✭
“Mrs. Todd's Shortcut” (1981) ✭✭✭✭½
“The Jaunt” (1981) ✭✭
“The Wedding Gig” (1980) ✭✭✭
“Paranoid: A Chant” (1985) ✭½
“The Raft” (1982) ✭✭✭✭½
“Word Processor of the Gods” (alternate title: “The Word Processor”) (1983) ✭✭✭½
“The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands” (1982) ✭✭✭½
“Beachworld” (1984) ✭
“The Reaper's Image” (1969) ✭✭✭✭
“Nona” (1978) ✭✭✭
“For Owen” (1985) ✭✭
“Survivor Type” (1982) ✭✭✭✭✭
“Uncle Otto's Truck” (1983) ✭✭✭½
“Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)” (1985) ✭
“Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)” (1982) ✭½
“Gramma” (1984) ✭✭✭½
“The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet” (1984) ✭✭✭
“The Reach” (alternate title: “Do the Dead Sing?”) (1981) ✭✭✭✭

“A Cup of Salt Tears”, Isabel Yap

(view spoiler)[In “Cup”, a woman whose beloved husband is dying makes an agreement with a creature from Japanese folklore known as (among other things) a kappa. As is typical of such tales, the agreement turns out to be two-edged. I had difficulty embracing this story in large measure because I found it hard to fully fathom either Makino’s emotions or the motivations of the kappa. I’m not sure whether my failure is due to my ignorance about Japanese cultural mores or whether it represents some more personal/idiosyncratic shortcoming. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu

(view spoiler)[This tale ultimately gets a qualified pass from me. It’s heart is in the right place, but when shorn of its fantasy trappings, it turns out to be a rather straightforward and conventional account of a young man coming out to his traditional family. The irony here is that (for me) the role played by those fantasy elements is largely inconsequential in determining how events play out; I found them distracting and annoying and found myself thinking more than once that “Water” might have worked better as a mainstream tale. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“The Hanging Game”, Helen Marshall

(view spoiler)[This is another well-written story that I liked, but I find I’m struggling a bit in trying to grasp the whole of what the author is trying to say. I do get bits and pieces — for example, the sins of the fathers being visited upon a younger generation. The story seems infused with elements of Norse mythology (for reasons that are not quite clear). Odin sometimes took on the aspect of a bear and he also hung himself from Yggdrasil, the tree of life, for nine days and nine nights in order to gain knowledge. How all of this ties together, however, is a bit opaque. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“About Fairies”, Pat Murphy

(view spoiler)[Perhaps the best written piece in the collection to this point, but I gotta say, when you sit back in your chair upon reaching the end and contemplate what you’ve just absorbed, it’s a bit depressing. I kept thinking as I was working through the story that I was reading some kind of fantasy, but that’s not really what it is. The story is really about the hard, brutal fact of death and how each of us, in different ways, use fantasy and myth (clapping our hands, so to speak) in an effort to soften that harsh reality. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭

“Elephants and Corpses”, Kameron Hurley

(view spoiler)[Kameron Hurley creates a fantasy world in which “body mercenaries” possess the ability to transfer their consciousness from one corpse to another, thereby achieving a certain sort of immortality. And if that’s the case, the author seems to ask, would such individuals need to concern themselves with greater spiritual issues such as the survival of a soul following actual death? The answer given is a qualified “yes”.

I liked this story — the ideas, the characters, and the plot. If I have a quibble, it has to do with my belief that this story might have worked better as a novella. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Lena said: Merry Christmas, Matrix 4

I’ll probably end up seeing this reboot/sequel at some point, but I so wish that the Wachowskis had stopped after the first film.

“Waiting on a Bright Moon”, JY Yang

(view spoiler)[In her story of love in the time of revolution, Yang, presumably channeling Pete Townshend, reminds us that more often than not the new boss is the same as the old boss. Suquin’s choice at the conclusion of the tale reminded me of the E. M. Forster line from his 1938 essay on humanism, “What I Believe”: “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel”, Yoon Ha Lee

(view spoiler)[Some fascinating ideas scattered throughout this piece, but it’s less a story than a futuristic version of an anthropologist’s notebook. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“The City Born Great”, N. K. Jemisin

(view spoiler)[In Jemisin’s urban fantasy at some point in the evolution of cities they can become sentient through the actions of human avatars. I thought that there was the germ of a good idea buried somewhere in this mess (I was particularly drawn to the notion of the disenfranchised serving as avatars), but in the final analysis the story’s action failed to work for me — the ending, in particular, which is supposed to be exciting and uplifting, struck me as silly and rather underwritten. But maybe it’s just me. I see that a lot of people really admired this one. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

“The Best We Can”, Carrie Vaughn

(view spoiler)[Vaughn’s story rests on a somewhat offbeat premise. What if an honest-to-God extraterrestrial artifact were discovered and no one cared enough to investigate? The story is nicely written, but I’m not sure I buy into the basic idea, interesting though it may be. There is a point in the story, for example, where policymakers arrive at a choice point — repurpose an existing probe to more fully examine the alien craft or continue on with the probe’s original mission, i.e., to examine some dime-a-dozen comet. Inexplicably and with little real explanation, folks in this tale opt for the latter alternative. This is kinda where Vaughn lost me. I also found myself annoyed at Vaughn’s inclusion of a plot thread in which it is speculated that Jane’s fervent desire to investigate the artifact is somehow psychologically tied to some recent, failed love affair. As though the thrill of examining an alien spacecraft weren’t motivation enough. Vaughn attempts to end her story on a somewhat optimistic, but even that fell short for me. Her references to “miracles that never should have happened” struck me as panglossian gobbledygook. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“Damage”, David E. Levine

(view spoiler)[In this short story, the AI that controls a fighter craft is forced to make a difficult moral choice — support someone you love even when that person is morally corrupt or sacrifice oneself for the greater good. In thinking about this story, I didn’t find the plot particularly original even when you factor in the AI-controlled ship. And yet I have to admit that I really liked this one. I found myself increasingly emotionally invested in the story as it drew to its conclusion. Go figure. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭

“Six Months, Three Days”, Charlie Jane Anders

(view spoiler)[In this Anders novelette, which won the 2012 Hugo for Best Novelette, Doug and Judy enter into a romantic relationship. Both possess precognitive abilities, but of a different sort. While Doug can only perceive a fixed, deterministic future, Judy can see many possible futures. One possible way to look at this story is as a referendum on how one should move through life. Which approach is right? Or are both equally valid? I thought the effort was interesting, but I thought the ending was a bit of a cheat. By revealing that Doug’s abilities are imperfect (i.e., the question of whether he breaks his arm or his leg), Anders sort of stacks the deck against Doug and abandons what might have ultimately been a more interesting philosophical exercise. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Lena said: France’s last Mortal Kombat, a medieval rape trial, is brought to the screen:

Thanks for the post, Lena. I’ve actually been tracking this film for a while, perhaps in part because I’m more or less familiar with the events on which it is based. If I have reservations about this film, it’s not due to the cast but rather because director Ridley Scott has a track record of playing fast and loose when it comes to historical accuracy (see Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator).

The “medieval” film I’m looking forward to is David Lowry’s The Green Knight. This one strays quite a ways into fantasy territory — it’s based on the Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . The film stars, among others, Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, and Joel Edgerton. It’s slated for a late July release.