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.

Ronald said (in part):

The Seed from the Sepulchre
Clark Ashton Smith

I’m kind of hit or miss on Smith, but this story has always been a particular favorite of mine.

“Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Revenge”, Daniel Abraham

I have mixed feelings about this particular story. I found the end-of-the-world plot surprisingly ho-hum and I didn’t find the characters all that interesting. With lines such as “Meriwether’s hand darted out like a striking cobra”, the author’s writing felt a bit like a parody of a pulp menace story, complete with cardboard characters. (Maybe that was the point.) On the other hand, I quite liked the ending to the story. Although I could sorta see it coming, the last few paragraphs made for a somewhat clever and compelling coda.

✭✭✭

I missed the fact that João Gilberto passed away a while ago (6 July to be exact). For those too young to remember, Gilberto was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, and guitarist, who was one of the primary founders of bossa nova in the late 1950s. His 1963 collaboration with American saxophonist Stan Getz, Getz/Gilberto, remains one of my all-time favorite LPs.

“The Persecution Machine”, Tanith Lee

I tend to like Lee’s writing. This particular tale embodies a kind of whimsical, timeless, and placeless feel that I’ve noticed in some the author’s other stories. But I wish I had a better grasp of what Lee is going for here. (view spoiler)[It might be about madness and how it can be transmitted from one individual to another; there’s the suggestion that Charles wants to see his uncle’s machine. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

“The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe”, Ramsey Shehadeh

Not too much to say about Shehadeh’s story. This was a well-told story about acausality, colonialism, and terrorism. I thought the characters well-defined and interesting.

✭✭✭½

Dang. Once again the month has sped by and I find that I’m behind the power curve as far as keeping pace on this collection. I don’t even have the excuse (as with our previous book) that I haven’t liked the stories. For the most part the entries in Steampunk II have been pretty good.

I see that the third season of Stranger Things has dropped. Has anyone had the chance to binge watch this yet? Any non-spoilery opinions or observations? I vaguely recall thinking that Season 2 was a tepid rehash of the first season.

“Tanglefoot”, Cherie Priest

This is really my first exposure to Priest. I tried to read Boneshaker a few years ago and then set it aside, intending to return to it. As far as the present story is concerned, I liked Priest’s writing and imagery. But I kept expecting more — I kept expecting it to be about something. (view spoiler)[It seems to be little more than a variation of Pinocchio in which our nonhuman subject for reasons not entirely clear breaks bad.

There is a subplot involving a character named Ossian that is (somewhat oddly) never pursued to a conclusion. A bit of on-line digging reveals that Ossian Steen, Dr. Smeeks, and Edwin all play a role in Priest’s follow-up to Boneshaker, Clementine. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Lena said:

Don’t forget Twister!

My goodness. I’d completely forgotten about this movie. Both Paxton and Hoffman are no longer with us. Makes me kinda sad.

I saw that our local symphony will at some point in the near future be performing Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. I won’t be able to attend so I’ve been reacquainting myself with the various recordings that I have (Zubin Mehta, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado). I’d forgotten how much I like enjoy this piece.

Lena said (in part):

This was some of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s best work.

I have by no means seen all of his films, but my two favorite Hoffman performances were in Boogie Nights (1997) and A Most Wanted Man (2014).

Over the weekend I revisited a guilty pleasure: William Malone’s 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill, starring Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen. Almost to a person critics absolutely hated his movie (although, if I recall correctly, Roger Ebert grudgingly gave it a passing grade). But even though the film kinda flies off of the rails in the final act, I’ve always liked Malone’s visual style and I appreciated the fact that the actors seemed to so enjoy hamming it up.

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Also watched (for the first time):

Fate of the Furious, F. Gary Gray (2017) ✭✭½
Larry Kramer in Love and Anger, Jean Carlomusto (2015) ✭✭✭½

“The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalalud-din Mohammed Akbar”, Shweta Narayan

(view spoiler)[This is a well executed fairy tale-like steampunk entry that warns the reader about the perils of divahood (if that’s a real word). (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“Great Breakthroughs in Darkness”, Marc Laidlaw

It took me a couple of attempts to get into this story, but it did repay my efforts. The way in which the story unspools as a part of a series of encyclopedia entries is rather artfully done, although as a consequence it drags a bit in spots. (view spoiler)[“Darkness” is another tale about how man’s amoral use of science can lead to unforeseen and catastrophic results. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

Graeme said (in part):

Currently progressing through The Complete Chronicles of Conan, The Great Book of Amber, and The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft

About two months ago I finished my re-read of Roger Zelazny’s Amber books. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how well they held up after the passage of so many years. I will say that it would have been fine with me if Zelazny had stopped after the first five.

I’ve tried re-reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, but I’ve stalled after reading only a handful. I personally find that they’re just not as appealing as they were when I first read them as a young teen. I find much the same to be true with Lovecraft. I was a huge devotee in my youth, but, while I still think that some of his pieces are true gems, I find a lot of his stuff almost unreadable. (Yep, I know that this viewpoint puts me at odds with a lot of folks.)

“Seascape”, Jack Ketchum

(view spoiler)[Better written than most of the stories in this anthology — a suicide pact gone awry. There’s some good stuff mixed in here about love and growing old. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“The Cast-Iron Kid”, Andrew Knighton

(view spoiler)[This is a relatively short steampunk western which invokes a fairly explicit version of the David versus Goliath trope. It’s not terrible, but neither is it particularly interesting. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

Lena said (in part):

Here’s a little more on the story:

Thanks a lot for posting this link, Lena. It’s quite informative and interesting. I wish Kiernan had spoken more directly to my own question, but that probably would have been considered too spoilery.

Lena said (in part):

(view spoiler)[ I don’t think they’re plotting to kill anyone, or plotting anything, they seem to appreciate day to day life. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[I didn’t mean to suggest anything so literal as a precise parallel between Kiernan’s story and Shakespeare’s play; merely that the quote may hint at a less than sanguine future for the couple. This is the sort of story that makes me wish for the opportunity to talk directly to the author about his or her intentions. (hide spoiler)]

Lena said (in part):

Gorgeous imagery, a lusty and hopeful tale of an orphan who finds happiness after great misfortune.

(view spoiler)[I kinda wonder how happy Missouri really is. There seems to be some ambiguity on that point. “She has the mechanic, and he loves her, and most of the time she believes that she loves him, as well.”

Kiernan keeps circling back to the quote from The Tempest, “The past is prologue.” Given Missouri’s own past and what the quote portends for Antonio and Sebastian, it’s use in the present story is a little disquieting. (hide spoiler)]

“The Steam Dancer”, Caitlín R. Kiernan

I’m pretty sure that I read this tale a number of years ago, maybe in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy . I typically enjoy Kiernan’s fiction, so it’s no real surprise that I came away from this reading experience with generally positive feelings. I liked, for example, the almost poetic descriptions of Missouri’s dancing and the gentle eroticism that permeates much of the story. My enthusiasm is a bit tempered by concerns similar to those I expressed when reviewing the Stephen Baxter story. In short, I wanted more. Kiernan’s story struck me as almost a thumbnail sketch of a character.

✭✭✭½