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.

“Tiny tales”:

“Ingraham’s Bookstore”, Alan Baxter ✭✭✭½

“Tiki Godfather”, Will Viharo ✭✭✭✭

“Above Aimi”, Thersa Matsuura

(view spoiler)[I don’t fully understand what’s going on in this story. But at least there’s a palpable sense of menace here, and that’s a (welcome) departure from most of the featured stories encountered to this point. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“Where Do Broken Dreams Go?”, Andrew Hook

(view spoiler)[Hmm. Another story in which a protagonist seeks out supernatural phenomena for apparently personal reasons. What that motivation actually is in this Hook story seems pretty murky; what ultimately transpires seems equally murky. (hide spoiler)]

✭½

“Blood Memories”, Weston Ochse

(view spoiler)[A rather drab variation on Doug Liman’s 2014 SF film, Edge of Tomorrow. The premise here (a dead tank with memories) is a bit wonky and there’s not enough breathing space to fashion interesting characters. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

Some recent listens…

Space Escapade, Les Baxter (1958) ✭✭✭✭
Beauty and the Beat!, Peggy Lee & George Shearing (1959) ✭✭✭✭
Baxter’s Best, Les Baxter (1960) ✭✭✭
Wonderland by Night [Remastered], Bert Kaempfert & His Orchestra (1960) ✭✭½
Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer, Nat King Cole (1963) ✭✭✭✭
Let’s Go Bowling [Remastered], Bert Kaempfert & His Orchestra (1964) ✭✭✭
El Hombre, Pat Martino (1967) ✭✭✭½
Carpenters, Carpenters (1971) ✭✭✭✭
Talking Heads: 77, Talking Heads (1977) ✭✭✭✭✭
Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6, Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (1995) ✭✭✭½
Heart of Soul: Too Late to Turn Back Now [Compilation], Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose (1996) ✭✭✭½
Cute, Towa Tei (2015) ✭✭✭✭
Eberhard [EP], Lyle Mays (2021) ✭✭✭✭½
Perpetual Pendulum, Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, & Bill Stewart (2022) ✭✭✭✭

“Tiny tales”:

“Tamarind Candy”, K. Hari Kumar ✭✭

“One Day at Recess in the Convent of the Blessed Mother on Victoria Street”, Christina Sng ✭✭✭

“Fools Rush In”, Nadia Bulkin

(view spoiler)[This one turns out to be a particularly difficult one to write about (at least for me). It’s well crafted (of course, I think Bulkin is a very fine writer, even if I don’t always fully engage with what she writes about). I also think it’s one of the more interesting stories encountered thus far in Guignard’s anthology. There’s stuff here about guilt, expiation, colonialism (this last not surprising given how much that topic seems to figure in Bulkin’s worldview), etc. Unfortunately, I’m really struggling with how these ideas fit together and precisely what the story events tell the reader about what Bulkin is thinking.

While true that Leo chickens out during the initial taping of the reality show (kinda ironic, I suppose, given his name), his views on whether the colonial past should influence the present native culture and people appears to be a reasonable one. And yet his fate would seem to suggest that Bulkin somehow believes otherwise. Is she proposing the idea that the consequences of colonialism are so pernicious and deeply-rooted that the after-effects persist indefinitely? I’m honestly not sure.

In the story intro, Guignard implies that the story holds out the possibility of healing, but that may be a misreading. While it appears at first blush as if Yudhi, Poppy, and Astrid are going to safely walk away from this experience, the last line makes me think that things are not going to end well for any of them. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

Some “tiny tales”:

“The Hidden Temple of Nakhon Sawan”, Rena Mason ✭½

“A Series of Occurrences at Lhasa Hotel”, Han Song ✭½

“Soul Sisters”, Michelle Tang

(view spoiler)[Tang’s story, it seemed to me, echoed some of the ideas found in Natalia Theodoridou’s “Oh Man’s Land” in which a protagonist seeks out the supernatural in an attempt to remedy personal psychological trauma. This particular stab at that theme was maybe a bit too on the nose for my taste and hence a tad less successful than “Land”, although I admit I appreciated the final line of “Soul Sisters” (even if it is a little treacly). (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

A couple of “tiny tales”…

“Al Mutaqadimah (The Beginning)”, Sara Saab ✭

“Café Tanuki”, Umiyuri Katsuyama ✭½

“Que vagi bé”, S. Qiouyi Lu

(view spoiler)[This somewhat whimsical story is, unfortunately, another near miss for me. The tale describes a ghostly possession as resulting from a sort of quasi-Catholic ritual. The result might have worked better for me if I had felt anything other than a mild interest in the characters. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

Two more “tiny tales”:

“End of the Road”, Ray Cluley ✭✭✭½

“Soaking in Roman Rejuvenation”, Setsu Uzumé ✭✭½

Two “tiny tales”:

“The House of Strawberries”, Alessandro Manzetti ✭✭

“The Caretaker’s Hut”, Kevin J. Kennedy ✭✭✭

“In Our Season”, Tamara Jerée

(view spoiler)[This attempt to describe the experiences of someone suffering from seasonal affectation disorder (with some supernatural stuff mixed in) was for me a near miss. It struck me as overwritten and a bit overlong given what it was trying to do. This story might have been more effective as a “tiny tale”. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

J. said: Have you ever watched a trailer and wondered which producer is greenlighting scripts written by teenagers?

Looks pretty goofy. And to claim that this is “based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe” is to perhaps exaggerate.

“Chine Life”, Paul McAuley

(view spoiler)[McAuley presents the reader with an incredibly bleak portrait of humanty’s future. The story’s predominant theme seems to be that factionalism (whether arising in the societies of human beings or in those of sentient machines) is inevitable and will inevitably result in the failure to achieve meaningful progress. The narrator’s last line expresses the hope that “maybe this time they’ll get it right,” but this reader infers that she is probably mistaken in her belief. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“The Northern Lights Experience”, Johann Thorsson

Another “tiny tale”, this one in the form of a warning for tourists.

✭✭✭½

“Fish Tale”, Eugenia Triantafyllou

(view spoiler)[I understand well enough what is going on in this story, but I’m not completely sure I fully understand the why. The author seems to be saying something about guilt, redemption, and continuity. Even if I didn’t fully grasp its significance, I found the ending very satisfying. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭

“Ghost Stop”, Ekaterina Sedia

Another “tiny tale”. Okay, but not really much to say about this one.

✭✭✭

“English Martyrs Underground Station”, Laura Mauro

A brief, purposefully ambiguous mood piece.

✭✭✭½