Exactly what it says on the can: an encyclopedia of British fairy descriptions and stories by a British folklorist. Her books are all out of print, but I have also obtained her fairy tale novel Kate Crackernuts and a book on cat folklore. I haven't read those yet.

There are cultural notes in this book but it's not academic, but very easy to read and meant to be enjoyed. Old-school and excellent. The stories are vivid, the atmosphere is eerie, and the illustrations are beautiful and scary by turns—often both. I owned this as a child and was absolutely terrified by the story and full-color plate illustration of the Nuckelavee, a horrible centaur without skin.

I lost the book in one of my many moves, then eventually ordered it online to see if it was still good and the Nuckelavee was still scary or if it was just one of those childhood things that loses its impact with age. Nope. Still good. Still scary.

If you like this sort of thing, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Or give it to a child you know, and with any luck it will haunt them like it haunted me.

Abbey Lubbers, Banshees, & Boggarts: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies



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A beautifully written and intricate English children’s book. Kit’s family returns to their ancestral coal mining town to take care of his grandfather after his grandmother died. At home, his grandfather tells him stories of mining and spirits of the mines; at school, he falls in with Allie, a flamboyant girl who wants to be an actress, and Askew, a strange boy who plays the game of Death, in which the children enact being dead. When Kit plays, he puts one foot in the actual world of spirits, and thereafter is haunted by the spirits of children who died in the mines.

For a relatively short book and fast read, this has dizzying layers of complexity. A journey to some sort of underworld is enacted, in separate but related plotlines, by 1) Kit’s grandfather, into both memory and forgetting, 2) the miners, to the past in terms of the layers of fossils they tunnel through and also into the literal underground, 3) a school play based on the Snow Queen, 4) a story about a caveman that Kit is writing, 5) the schoolchildren, in the game called Death which involves going into a pit, 6) Askew, running away from life and literally going underground, 7) Askew’s father, into alcoholism, 8) Kit, into the spirit world, 9) Kit, Askew, and Allie, into the cave where Askew is hiding.

There’s also an incredible amount of character mirroring, doubling, and opposition; to take just two examples, Kit and Askew both bear the same names and ages of boys who died in the mines, and the story Kit is writing is simultaneously a version of Askew’s life, a version of Kit’s life, a magic spell to bring Askew back, Kit’s way of connecting with the past, and Kit’s ticket to his future: a life that will be different from the one his ancestors led.

This book won a whole lot of well-deserved awards. It’s a technical feat that’s also very enjoyable to read, rewarding without being difficult, numinous and moving.

Anyone read this or anything else by Almond? I have only read Skellig, which I recall shared a balance of grittiness and magic, good characterization of even minor characters, and a lot packed into a short length.

Kit's Wilderness



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I took a break from the series after The Scarab Path and just picked it up again, so this isn't a review, just some flaily notes inspired by having just dived into the series again.

I'm glad I'm reading it right now, because the themes of doing your best in incredibly dark times and trying to make the right choices when it's not at all clear what is the right choice, is really something I want to read now.

It's a series largely about war, and without being very gory/gruesome, doesn't sugarcoat it at all. It's emotionally rough, but not despairing. So far at least, it's actually very hopeful about the good in humanity, and is that rare fantasy war series in which the characters who want peace and think it's possible to negotiate with the enemy are not presented as naive morons.

The brutality of the war is also offset by the sheer glee and exuberant inventiveness of the world. I fucking love the kinden, and every time a new one is introduced I share in the author's obvious delight. There's an especially good one in The Scarab Path.

Please don't spoil me for any new kinden introduced after The Air War! Especially, the nature of what's under the seal, which has not yet been confirmed. I love discovering them for myself.

I am not big on bugs in real life, but I admire and enjoy Tchaikovsky's obvious enthusiasm for all things insectile. Can you imagine his room as a young boy? It would be like my parents' cabin only on purpose.

Also, once I got over the hump of the Apt/Inapt divide being 1) essentially magical and so not based on Earth logic like how one defines a machine, 2) being based more on time period, i.e., people from the Bronze Age existing at the same time as people from the Industrial Revolution, than on literally how machines work, it became really fascinating and I love how he's exploring it and introducing new aspects of it.

I've read through book 8 (The Air War) by now, and my book notes include spoilers through that. Please no spoilers past that point! I am delighting in not knowing WTF is going to happen next.

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Frances “Frankie” Stein, the youngest child and only daughter of an emotionally distant scientist and single dad, obtains a bit of mysterious gray goo from his mysterious laboratory. With the help of a bit of her own blood and a fortuitous lightning strike—and, just as importantly, her own ability to see the resultant “It’s alive!!!” as a life to be cared for rather than a thing to be dissected or a monster to be killed—she creates a monster.

A very, very cute monster, which she names Monnie. But if her father, her brothers, the lab, or the world at large discover it, they’ll probably kill it or keep it in a sterile cage forever. Her attempts to keep Monnie a secret as it grows and bonds with her lead to a deepening of some old relationships, the start of some new ones, and the creation of a new enemy.

Though this was very well-written and I loved the concept, in execution it combined enough elements of “adorable pet in danger” and “very young child in danger” that it was a bit of an upsetting read. Especially since these sorts of books often end with the death of the helpless thing in question. (If you want to know what happens to Monnie, ( Read more...Collapse )

I liked the prose a lot and the book overall was very well-done, but I enjoyed The Stonewalkers more. I’ll definitely be looking for more by Alcock.

The Monster Garden



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Here is a fantasy novel completely out of step with nearly every other American fantasy novel I’ve ever read, a very low-key, low-stakes mystery set entirely at a fair and revolving around a valuable pendant which was either magically transformed into a fruit or else switched for one.

The mystery is nicely constructed and the characters are likable if lightly sketched, but the real star here is the equally low-key but intriguing and original worldbulding. The culture, economics, family structures, assumptions, and history are unobtrusively presented when relevant rather than info-dumped, so if you pay attention, you get a fascinating portrait of a very different world and can take some guesses as to how it came about. In the Kindle edition, Karr has an afterword where she confirms some of my guesses about what she calls “The Gentle World,” and leaves other aspects unexplained. She mentions that parts were inspired by an obscure musical, but doesn’t name it. If anyone ever reads it and figures it out, let me know.

It is indeed a very gentle novel, a mystery without murder, a portrait of conflict and its resolution in a world that lacks the worst elements of ours. There are a ton of fun and inventive details about culture and magic. The main character, Torin, is a toymaker (this includes ritual objects like “marriage toys,” which are offered as a proposal) who can imbue some of his creations with temporary life; food can be temporarily transformed into something more appetizing, but as it will revert inside your stomach you need to make sure that the original was edible and not something you’re allergic to.

For all its extremely small scale and placid surface, this is an understatedly ambitious book, though in keeping with its world where people can get physically sick from too much pride or at least believe they can, it presents itself humbly.

If this sounds like the sort of thing you would like, you will like it. Out of print, but available on Kindle for $2.99.

Many of Karr's other books are now available on ebook. I like her swords and sorcery Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne novels, which also have a small scale and understatedly unusual worldbuilding. (Note: they are not that dark overall, but they do involve rape of both men and women as it's believed that sorcerers lose their power if they lose their virginity.)

At Amberleaf Fair



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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



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For the small but soon to be very happy number of people reading this who are fans of this series and don’t already know, you will probably be hugely excited to hear that Diane Duane is 1) writing five novelettes that take place between The Door Into Sunset and The Door Into Starlight, 2) she has released the first of them, 3) it’s really good. Often when an author returns to a series after a very long time away, they can’t recapture the tone of the earlier books. This captures the tone.

“The Levin-Gad” is a 20K word novelette in which Herewiss walks into a bar, featuring a cranky cat, a tough female bouncer, a number of “walks into a bar” jokes, a high-stakes battle, and an extremely satisfying climax. To say more would be spoilery; it’s short. If you like the series, you will like it. A lot.

The Levin-Gad: Tales of the Five # 1 . Note that ordering from their site via PayPal will cause the book to be automatically sent to your PayPal email address.

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“Passing Strange” is a standalone historical fantasy novella, mostly set in San Francisco in 1940. In the present day, an elderly woman sells the original chalk painting of a pulp horror magazine cover, an action which is clearly part of an elaborate, years-spanning plan. Then the story goes back in time to when the painting was created, and focuses on the queer women who have created a vibrant community despite having to live partly (but not entirely) in hiding.

I absolutely loved this story, but it’s hard to review because a lot of it is unpredictable and more fun to discover unspoiled. For instance, while the rough outline of what happens at the end is somewhat predictable, other fairly basic plot elements, such as who the love story is about, take a while to become clear.

It’s full of Dick Francis-worthy fascinating details about all sorts of things – how to use fish to make fixative for a chalk painting and why you need to, laws against women wearing fewer than three items of feminine clothing, what people called avocados and pizzas in 1940 (alligator pears and tomato pies) and where you’d go to get them in San Francisco, how to magically rearrange space with origami – and it’s all both fun to read about and necessary to the plot. The characters and place and milieu feel incredibly real and vivid, and the language is lovely.

Contains period-typical homophobia, sexism, racism, violence, and past child abuse. But it’s not about how people are ground down and destroyed by oppression and trauma, it’s about how people survive and thrive and find happiness and build community within a system that doesn’t even acknowledge their humanity, and so is a story that was particularly good to read right now.

“Hey Presto” and “Caligo Lane” are short stories about supporting characters from “Passing Strange,” and are both in Klages’ collection Wicked Wonders.

“Hey Presto” is about Polly, a teenage girl who wants to be a scientist and whose father is a stage magician, and is about how they begin to repair their previously distant relationship when she has to sub in for his assistant. It’s sweet and has nice stage magic details. (Note: I’m reviewing it as part of FF Friday only because of its connection with “Passing Strange;” to my recollection, Polly’s sexual orientation never comes up one way or another in either story.)

“Caligo Lane” is a lovely, heartbreaking short story about Frannie and her magical shortcut-creating origami. Either it’s set several years after “Passing Strange” or isn't quite consistent with it, as her abilities seem significantly stronger here. It has a long, beautiful description of her doing a work of topographical magic that’s clear and detailed enough to read as an instruction manual, and hypnotic enough to be a spell itself.

Wicked Wonders

Passing Strange



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There's some really good original fiction posted on AO3, so here's a few recs for original FF short stories. I think all of these came about via fic exchange prompts for original fiction with pairings like "Female mob boss/female advisor" or "queen/female knight."

Like the Knight Loves the Queen, by Scioscribe.

Smoking hot noir about a 1950s mob boss and her advisor/lover, with metaphors and atmosphere worthy of Raymond Chandler.

Kate had plucked Rose up from the perfume counter at a department store: she liked to say she came in for hyacinth and left with Rose. Rose said that was just a line. “She’s straight Chanel No. 5. No hyacinth. Rose and jasmine.”

Dear Patron, by Selden.

Hilarious and cleverly structured epistolatory story about a librarian and a patron with a very overdue library book. Tags include mild implied gore, mild implied eldritch abominations, and misuse of library books.

The following items have not been returned despite previous reminders and this may affect your borrowing privileges. Fines may be accruing. Please return or renew them as soon as possible. You can renew items and view your potential or actual fines (if applicable) by signing on to ECHOLAND (accessible via internet, Summoning circle, or blood ritual) and selecting My Account.

underneath the marula tree, by polkadot.

An African queen seeks out a champion in this thoughtful story with a lot of worldbuilding and characterization packed into a relatively short length.

Thandiwe was forty-six, and in the thirtieth year of her reign. She knew how to manage advisors (and make them all feel as if their opinion had been considered), how to lead armies (the trick was to not show fear, and have good generals), and how to balance a budget (very carefully).

Road, Wind, Cactus, by Neverwinter Thistle.

An atmospheric, gritty yet hopeful story about a post-apocalyptic coffeeshop, full of believable and intriguing details of exactly how that would be run and what (and who) it would serve.

There is a long highway that stretches through a desert with many names, and somewhere on it sits a coffee shop.

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The second and equally delightful (thankfully, less gory) novel in a series of urban fantasies about an doctor to supernatural beings.

Greta is in Paris for a very specialized medical conference when she’s kidnapped by an edgelord vampire with poor fashion sense and a lot of unhappy minions, kept in a dank catacomb, and fed on nothing but coffee and chocolate croissants. (The person tasked with feeding her isn’t very imaginative.) If you’ve read the first book, I don’t think it’s spoilery to say that her compassionate and earnest presence makes the sad minions begin to rethink their life choices.

Though I missed Greta’s interactions with her usual crew, that crew is present, just separated from her for most of the book. I still find her romance with Varney the Vampyre completely and utterly inexplicable given the chemistry between her and Ruthven, but Varney is very sweet, there are several likable new characters, and the general atmosphere of people supporting each other, caring for each other, and trying to do the right thing is still present. Also, there are a whole lot of absolutely fucking adorable teeny monsters.

There is some death and violence, but this is overall an extremely cozy, comforting book that gives you hope for the world.

The first book, Strange Practice (A Dr. Greta Helsing Novel), is currently on Kindle for $2.99.

Dreadful Company (A Dr. Greta Helsing Novel)



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