The Call of Cthulhu

and Other Weird Stories

H.P. Lovecraft 1920-36 [1999]

(February 2018)

So that’s what all the fuss is about. Huh.

A Christmas Carol

and Other Christmas Writings

Charles Dickens, 1835-1854

(December 2017)

  

Every year I mean to read this book at Christmas, and every year I forget until about December 29^th, at which point the moment has rather passed. I finally got the pitifully small affair that represents my act together this year, and it was in no way worth the wait.

  

He’s not subtle as a writer, is he? Soporific at points, certainly (though this is as much about the influence of the passage of time on prose style as Dickens’s writing itself), but never afraid to assert and reassert and rereassert the Moral of the Story until the reader has been bludgeoned into shame-faced coma of ethical contrition. The most notably thing about reading A Christmas Carol—having obviously been exposed to adaptations of it in various other media for as long as I can remember—was how Scrooge has basically repented of all his sins by the midway point of the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Past, yet we’ve still got two-and-a-half more apparitions’ worth of spectral hectoring to go.

Fever Dream

Samanta Schweblin, 2017 [Megan McDowell, 2017]

(September 2017)

This is a gloriously unsettling little book; the kind you can polish off in under two hours but will stay with you for a long, long time after. It's been getting enough press elsewhere that I can't really add anything new here, so I'll content myself by saying that, for all that the underlying mystery turns out to be a touch disappointing in its mundanity, this is still an absolutely terrific (in all senses) demonstration of tone and voice. Recommended.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

Kij Johnson, 2016

(June 2017)

It was only when I was about two-thirds of the way through this beautifully written novella that I learned it’s based on a H.P. Lovecraft story—The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. (Related note: I must at some point actually read some Lovecraft.) By that point it’s pretty clear that we’re deep into that kind of territory, what with shifting skies, uncaring gods, and caverns full of ghouls and nightmare tentacle beasts. Johnson’s use of language is glorious, and it’s here wedded to a well-done but traditional quest narrative, which I suppose is fair enough, given the title. Even without a detailed knowledge of this book’s progenitor, it’s a couple of hours of joy. Recommended.

Red Girls

The Legend of the Akakuchibas

Kazuki Sakuraba, 2006 [Jocelyne Allen, 2015]

(June 2017)

Red Girls is a family saga, spanning sixty years in the town of Benimidori. It’s a company town, built around steelworks owned by the titular Akakuchibas, and we follow the family’s rise and, if not decline, then stagnation, as three generations of its women (and the town itself) exemplify the experiences of post-war Japan as a whole. This fictional community, it’s probably worth mentioning, is located on the very real, very provincial San’in coast of Chugoku, which is not so very far from where I live now.

Speak Gigantular

Irenosen Okojie, 2016

(May 2017)

This is an intriguing if slightly uneven short story collection set largely (but not exclusively) in London, but with enough fantastical elements that I was tempted to pitch a review to Strange Horizons. Ultimately, however, I’m not sure I’m capable of crafting a suitably insightful path through these stories, so you’ll just have to settle for some disjointed observations here instead. You’ll live.

Asura Girl / A Clockwork Orange

Otaro Maijo, 2003 [Stephen Snyder, 2014]

Anthony Burgess, 1962

(May 2017)

Japanese ghosts will fuck you up.

Memoirs of a Polar Bear

Yoko Tawada, 2014 [Susan Bernofsky, 2016]

(January 2017)

  

Reviewed over at Strange Horizons. Interesting in a chilly kind of way.

Record of a Night Too Brief

Hiromi Kawakami, 1996 [Lucy North, 2017]

(March 2017)

On the one hand, I loved this, on the other, I found myself in a broadly grudging agreement with Ishihara Shintaro, which those of you who know me (and him) will understand is not a position I ever really wanted to find myself in.

Near to the Wild Heart

Clarice Lispector, 1943 [Alison Entrekin, 2012]

(January 2017)

A stunning and mercifully short journey through the inner lives of a young woman in inter-war Brazil. Lispecter's works have had a bit of a renaissance in recent years (as far as I'm aware, at least), and I can see why. The prose switches seamlessly between mimesis and stream-of-consciousness, as the orphan Joanna creates her own worlds as she passes through being raised by intolerant relatives and a loveless marriage to the unfaithful Otávio. I say 'mercifully short' because the effect of this constant tumult is as exhausting as it is captivating, and in the perfect marriage of form and function the reader can occasionly become as exasperated with Joanna as the characters around her; god help me, but I genuinely laughed out loud at some of Otávio's more exasperated interjections. Excellent stuff.

  

The Sandman: Overture

Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams, and Dave Stewart, 2015

(January 2016)

  

A surprisingly simple story told outstandingly well. Your sensawunda here in full effect, and more importantly it doesn’t feel spurious or unnecessary in the way a lot of the other outgrowths of the Sandman mythos have done. Beautiful stuff, even if I am unfortunately too far removed from the original series to pinpoint many, if not most, of the loose ends being tied up. Still, I suppose that’s the secret to good fan service, isn’t it? Throw it in in a way that doesn’t distract from the rest of the story or alienate the your less fanatical readers. Still disappointed by the relative absence of Death though, but then I always am.

Autofiction

Hitomi Kanehara, 2006 [David James Karashima, 2007]

(April 2014)

Try as I might I cannot get it out of my head that Kanehara is, at least partially, the real-life inspiration for Fuka-Eri in 1Q84. And that, you’ll understand, creates all sorts of associations and images in my head, very few of which are anything other than uncomfortable.

Apparitions

Ghosts of Old Edo

Miyuki Miyabe, 2000 [Daniel Huddleston, 2013]

(March 2014)

  

I might maybe, tentatively, suggest the Haikasoru are raising their game, and not before time. Following The Melancholy of Mechagirl this is the second recent book of theirs where the writing is actually readable. I realise that ‘not actively awful’ is a pretty low bar, but previous efforts contained prose that, while well-intentioned, was clumsy and frequently bordered on the violent; prose that really wanted to help you carry your shopping but somehow tripped on its own shoelaces, broke all your eggs, then smashed you in the face with a half-brick.

The Shadowed Sun

N. K. Jemisin, 2012
(November 2013)

The second book in the Dreamblood duology, and I think it might be better than the first.

The Killing Moon

N.K. Jemisin, 2012

(March 2013)

I blame Austin Powers.