An impressive collection brimming with originality.
Editor Berman (Wilde Stories 2012, etc.) compiles an eerie, moving volume of gay-themed speculative fiction.
The various authors anthologized here write on different subjects ranging from a gay, humanoid cephalopod couple to a man tormented by the dead after his lover’s suicide. Despite the disparities, the collection comes together as a remarkably coherent whole, and none of the characters’ queer identities outweigh the telling of the tales. Furthermore, much of the work edges toward magical realism rather than standard sci-fi or fantasy. Several stories, such as Ray Cluley’s “Night Fishing” and John Langan’s “Renfrew’s Course,” are hauntingly sad; others, like Steve Vernon’s “Wetside Story” and Hal Duncan’s “Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill!” are comic romps with a side of the supernatural. In Duncan’s story, a visceral werewolf feels devotion and bloodlust with equal depth, while in Cluley’s story, Terrence, a fisherman of sorts, is inexorably pulled to the area around the Golden Gate Bridge, where his young lover had previously jumped. Every night, Terrence pulls strangely animate corpses from the water and follows their directions toward others of their kind. Cluley’s emotionally demanding story beautifully explores grief, love and ultimately futile efforts to save the dead. Berman expertly blends them, creating a work whose overall effect is entrancing, not depressing. Berman writes in his introduction, “Even in 2012, when it is far easier for two men to meet, to dine out, to hold hands, to dare kiss in public, to announce to open public their love or their parting…there are dangers. Men are still silenced. Men perish.” The stories’ occasionally horrific and fantastic bent adeptly conveys this danger as well as its daring.
An impressive collection brimming with originality.Pub Date: June 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1590211311
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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