Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand
A Folk Rock Frightener in England Elizabeth Hand, a prize-winning New York-born author who lives in Maine, has produced one of the best English mystery tales for many a day. “It began as a riff on Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca,” she has said elsewhere, and the riff developed into a mesmerizing original composition with, as it […]
Cabinet of Wonders, 4.4.15
Today, take comfort in stories your grandmother might tell. Fables, folklore and fairy tales that dance tantalizingly beyond the real fill the cabinet. A little classic, a lot creepy and certainly worth sharing, check these out for short spurts of nostalgia. A Review of The Good Son, by Naomi Kritzer at Lightspeed Magazine One […]
The short stories of Kelly Link
Nobody writes cooler stories than Kelly Link. Link’s stories draw from fairy tales, myth, pop culture, experimental, horror, gothic, and detective fiction, the tabloids, dreams, nightmares, and half a dozen other things. But this is not merely pulp fiction—wham, bam, thrill and chill. Link uses the tools of pulp fiction to deal with literary concerns: […]
Among Others, by Jo Walton
This very readable book (which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel this year) is part coming of age, part fantasy and part uber-geek love-letter to the classics of science fiction. Much of the drama has already happened before the novel starts. We learn that Morwenna and her twin sister Morganna spent their childhoods playing […]
Little, Big, by John Crowley
Little, Big is a modern classic of fantastic literature, a book that is praised far and wide, and with good reason. It’s a beautifully written, deep meditation on complex and arcane philosophies of magic and metaphysics (from Plato to Rosicrucian and Theosophist) and the challenges of living an ethical life in light of such considerations. […]