Reviews 3-13-26
It’s Women in Horror Month, and there are some great additions here for any horror fan’s library!
Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds by Just Knud Qvigstad and Isak Saba; translated by Barbara Sjoholm. 5/5
An excellent compendium of folktales and lore from the Sàmi. Read about clever boys, magic women, reindeer, fish, smart foxes, wily bears, the inhabitants of other worlds and our own. A scholarly collection, these stories are beautifully indexed and organized, providing an entree into the folk world of the Sàmi, who have been oppressed and discriminated against by other Nordic people and countries. A great book to know about in reading some of the new works of Sàmi literature, such as that by Ann-Helén Laestadius and Linnea Axelsson, or listening to traditional Sàmi songs, or joiks.
The Typing Lady by Ruth Ozeki. 5/5
I love this collection of stories/novellas by Ozeki. These are clever and thoughtful and smart and beautifully written, full of themes that connect them all in very real and sometimes surprising ways. There is typing and typewriters and typists and authors and poets and grief and ageing and raising children and lots of lovely matter-of-fact bi representation and thinking about words and worrying about the rent and the nature of work and emotional work and outsourcing responsibilities and relationships and communication. There is temptation and resisting it and not, and hilarious moments of truth about not wanting to deal with people and their demands and finding ways to avoid doing so, and generational trauma and inheritances. Dip in anywhere in the book and become entranced. Perfect for book groups.
Country People by Daniel Mason. 4/5
It’s nice to find a novel about academics that doesn’t involve an academic couple whose marriage isn’t entirely a shambles, and around which the plot does not rotate on their affairs. This is a pleasant novel. Mostly pleasant characters, some of them send-ups of the kinds of factions one might imagine in a small college town in Vermont; mostly pleasant plotlines; mostly pleasant overall. Oh, and a very very long footnote that should just be popped back into the body text. So if you want pleasant without much stress or conflict, just kind of following people live their relatively decent and mundane lives in a place with interesting caves and local lore, you’ll enjoy this. If you want serious character development, however, there’s not a lot of that, despite opportunities for it. The writing is, at times, pretty and sometimes funny. A good novel for when you need something calm.
Mudlark by Mary Helen Specht. 5/5
This is not your average dystopian/the world floods novel. Set in a future where the coasts are indeed underwater, it follows an intrepid team of salvagers working to find, bring up, and sell artifacts from the Before Times on markets of various legitimacy. The dystopia and the finding of cool–and mysterious things–isn’t the point, though. It’s all about relationships, trust, and communication. There’s adventure and some sticky moments for the characters, sure, but watching each individual’s loyalties and interests and sympathies change and be changed in the wake of those events is what makes the book fascinating. Savor it.
Galaxy 2: As The World Falls Down by Jadzia Axelrod. 5/5
This is a lovely follow-up to the first Galaxy book, but you don’t need to have read that one to enjoy or understand this. Here, adorable alien trans lesbian high school superhero Galaxy, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s mom (and a guy who wears his red undies on the outside of his blue suit) take on a hivemind intent on incorporating all of the universe. The characterizations are wonderful and Galaxy grapples with who she has been and is, and how to be a superhero on her own terms, including wanting to be as non-violent as possible, and working as part of a team, and making sure communication is always open and working. I love this series and am so glad there’s more coming!
Paranormal Payback by Jim Butcher; Kerrie L. Hughes. 4/5
This is a mostly-good collection of short stories focused on the super/paranormal and revenge. How does a vampire bitten by a werewolf get revenge? What about a woman whose kids are stealing her money, in a world with vampires? How about a demon whose would-be familiar damages his books? A few stories are overlong, and the last one in the collection is by far the weakest. There are some grammar errors and typos here and there that I assume will get fixed. Overall, if you’re a fan of urban paranormal fiction and/or a fan of any of the authors, this is worth the read.
Vampire Verses by LindaAnn LoSchiavo. 3/3
This is a campy and silly volume of verse–in many poetic forms–about or narrated by vampires. A college student texts with Dracula on a dating app; Carmilla is disappointed by modern life; a vampire frequents the Playboy Club (shades of Angel from Buffy). The accompanying cartoons are drawn like vintage Dennis the Menace funnies….wait, is Dennis a vampire? Maybe that’s Mr. Wilson. Hmm. Anyway, it’s a goofy collection, and while I appreciate LoSchiavo’s ability to work in numerous forms–villanelle, etc.—it was all a little too cringe-inducing for me.
Bedlam by Jennifer Higgie. 5/5
This is the second of two books I got from NetGalley at the same time that reference or are about painter Richard Dadd. This exquisite novel, written in dazzling, sunlit prose and prose-poetry, tells the story of Dadd’s trip with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, which took them through Europe to Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. During this trip, Dadd began to exhibit signs of mental illness, an obsession with Osiris, and the belief that people in his life had been replaced by the Devil and impostors. Higgie writes of Dadd’s journey into madness with exceptional skill, always referencing his artworks–those from his trip and his most-famous work, The Fairy Feller’s Master-stroke–in original and fabulous ways. Higgie’s writing is poetic without ever being obscure, and her descriptions of art and what Dadd sees in various paintings and moments during his trip are a masterclass in ekphrastic writing. I’ll be getting this in hard copy for t he pleasure of being able to easily dip in to it.
Solace House by Will Maclean. 5/5
CW for claustrophobia. An excellent new entry in the dark academia genre, with an unreliable narrator, several mysteries, some weird deaths, old and disturbing diaries, a house full of secrets, and more. This is one of two books I got from NetGalley at the same time that either engage with or are about painter Richard Dadd, best known for his painting The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (the other is Bedlam by Jennifer Higgie). In Solace House, a group of students is hired to clear out old properties over the summer break, including a mansion said to be located in a Thin Place–where the veil (AHEM, proofreaders, it’s not VALE) between worlds is weaker than most of the world. There, the students find abandoned historical materials, a formal garden fallen to forest, a cave, and a chamber with Neolithic symbols on its walls. As they explore, more clues and hints come to light about the previous owners and their fates. A super-fun read for fans of Edgar Cantero’s Medling Kids and The Supernatural Enhancements, What We Can Know by Ian McEwan, Thin Places by Kay Chronister. and The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
The Devil and Mrs. Gooch by Oliver Darkshire. 4/5
This is a very silly story (positive) likely to please Pratchett fans and young people; it is also a very silly story (negative) in that it is just a little too cutesy for me. The footnotes, which are supposed to be funny and clever, could be incorporated into the main text without losing a thing except the ire of this reviewer, in whose Kindle version said footnotes turned up in all sorts of places, in some cases even before the text to which they are linked. The tale is a tragedy, in which the bad survive, the good die, and savagery abounds, along with a few good-hearted acts.
Radiant Star by Ann Leckie. 5/5
Leckie returns to the Radch in this book, which explores what’s happening in the empire on a small and relatively unimportant planet while the events of the Ancillary series are taking place. Religious factions and their members and representatives, local government, Radch officers, and even ancillaries get swept up together in a confluence of politics and agricultural challenges and diplomacy and the divine and I loved every word. Leckie’s world-building is some of the very best in existence, so if you like that aspect of speculative fiction, or have enjoyed it in her other books, you’ll find a rich and fascinating mosaic to get stuck in here.
Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich. 5/5
This collection of stories and novellas explores and probes human discomfort, and what it means to listen to or sit with our discomfort. In each story, the protagonists make discoveries that are unsettling, throwing them off-balance, and then make decisions about what to do about those discoveries. In some cases, they must deal with the things that may make them uncomfortable to others; in others, they struggle to decide how serious their discoveries are, and grapple over long periods of time about how to react. In all, this is a well-written and atmospheric study of human fallibility, lies, suspicions, and choosing how to function among other humans. A great choice for a book group.
Maybe the Body by Asa Drake. 5/5
This is a brilliant, beautiful, and compelling collection of poems interwoven in elegant ways, all speaking honestly about life in the American South, as an Asian immigrant there, as a woman and a daughter and reader and writer. The way Drake twines the poems is ingenious and eloquent–there’s not a word or phrase out of place, and the complexity of the reading experience is a true pleasure. The collection includes anger and play and tenderness and cynicism, all in ways that are either relatable or help educate. I’d love to read this with a group of experienced poetry-readers.
The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own by Gwendolyn Kiste. 5/5
A solid collection of original and clever ideas and plots, this is a keeper. I loved the stories of a cursed film star and her movies, the sisters who had been in a horror film, the tale of the woman running the last video store, and that of a game that really does enthrall its players. I am a little uncomfortable about the use of Elizabeth Short in a story here, but overall this is a strong set of horror with unique angles.
Lovecraft’s Brood by Ellen Datlow, ed. 4/5
Great stories, terrible editing. Full of repeated phrases and adjectives, tons of homophone typos, misplaced apostrophes, and more. Hopefully that will all get cleaned up before this gets published, but it’s a real mess. That said, I’ve enjoyed almost all of the stories, although there are always a few in any collection that drag a bit and could use more developmental editing. I’d say get it from your library before you decide to buy a copy.
