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Derek Strikes the TBR pile and finds Fonda Lee’s Jade City

Derek Strikes the TBR pile and finds Fonda Lee’s Jade City

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I think everyone’s to-be-read pile is always in danger of collapsing on them so that rescuers can only find cat-gnawed bones. For that reason, I listen via Audible and don’t have a cat.

But still, my to-be-read pile is huge and growing and I’d been wanting to read Fonda Lee’s Jade City for some time. It just won the Aurora and did quite well with Hugo and Nebula readers. Also how cool does a magical Asian Godfather story sound?

Lee has created the world of Janloon, what felt to me as a kind of magical Hong Kong, set sometime after cars, airplanes and phones, but before cell phones and computers. It’s a world of increasing modernity and one where ancient traditions (magical jade) come into conflict.

The Kaul family and the Ayt family are the two big mafia families that run Janloon through politicians and businesses. The people of Janloon are the only ones who can wear magical jade without having major toxicity/withdrawal/addiction problems. In the hands of a trained green-bone, jade can enhance perception, strength, speed, toughness, etc and the uneasy stalemate between the No Peak Clan (the Kauls) and the Mountain Clan (the Ayts) begins to unravel with the possibility of a drug called SN1 which allows foreigners to use jade.

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October Is Hammer Country: The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

October Is Hammer Country: The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

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Plague-of-the-Zombies-poster

I wanted to close out my Hammer-for-October articles with The Plague of the Zombies, but hesitated because the movie isn’t easily available in North America. The Anchor Bay DVD has been out of production for more than fifteen years and used copies don’t come cheap. Then, just as I was about to scratch it off the calendar and substitute The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll or Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, the news hit — Shout! Factory will release The Plague of the Zombies to Region A Blu-ray in January. For once, I picked up on the Blu-ray release announcement before making a hasty prediction about a movie never showing up in HD and looking like a dope again. So consider this a pre-release celebration.

Anyway … Zombies! Yes, Hammer Film Productions made a zombie film. The Plague of the Zombies was released in 1966 as the second half of a double bill with Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Although the Dracula film brought Christopher Lee back to the role of the count for the first time since Dracula (1958) and was the main selling point of the double feature, The Plague of the Zombies is the more intelligent and gripping film. Dracula: Prince of Darkness is beautiful but plodding, while The Plague of the Zombies is one of the best of Hammer’s mid-‘60s pictures, with a few memorable shock scenes and underlying themes that have encouraged a range of readings.

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Birthday Reviews: Brad Strickland’s “Hero’s Coin”

Birthday Reviews: Brad Strickland’s “Hero’s Coin”

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Cover by Don Ivan Punchatz
Cover by Don Ivan Punchatz

Brad Strickland was born on October 27, 1947.

Strickland received a Phoenix Award at DeepSouthCon. In 200, he won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for his novel When Mack Came Back. He has collaborated John Michlig, Thomas E. Fuller, and his wife, Barbara. Strickland has also completed several novels which were originally outlined by John Bellairs prior to his death.

“Hero’s Coin” was written for the 1993 anthology Quest to Riverworld, edited by Philip José Farmer. This was the second volume in which Farmer opened up his Riverworld series to other authors. The story has never been reprinted.

Because all of the stories in Quest to Riverworld took place in Farmer’s established universe, the was no need for Strickland to explain the rather strange setting. Read without the context of the other stories or Farmer’s original work, however, the story suffers from vagueness brought on by its expectation that the reader knows how the world works. Had Strickland included that background, however, it would have seemed repetitive in the story’s original (and only) publication.

Farmer’s world contains a seemingly-infinite river along the banks of which everyone who has ever lived has been reincarnated, their needs provided for by a grail which fills with food. Strickland’s story focuses on Brother Aelfstan, an anonymous Anglo-Saxon monk who worked on a chronicle of his times in both our world and the Riverworld. Aelfstan makes friends with a stranger who was reincarnated near his part of the river and the two eventually set off together.

As the stranger, who Aelfstan calls “Nemo” helps people during their journey, with technological innovations, military decisions, and in other areas, the people they meet assume he must be Robert E. Lee, Archimedes, and other famous people in history. Nemo denies being any of them and questions Aelfstan about what makes a hero, emphatically denying he was any such.

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Birthday Reviews: Jennifer Roberson’s “Mad Jack”

Birthday Reviews: Jennifer Roberson’s “Mad Jack”

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Lord of the Fantastic
Lord of the Fantastic

Jennifer Roberson was born on October 26, 1953.

She collaborated on The Golden Key with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott, which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1997.

Roberson wrote “Mad Jack” for inclusion in the memorial anthology Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny, edited by Martin H. Greenberg in 1989. She has also republished the story in her own collection, Guinevere’s Truth and Other Tales, released in 2008.

“Mad Jack” tells the story of a man who lost his infant son to random gun violence. Unable to cope with his loss, his life falls apart and he comes to the decision that he needs to go on some sort of epic quest to make things right and find a simpler time. His decision causes strife with his wife and his boss, but he eventually makes the journey to Scotland via bus and train to find something that has been missing from his life for a long time.

Roberson’s description of Jack and his attempts to come to terms with his son’s death is a focused look at one individual’s grieving process. Although there is reference to the way others view his needs, Jack never interacts with any of them within the confines of the story; his thoughts turn almost entirely internal. While he notes that his wife and boss both think he is mad, there are no overt signs of madness.

Roberson plays the story close to her chest. It is clear that Mad Jack is supposed to be recognizable, although who he is, or even the time period in which the story takes place, is not entirely clear until the end. Once they story reaches its conclusion, the question of whether Jack is mad, has reverted to childhood, or is having an actual experience is ambiguous, which is one of the strengths of fantasy as a genre.

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Perfect Halloween Fare: The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken

Perfect Halloween Fare: The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken

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The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding-small The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding-back-small

Prosper Redding lives in small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. But when a stranger – dressed up like a Pilgrim and everything – shows up to the local Founders Day celebrations, nobody else even seems to see him. What’s worse, he steals some chestnuts from a vendor right before Prosper’s eyes, and then has the audacity to grin at him and wink.

When the clock strives five, though, Prosper has to find his sister Prue, leave the festival, and go home. Waiting for them is a surprise family reunion convened by his evil grandmother, comprised of relatives who dislike him. Prosper’s instincts tell him to run, but Prue takes his elbow and propels him into the house. Which is really more like a castle.

Things get worse when his absent father calls in a panic and tells him to grab his sister and run for their lives. Prosper tries to obey, but his uncles catch him. They pack him and Prue off to the dungeon, which is set up for an occult ritual.

All the relatives are there, and they’re all staring at Prosper. A small table draped with velvet – an altar, really – has been placed in the front of the room, and hundreds of flickering candles provide the only illumination. Prosper’s grandmother yanks the cloth off the table, revealing an ancient book. She asks Prue to start reading from it, but Prue just looks at her blankly. “But… It doesn’t say anything…”

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Birthday Reviews: John Gregory Betancourt’s “The Weird of Massal Dey”

Birthday Reviews: John Gregory Betancourt’s “The Weird of Massal Dey”

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Cover by Marjette Schille
Cover by Marjette Schille

John Gregory Betancourt was born on October 25, 1963.

Betancourt has been nominated for three World Fantasy Awards, in 1993, 1995, and 2000, for his work at Wildside Press. The first two nominations were in the non-professional category and shared with Kim Betancourt, the final one was in the professional category. Betancourt has also worked as an assistant editor at Amazing Stories, and editor at Horror: The Newsmagazine of the Horror Field, Weird Tales, H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, and Adventure Tales.

“The Weird of Mazel Dey” was originally written for Susan Shwartz’s anthology Arabesques, but Betancourt missed the deadline and sold the story to Dennis Mallonee and Nick Smith at Fantasy Book, where the story ran in the September 1985 issue. When Betancourt elected to reprint the story in his collection of Zelloquan stories, Slab’s Tavern and Other Uncanny Places, he changed the names to match his series’ setting and published the story as “The Weird of Massal Dey.” The revision also removed the references to Islam that appeared in the original form.

Massal Dey is a thief who uses the occurrence of a great festival to steal a mirror which captures his attention. The mirror is of such beauty that Dey decides to keep it rather than try to fence it. Unfortunately, once he gets the mirror home and set up, he sees his own reflection and realizes that he is so ugly that he shouldn’t defile the mirror by viewing his image.

However, as the story progresses, Dey finds that he looks into the mirror in his dreams and finds himself in other worlds where he is not as ugly as he believes himself to be. Each time he looks in the mirror in his dreams the situation is different, from a world in which he is the object of infatuation by young beauties, to a world in which he and his long-time wife of that world live a comfortable, if unremarkable existence.

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Birthday Reviews: Jack Skillingstead’s “Thank You, Mr. Whiskers”

Birthday Reviews: Jack Skillingstead’s “Thank You, Mr. Whiskers”

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Cover by Jim Burns
Cover by Jim Burns

Jack Skillingstead was born on October 24, 1955.

Skillingstead was nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in 2004 for his story “Dead Worlds” and in 2014 his novel Life on the Preservation was a nominee for the Philip K. Dick Award. He has collaborated with Burt Coourtier. Skillingstead has been married to author Nancy Kress since 2011.

“Thank You, Mr. Whiskers” was originally published in the August 2007 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, edited by Sheila Williams. It has since been reprinted in Skillingstead’s collection Are You There and Other Stories, published by Golden Gryphon in 2009 and subsequently reprinted by Fairwood Press.

Hadley Yeager is something of an anomaly in science fiction stories, an older woman. Living alone after the death of her husband, Franklin, Hadley no longer has a firm grasp on reality. Her memory is fading, she is unsure of where she is or what is going on around her, and fear of the outside world is making her suspicious of the young boy who seems to be intent on checking up on her and making sure she is okay.

One day, she notices a new mailbox, where she doesn’t remember seeing one before. Accidentally taking the mail from that box, she discovers a note that applies directly to her. From that point on the extra mailbox helps guide her and rejuvenate her. In addition to reminding her where she hid grocery money, the messages in the mailbox begin offering her other advice and help, removing the suspicious boy, allowing her to reverse her aging, and living a youthful life of excess. Eventually, Hadley begins to wonder about the mailbox’s origins and motives.

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Birthday Reviews: Allan Weiss’s “Heaven and Earth”

Birthday Reviews: Allan Weiss’s “Heaven and Earth”

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Cover by Colleen McDonald
Cover by Colleen McDonald

Allan Weiss was born on October 23, 1939.

Weiss has twice been nominated for the Aurora Award. His first nomination was in 1993 for his short story “Ants,” in the Best Short Form in English category. He received a second in 1996 when he was nominated with Hugh Spencer for Best Other Work in English for “Out of This World,” an exhibit they produced at the National Library.

“Heaven and Earth” was published in Tesseracts Nine in 2005. The volumes was co-edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman. The story has not been reprinted.

Steven is part of a team exploring an alien life form dug up on a distant planet. His description of the study is interspersed with memories of his Uncle Martin, who helped raise Steven during and after his parents’ divorce, teaching him both the study of Judaism and Talmud and how to espouse atheism, which are by no means mutually exclusive.

Steven’s relationship with his uncle is the strongest one in the story, although it is mirrored by his relationship to fellow-scientist Kelly Defalco, who refuses to give him straight answers about her own theories and research and causes him to question his own assumptions, just as Uncle Martin did when he was younger. This questioning becomes important when the evidence before his eyes regarding the physiognomy of the Castormondian alien species seems to contravene everything about biology that he knows from a lifetime of studying humans.

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Birthday Reviews: Suzy McKee Charnas’s “Beauty and the Opéra, or the Phantom Beast”

Birthday Reviews: Suzy McKee Charnas’s “Beauty and the Opéra, or the Phantom Beast”

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Cover by Kinuko Y. Craft
Cover by Kinuko Y. Craft

Suzy McKee Charnas was born on October 22, 1939

Charnas won the Nebula Award in 1981 for her novella “Unicorn Tapestry” and the Hugo Award in 1990 for the short story “Boobs.” She is a three time James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award winner for the novels Walk to the End of the World, Motherlines, and The Conqueror’s Child. Her series The Holdfast Chronicles is included in the Gaylactic Spectrum Award’s Hall of Fame and she won a Mythopoeic Award for The Kingdom of Kevin Malone.

“Beauty and the Opéra or the Phantom Beast” was originally bought by Gardner Dozois and appeared in the March 1996 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Dozois reprinted it in Modern Classics of Fantasy the following year and Charnas included it in her e-collection Music of the Night and later in her collection Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms. The story was nominated for the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, The James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award,

Charnas has decided to retell and expand on Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, conflating it with Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s Beauty and the Beast. While in the original story by Leroux, Christine is allowed to leave the Phantom, Erik, if she will return upon his death, in Charnas’s story, she agrees to remain with him in return for his freeing Raoul, the French nobleman she loves.

The story follows the characters as they grow to know each other in the secluded apartments Erik has created for himself beneath the Paris Opera House. With Christine agreeing to stay with the Phantom while he agrees to release Raoul, the story takes a turn into Beauty and the Beast territory with Christine suffering from Stockholm Syndrome as Erik is the only person who she can interact with. As time progresses, Christine learns how to assert herself with Erik to in effect turn the tables on him. She is still essentially his captive, but she manages to obtain a level of control over the situation and him, eventually learning that while Erik spared Raoul, he also ensured that Raoul would never mount a rescue of her.

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Birthday Reviews: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Rule of Names”

Birthday Reviews: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Rule of Names”

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Cover by Frank Bruno
Cover by Frank Bruno

Ursula K. Le Guin was born on October 21, 1929 and died on January 22, 2018.

Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is in the Prometheus Hall of Fame and has won the Jupiter Award as wells as the Nebula Award and Hugo Award. The Left Hand of Darkness has also won both the Hugo and Nebula Award, as well as the James Tiptree Jr Award and the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. She has also won the Nebula Award for Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, Powers, the novella “Solitude,” and the short story “The Day Before the Revolution,” which also won the Jupiter Award. Le Guin has also won the Hugo Award for the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the novelette “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,” the novella “The World for World is Forest,” and back-to-back best related works for Words Are My Matter: Writing About Life and Books, 2000-2016 and No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, the last of which earned her the award posthumously. “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight” won Le Guin her first World Fantasy Award and she received another for her novel The Other Wind. She won a Jupiter Award for “The Diary of the Rose,” a Rhysling Award for “The Well of Bain,” and a Ditmar Award for The Compass Rose. Both Tales from Earthsea and The Telling won the Endeavour Award and “The Matter of Seggri” and “Mountain Ways” both won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. She won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for “Forgiveness Day” and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for Four Ways to Forgiveness. Her book Paradises Lost won both the Kurd Lasswitz Preis and Italia Award.

Le Guin has received many lifetime achievement awards, being recognized by the Forry Award in 1988, the Pilgrim Award in 2001, and the Eaton Award in 2013. She received a Gandalf Award in 1979 and was named a Grand Master by SFWA in 2003 and the World Fantasy Convention in 1995. In 2001, Le Guin was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. She was the Worldcon Guest of Honor at Aussiecon 1 in 1975 and the World Fantasy Guest of Honor in Seattle in 1989.

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