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Jump to navigationJump to searchRags and Bones by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt (Editors) (view source)
Revision as of 11:41, 18 November 2013
, 11:41, 18 November 2013no edit summary
As you'd expect, [[:Category:Neil Gaiman|Neil Gaiman]] gives us something truly special here, as his ''Sleeping Beauty''-inspired fantasy ''The Sleeper and The Spindle'' took my breath away. It's a beautifully written fantasy with an ending I didn't see coming. The other fairy tale update here is [[:Category:|Kami Garcia|Kami Garcia's]] ''The Soul Collector'', which brings ''Rumpelstiltskin'' into the world of urban fantasy. At just over 20 pages, it's action-packed, tense, and really made me care about the characters despite its short length.
I was less impressed by Garcia's [[Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl|co-author Margaret Stohl's]] contribution. Her ''Sirocco'', which takes place on the film set of an adaptation of ''The Castle of Otranto'', did little to capture my attention. Similarly, [[:Category:Carrie Ryan|Carrie Ryan's]] ''That The Machine May Progress Eternally'', inspired by EM Forster's ''The Machine Stops'' was one that I couldn't get to grips with - Ryan's writing style doesn't appeal to me at all, although I know her [[The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan|Forest of Hands and Teeth]] books have a lot of fans. Prior to this collection, my only exposure to the works of [[:Category:Melissa Marr|Melissa Marr ]] was [[Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr|Carnival of Souls]], which I couldn't recommend that highly because of a poor ending. Happily, her take on Kate Chopin's ''Awakenings'', inspired by the Orkneys' selkie legends, has a much more satisfying conclusion and is one that all folklore fans should check out.
But there's relatively few misfires here overall, and the best stories, along with some beautiful illustrations by Charles Vess, make up for it. [[:Category:Holly Black|Holly Black's]] breathless confessional ''Millcara'', updating Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's ''Carmilla'' to modern times, is for my money a more gripping vampire tale than her recent novel [[The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black|The Coldest Girl in Coldtown]], while a trio of authors I've somehow never read before all surprised me with wonderful writing. I have only the vaguest memories of Rudyard Kipling's ''The Man Who Would Be King'', but [[:Category:Garth Nix|Garth Nix's]] ''Losing Her Divinity'' is a wonderfully tricky homage to it. I love the literature of the American South, and co-editor [[:Category:Tim Pratt|Tim Pratt's]] transplant of Henry James's ''The Jolly Corner'', the story of an unlived life, to that location works brilliantly. A warm narrator and a seductive writing style made this one of my favourites in the collection. Then there's [[:Category:Kelley Armstrong|Kelley Armstrong's]] ''New Chicago''. I think WW Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw is so well-known that it's a brave idea to even try to change it, but Armstrong succeeds here by placing it in a future world which is scary enough to live in even before the lead character comes across that monkey's paw.
