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Publication Announcement: Space Fantasy: “Legends as Told by the Laborers of the Forest Solar System Logging Corp. – An Oral History Project”
I am thrilled to announce the publication of my space fantasy short story in Crow & Cross Keys literary journal.
This literary journal is 100% free, so please give it a click and a perusal!
Here’s a blurb about my piece.
Oral history interview with an anonymous retired logger (Interviewee #15) for the Forest Solar System Logging Corp. Interview conducted by Tess Dalgleish on stardate 99938 on Planet Minnesota. Topic of the interview is the legend of Paul Bunyan. This version includes Babe the Big Blue Ox.
Please be sure to check out my Publications Page for my other work.
Book Review: Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic edited by Eduardo Jimenez Mayo and Chris N. Brown
Summary:
This collection gathers 34 contemporary Mexican short stories featuring fantasy, scifi, and literary, clearly a wide range.
Review:
For me this collection was very hit and miss, and alas even the hits weren’t that wonderful. Part of the issue is there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the order in which the tales are presented. It feels as if 34 completely random stories were selected with the only thing they have in common being Mexican authors. I generally prefer a short story collection to have a more universal theme or play upon similar tropes, but there is none of that here. The stories range from young boys hunting iguanas to figuring out how to dispose of a body to a trophy wife on vacation in Las Vegas to a pact with the devil. It was a bit of an exhausting collection to read. That said, I’d like to highlight a couple of my favorites that kept the read from being an entirely troublesome experience.
“Hunting Iguanas” by Hernan Lara Zavala both gives a glimpse into country Mexican life, which isn’t something we get to encounter very much, and provides commentary on colonization.
“Lions” by Bernardo Fernandez was particularly delightful for an animal rights activist to read. In a time of budget cuts the less attractive animals of the zoo are let loose in the city park and gradually take over. Delightfully tongue-in-cheek.
“The Nahual Offering” by Carmen Rioja features a disturbingly prophetic dream by a tribal woman. It is a great example of the beautifully grotesque.
You can see, though, that I was only able to pick out three short stories from a collection of 34 to highlight as particularly enjoyable to me. The collection simply lacks a universality of theme or talent.
Overall this collection is an interesting peek into contemporary Mexican writing, although it does seem the editors could have done a better job in selecting what to include. Recommended to those with a marked interest in modern Mexican writing.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: LibraryThing EarlyReviewers
Book Review: S by John Updike
Summary:
Letters, both hand-written and recorded onto tapes, tell the story of Sarah, a North Shore housewife of a wealthy Massachusetts General Hospital doctor who one day in 1986 decides to go and join a commune in the Arizona desert. Gradually through the letters both her past and her experiences in the commune are revealed.
Review:
I was intrigued by this book for multiple reasons. I’ve always enjoyed epistolary novels. I found Updike’s more famous novel, The Three Witches of Eastwick, endlessly entertaining. Also, I’ve always been fascinated by communes and cults. This book certainly contains all three elements. Sarah’s letters compel the reader to get through them as quickly as possible. Whether she’s discussing the commune or her past life on the North Shore, the letters are truly fascinating. Perhaps this is partly because there’s a Stepford-wife like quality to Sarah’s past life, and her current life is so over the top from anything most modern Americans experience. It provides a fascinating contrast.
The book therefore starts out strong, but falters more and more the further toward the end it gets. The more about Sarah is revealed, the less sympathetic she becomes. Additionally, due to the nature of the epistolary novel, some of her actions are not entirely revealed, thus leaving the ending a bit confusing. Frankly, the ending simultaneously surprised and disappointed me. I was left wondering what on earth Updike’s point had been. Was it a feminist stance? Was it misogynistic? Was it just a portrait of a person? The great variety between all these possibilities should demonstrate how confusing the ending is.
It’s interesting to note that Sarah is depicted as a descendant of Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter. I’m sure this plays into the interpretation of the book a great deal, although personally, I am not sure how.
Overall, this epistolary novel starts out strong and engaging, but the ending leaves the reader a bit confused and let down. If you’re a big Updike or epistolary novel fan, you will still enjoy the book enough to make it worth your while to read, but all others should probably give it a pass.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Swap.com
Book Review: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
Summary:
A satire on free enterprise, money, and capitalism in America told by examining the fictional Rosewaters–an uber-wealthy American family whose ancestor acquired his wealth by essentially profiteering during the Civil War. The current Rosewater fights in WWII and returns with two crazy ideas. First, that everyone deserves to be equally happy. Second, that people who inherited wealth did nothing to deserve it. He responds to this conundrum of conscience by returning to his ancestor’s hometown and using the Rosewater Foundation to help the “useless poor.” In the meantime, a lawyer by the name of Mushari decides to attempt to prove that Mr. Rosewater is insane, and the foundation money should be handed off to his cousin, currently a suicidal, middle-class insurance man.
Review:
How to review Vonnegut? Upheld as the epitome of 20th century American writing. He is certainly prolific, and some of his books absolutely deserve the high praise (Slaughterhouse-Five
I think part of the problem stems from the fact that the first third of the book is focused on Eliot Rosewater, the next on his cousin, and the last on Eliot again. Just as I was getting into Eliot’s story, it switched to his cousin. Then when I was getting into his cousin’s story, it switched back to Eliot. To top it all off, the ending left me with little to no resolution on either one. Maybe Vonnegut’s point is that capitalism either makes you crazy or depressed with no way out? I’m not sure.
That’s not to say that this wasn’t a fun read, though. Vonnegut crafts the mid-western town Eliot lives in and the Rhodes Island seacoast town his cousin lives in with delicious detail. What is interesting about both are of course the people in the towns surrounding the main characters, and not the main characters themselves. In particular the Rhodes Island town is full of surprisingly well-rounded secondary characters from the cousin’s wife who’s experimenting in a lesbian relationship, to the local fisherman and his sons, to the local restaurant owner who is intensely fabulous (yes, the gay kind of fabulous. There’s quite a bit of LGBTQIA+ in this book). I was so interested in this town. This was a town that actually demonstrated the problems innate in some people having too much money while others don’t have enough. This was so much more interesting than Rosewater’s sojourn in Indiana. But then! Just when I was really getting into it and thinking this book might approach Slaughterhouse-Five
Much more interesting than the heavy-handed money message was the much more subtle one on the impact of war. Mr. Rosewater’s sanity issues go back to WWII. I won’t tell you what happened, because the reveal is quite powerful. Suffice to say, Vonnegut clearly understood the impact WWII had on an entire generation and clearly thought about the impact of war on humanity in general. In this way, this book is quite like Slaughterhouse-Five
Overall, if you’re a Vonnegut enthusiast, enjoy reading for setting and character studies, and don’t mind a message that’s a bit heavy-handed, you will enjoy this book. Folks just looking for a feel of what makes Vonnegut held in such high esteem should stick to Slaughterhouse-Five
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3.5 out of 5
Length: 190 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: PaperBackSwap
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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