On Your Marks...

It being approximately halfway through the year and also summer season, I thought it was about time to collect together a list of a couple of the books I’ve read so far this year and haven’t had chance previously to post a comprehensive review for.

Michelle Hodkin's The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer – the story of a girl calling herself Mara (although that is not her real name) who wakes up in hospital with no memory of how she got there following an accident she can no longer remember which resulted in the deaths of her friends, although she herself remained unharmed.  A spooky supernatural mystery with a romantic sub-plot.  (YA/fantasy/horror/romance/spec fic.)

Margo Lanagan's The Brides of Rollrock Island (known as Sea Hearts in Australia) – a novella about an island community prone to intermarriage with selkies who are “persuaded” into their human form by the witchcraft of the local seal-witch, Misskaella.  Bleak and compelling.  The narrative is provided from multiple perspectives.  (Fantasy/spec fic.)

Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl – a complex first person narrative by India Morgan Phelps (“Imp”), a schizophrenic woman, who struggles to unravel her encounters with what may be mythical creatures or, alternatively, symptomatic of her illness.  Intricate and raises as many questions as it answers.  A study of an unreliable narrator and mental illness, as well as being a consideration of the nature of truth.  Ambiguous and haunting in its conclusion.  An adult read. (Horror/spec fic.)

Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars – a collection of four novellas, all dealing with the issue of retribution.  1922 is the murder confession of Wilfred Leland James; Big Driver deals with a mystery writer’s encounter with a stranger during a back road shortcut on her way home.  Fair Extension documents a deal with an individual who sells a variety of differing extensions – for which there is always a price.  A Good Marriage queries the extent to which we can know another person – “even those we love the most”.  Darcy Anderson discovers a box under a worktable whilst her husband is away on a business trip and realises he isn’t the man she had thought he was – just as he is heading home.  Harsh and thought provoking, grisly and graphic illustrations of human behaviour.  Fair Extension represents the most overt reference to the supernatural here. (Horror/novella/collection.)

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall – which scarcely needs any introduction.  The fictionalised biography documenting the rise to power of Thomas Cromwell within the court of Henry VIII of England which has now been followed by a second part within what is intended to be a trilogy, Bring Up The Bodies.  Winner of the Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award.  (Historical fiction.)

Donna Tartt's The Secret History – one I’ve been meaning to get around to reading for a while, given I’d seen a number of positive reviews.  A novel concerning a group of classics students at an elite Amercial college and a Bacchanal which ultimately resembles a Greek tragedy in some respects.  To say much more would compromise the impact of the narrative.  One to experience yourself.  (Contemporary fiction.)

Jo Walton's Among Others – another one I’d heard quite a bit of buzz about before I had the opportunity to read it.  This is one written for anyone who has ever sought consolation or solace between the pages of a book – the narrator, Morwenna Phelps (“Mori”) finds her haven via a local library’s science fiction book club.  Play count the insider references on your way through the narrative – there are an impressive number to note.  This aside, Mori advises us (via her diary entries) she is a girl capable of talking to fairies.  Similarly to The Drowning Girl, it is for the reader to decide whether this is a psychological tool designed to offer comfort from the narrator’s less interesting “real” life or represents a true account of Mori’s suggested powers.  (YA/fantasy/spec fic.)

Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger – a ghost story set in post-war rural Warwickshire in which a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries.  Slow building, subtle narrative centred around poltergeist activity.  (Contemporary fiction/supernatural.)

Selected Shorts

I’m always interested in short stories, whether singularly or produced as part of a collection or anthology – possibly because I’ve seen numerous references to the suggestion that this is a “dying” art form.  (Stephen King, for one, is an author who fights against this suggestion and, incidentally, looks towards artistic expression in e-format, serialisation; pretty much anything if it gets the words onto paper.  If you haven’t taken a look already, do yourself a favour and look out at least one of his short story collections.  If you’re not a horror fan, why not plump for Different Seasons and read – or even re-read - his novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, amongst others?)

This is just a précis of some of my recent reads – and, in a couple of cases re-reads, which would be worth taking a look at.

Stories (Edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio was a compilation I originally picked up a copy of for Gaiman’s novelette The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains and Joe Hill's The Devil on the Staircase (both of which are well worth the time expended in a read of).

 

It was also my introduction to Kat Howard's work, being the volume which contained her first published short story, A Life in Fictions, the tale of a girl who is, quite literally, written into a story by her boyfriend.  Since then I’ve looked up copies of further shorts published by Howard and never yet been disappointed by having done so.  I’d heartedly recommend her Beauty and Disappearance  published in Weird Tales 356 but a number of her short stories have also been published online, such as Choose Your Own Adventure and The Least of the Deathly Arts.

Speaking of Joe Hill, 20^th Century Ghosts also deserves a shout out.  Hill is often coupled with the phrase “son of Stephen King” in write ups but is more than capable of holding his own against the legacy of his father’s writing, on the basis of my reading to date.  Whilst this collection of short stories is predominantly horror based, some of the entries fall outside of this category, such as Pop Art, the story of an inflatable boy or Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead, which simply takes place on the set of a making of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.  (Incidentally, if you’re a UK reader, there’s a short film of Pop Art available via the BBC website here, courtesy of Amanda Boyle).

I’ve also looked up a number of Karen Joy Fowler's short stories this year, within her collections, Black Glass and What I Didn’t See.  I particularly enjoyed The Pelican Bar in her 2010 collection (What I Didn’t See), in which Norah is sent to a boarding school with a difference.  To say much more would spoil the impact of the story, so I’d suggest looking it up yourself to get the full effect.

Margo Lanagan is something of an acquired taste for some but her short story collection Black Juice contains the excellent Singing My Sister Down, which was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best short story.  It documents the tale of a young boy watching his sister being executed by way of a tar pit for the murder of her husband.