“Bowlful of Bunnies” by L. S. Engler

I’ve been following L. S. Engler‘s blog for a while now, so when I saw that she had released an e-book of short stories, I made sure to buy it immediately.  Since I have a massive TBR list, I’ve been leisurely reading the stories in between other books.

Like any short story collection, there are stories that resonated well with me, as well as ones that I was ambivalent about.  This is not a bad thing, it’s just the nature of short story collections.  Rather than going through each story, I’m just going to highlight some of my favorites.

“Just Right” is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  All of the fairy-tale princesses are being held captive in a mental asylum by Doctor Grimm.  When Gohalla Daffoldil Lox attempts to escape, she finds more than she bargained for.  I’m a huge sucker for reinterpretations of fairy tales, and this was such an original take on a familiar story.

“Lilacs” is a bit sad, but beautiful at the same time.  It tells the story of a little girl learning about the death of her grandmother, and it highlights the difference in perception between adults and children.

“The Space Between Worlds” delves into the realm of SF/F.  A young lady named Emalia, who lives with her aunt, has the ability to travel between worlds.  One day, she discovers the truth about her parents’ deaths and must fight a deadly foe who shares her powers.

“The Wartburg Incident” was my favorite out of the entire collection, but saying much more about it would ruin the fun.  Suffice to say that it’s historical and Satan is involved.

The stories in “Bowlful of Bunnies” span a variety of genres and as a whole are well-written and a delight to read.  Many of them are characterized by little twists and unique endings.  Recommended.

“Irv’s Odyssey: Lost in a Looking Glass” by Irving Podolsky

I received a copy of “Irv’s Odyssey:  Lost in a Looking Glass” from the author in exchange for an honest review.  When I received the query, I wasn’t initially planning to accept it.  I’ve got six months worth of books piled on my living room floor, and wasn’t planning to take on any others until I’d made a significant dent in the ones that I have.  However, I read a chapter of the sample and was immediately hooked.

Irving Podolsky, the author’s twenty-something alter ego, has just graduated college and is setting forth in the world on his own.  He was a film major, but ended up taking a job directing porn because nobody else was willing to hire him straight out of school without any experience.  The novel recounts Irv’s stories and experiences as he finds himself swept away by the problems of life, love, and money, yet all the while he struggles to do what he feels is right.

I was drawn to Irv’s story because it represents a different type of coming of age.  Normally coming of age stories focus on characters in their early teens as they learn what it’s like to be an adult.  Irv is a bit older, and already thought that he had things figured out.  Reality began to sink in, and he started having all manners of crazy adventures, from introducing his parents to weed to working in a mental asylum caring for patients while waiting for a film job to open up.

Even though Irv is transitioning to adulthood in the 1970s, I think that his story is particularly relevant today, as the younger generation is having a harder time finding jobs and college doesn’t have the same guarantee of a future that it once did.  Part of Irv’s coming of age is the realization that even though he’s done everything right, the magic job isn’t just going to show up.  It’s going to take a lot of work for him to get there, but mostly a patience and a lot of luck.

The book is self-published, and I noticed a very small handful of spelling/grammar errors while I was reading.  Don’t let that discourage you; I only mention it because it’s one of my pet peeves, and I notice equally as many errors in traditionally published e-books.  What I noticed here was incredibly minor, and Irv’s personality makes it easy to forgive.

Overall, I enjoyed this one a lot.  Irv is a great character, and he reminds me of myself.  If my life were a book, people would probably think that it’s fiction.  Irv is the same way; he has some crazy shenanigans, but they’re still plausible, and I found it to be very realistic.  He is the type of person who can make mistakes, but it’s not the end of the world, and he can learn from them and move on.

“The Graveyard Book” Readalong, Parts II & III

So I didn’t quite get my Graveyard Book post up last week… the combination of grad school and the new job have been a bit rough, but I only have a semester and a half left to go after this one.  I can’t wait to finally be done with school!

This will just be a quick post, because I just finished a paper and need to go to bed before waking up at 5:30 am to go to work.  I’ll need lots of caffeine to avoid being Zombie Librarian.

Warning – from this point forward, there will be major plot spoilers from Chapter 4 through the end of Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book.”

I love the way that Neil Gaiman creates the theme that the world isn’t entirely bad, and that not everything that seems scary is inherently evil.  Liza Hempstock and the Sleer are both great examples of this.  The chapter where Bod gives Liza a headstone was my favorite part of the entire book; even though everyone told Bod to stay away from Liza because she was a witch, she ended up being a true friend and a good person who just happened to get shafted with some bad luck.  I’m glad that Bod had the good sense to look past everyone else’s prejudices and make a new friend.  And the Sleer?  The Sleer is just awesomely creepy, and I love that it’s not malevolent, but just has motivations of its own.

Ghouls, on the other hand, are just nasty.  So are Jacks of All Trades.  Even though Gaiman created a lot of characters that are rough on the outside but just misunderstood, he allows that there are still evil things in the world that will try to harm you, whether or not you are nice to them.

I’m not sure that I particularly cared for the way that the book ended (even though I loved the book).  I realize that it’s meant to be a parallel to “The Jungle Book,” but let’s face it… a fifteen or sixteen year old with a pocketful of cash is going to have a hard time being thrust into the world without some sort of direction, especially if he has no idea about modern life. I don’t think that going for pizza with Silas counts as understanding the world, and even when he went to school, Bod was very sheltered.  I fear for him a bit.  Perhaps Neil Gaiman will revisit Bod in a short story later on and let us know that he found a place for himself.  I’d like that.

I still totally think that Silas is a vampire.  There was that part at the end where he was talking with Bod about how he used to do bad things, as bad as Jack, even.  When he said that, I kept thinking to myself “Yeah, he’s a vampire alright.”

What did everyone else think of the book?

“The Midnight Court” by Jane Kindred

I was extremely excited to be offered a review copy of Jane Kindred’s newest novel, “The Midnight Court.”  I reviewed “The Fallen Queen” back in January and enjoyed it tremendously, and ever since then I’d been looking forward to the next book in the series.

“The Fallen Queen” was about an angel named Anazakia who falls from Heaven into modern-day Russia after her family was murdered Romanov-style.  Anazakia’s story is an imaginative parallel to the familiar legend that Anastasia Romanov might have escaped when her family was murdered, and I appreciated the level of detail that Kindred put into the setting.  Reading “The Fallen Queen” made me miss Russia, and I was glad that “The Midnight Court” was able to evoke the same sense of nostalgia.

“The Midnight Court” begins as Anazakia’s baby is kidnapped.  She fears that Aevil, the witch who killed her family, might be involved, but the trail seems to be cold.  Anazakia seeks help from the syla, fairies who appear with the changing of the season.  The first book seemed to parallel the story of the Romanovs.  This one goes a bit further, and the events in Heaven are reminiscent of the Bolshevik Revolution.

As with “The Fallen Queen,” I appreciated that the author did her research when it came to Russian culture.  The magic is in the little details, like the food, the geography, going to a dacha, or even the fact that people wear slippers called tapochki whenever they go into a home or apartment.  Most books that I’ve read that are set in Russia don’t take the time to mention something like tapochki, but even though it seems insignificant, it’s little cultural things like that that make this book stand out so much.

One of the other things that I love about this series is the love triangle.  Yes, you heard that right.  It’s adorable.  There’s Belphagor and Vassily, who are a gay demon couple.  Vassily is also bi, and he and Anazakia have a thing.  Everybody gets along for the most part.  It’s so unconventional, and it makes me happy.  I get tired of reading about triangles where there are two guys, one girl, and one of the guys ends up having his heart broken in the end.  It’s refreshing to read something that allows for other possibilities instead of playing into the same tired tropes.

The only thing that really bothered me about this book was the cover, because it makes the book look like a romance novel rather than epic fantasy.

Jane Kindred’s writing reminds me a lot of Jacqueline Carey.  It’s epic fantasy, but there are elements of romance and sexuality throughout the book that one wouldn’t typically expect to find.  There’s also a lot of sexual violence, so if that bothers you, then you might want to steer clear.  However, if the idea of a parallel supernatural world that incorporates Russian history and culture sounds appealing, then this one’s definitely for you!

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I’m including this book in the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge, as it contains elements of the paranormal/supernatural.

New Giveaway Winner

It’s been two days and I haven’t heard from the winner of my giveaway of “Blood Eye” by Giles Kristian, so I went back to the random number generator and picked a new winner.  Congratulations to Carrie Slager.

The Graveyard Book Readalong, Part I

Hey everyone!  Welcome to this week’s discussion of the first part of Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book.”

For anyone just joining in, the readalong is hosted by Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings.  Links to other people’s thoughts can be found here. Oh, and from this point onward there will be major plot spoilers from chapters 1-3. You have been warned!

One of the things that I’ve noticed thus far is that each chapter is almost a story in itself.  In the first chapter, we learn about a little boy who came to live in a graveyard after his parents were murdered by Jack-who-isn’t-the-Ripper with a big knife.  I had initially thought that he was Jack the Ripper, but then a later chapter mentioned airplanes, which weren’t around in the late 1880s.  Either way, I thought that the idea of a boy being raised in a graveyard was delightfully spooky, and adorable at the same time.  The ghosts are the kind of people that I’d love to spend time with, as they each have their own quirky personalities.

In the second chapter, we learn about how the little boy known as Nobody Owens makes his first friend who isn’t a dead person.  The world beneath the hill reminded me of something straight out of Lovecraft, and I kept wanting to tell Bod that going down there was a bad idea.  I liked how Gaiman made fear itself to be something more dangerous than the monsters in the hill, which is a nice little twist on a familiar theme.

Now, for the third chapter.  This was my favorite, because Bod’s new guardian is such a typical Russian mother.  I am jealous that Bod got to eat borscht and dumplings and beet salad every day, and I’m perturbed that he didn’t appreciate it.  At the same time, I can see how there’s a gap in understanding between Bod and Miss Lupuescu were coming from two completely different backgrounds.  Neither one respected the other until disaster struck.

I like the fact that each chapter is so distinctive and tells its own story.  It makes the book quite amenable to a readalong format, because the story is broken down into small chunks and there aren’t major cliffhangers from one section into the next.  Neil Gaiman’s a great storyteller; this is rapidly putting me into a Halloween mood!

Does anyone else think that Silas is a vampire?

Giveaway Winner

The winner of my giveaway of “Blood Eye” by Giles Kristian is L.S. Engler, as determined by a random number generator (because I couldn’t find my hat).  Congratulations!