‘Tis a dangerous thing to journey into the realm of a book blogger as ’tis easy to be ensnared by the lure of enticing books. Such was my peril when I recently came across this review by my friend Chris. When he wrote “Millhauser’s writing is something that is just a pure gift to readers”, I was hooked.
Enchanted Night is an all-too-brief glimpse into the magical and mysterious events that happen to a handful of residents in a small Connecticut town on a particular hot summer moonlit night. As darkness is pierced by the almost-full moon, strange forces begin to work on a group of people and inanimate objects in seemingly random, unconnected ways. Millhauser weaves these diverse elements into a cohesive though unconventional story, a story with its own set of dangers and mysteries yet filled with such beauty that it is nigh unto impossible to put this book down.
The long-awaited (especially by those of us who waited through several scheduled and missed release dates) art book by Charles Vess finally saw publication a few months back and it seemed prudent to resist urges to tear right into it so that I could save it for the Once Upon a Time Challenge. It was a good choice…a great choice. This wonderfully designed book of wonders was the perfect book to begin the challenge with, and on Sunday, March 21st I spent a long afternoon basking in the warm glow of one of the best fantasy illustrators alive today.
After last year’s disappointment with the Charles de Lint novel The Mystery of Grace I was unusually reticent to go back to his work. Which was, of course, quite silly because I consider Charles de Lint one of my favorites in the realm of mythic fiction (a term he coined with artist Terri Windling). Everything I had read from him up to that point I had enjoyed immensely. So when I saw that a new short story collection was being released late last year, set in the mythical town of Newford, I knew that, come March, I had the perfect springboard to get back into the delightful mind of Charles de Lint.
In spite of what the calendar reveals, weather here in the Kansas City area has been surprisingly spring-like and I jumped the Once Upon a Time Challenge gun and spent the weekend feasting on de Lint’s short stories. Whether they be light confectionery or more substantial fare, this collection is filled with satisfying morsels.
–published 2009
–Underland Press
–334 pages
–Nominated for 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novel
–4/5 stars
Imagine a decaying, fungus-ridden seaport where humanity lives in varying degrees of subservience to sentient fungal-based creatures whose descriptions could easily be the stuff of nightmares. A wet, moldy, drab and dismal place. Not exactly an atmosphere that one would call home, but that is exactly what the city of Ambergris is to detective John Finch, who finds himself wrapped up in a seemingly impossible case when a mysterious human and a virtually unstoppable gray cap are found murdered in a run-down apartment. The case becomes even more mysterious when it appears that the cause of death just couldn’t be possible.
Finch is Jeff Vandermeer’s third stand alone novel in the Ambergris Cycle. The buzz surrounding the book, its awesome cover, and the recent Nebula nomination in the Best Novel category…combined with a strong urge to read some detective fiction after gorging myself on science fiction for the past two months…meant that I found myself in the local Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, picking up a copy. I went home that afternoon and immediately started reading, and what I found was a unique and imaginative world in which Vandermeer unveils a solid, page-turning noir detective adventure.
The Love We Share Without Knowing ~Christopher Barzak
–published 2008
–Bantam Books
–288 pages
–Best Novel Nebula nomination for upcoming 2009 Nebula Awards; 2008 James Tiptree Jr. Award Honor List
–4/5 stars
Ever since the sad but understandable retirement of Endicott Studio and the Journal for Mythic Arts I am sorry to say that I have not maintained the strong awareness I used to cultivate of the authors and artists who continue to keep the movement alive. For those of you who have, the name Christopher Barzak is probably a familiar one, as his short fiction has been published with the work of many of the big names in mythic fiction over the last few years. If it were not for the recent list of Nebula nominations, my ignorance of Barzak’s work would have continued. As it was, I found myself in my local library on Friday, tracking down a copy of his latest book, The Love We Share Without Knowing. My assumptions based on the cover art and story synopsis made me curious about what seemed like an odd nomination for an award that is generally given to more obvious genre fiction.
