Today on SF Signal I review the latest short fiction offerings from Tor.com. The Tor website consistently features some of the best short fiction out there, and every week the stories are free. Stories range across the science fiction/fantasy/horror spectrum and each week they are accompanied by commissioned art from some of the best illustrators working today. The image featured here for Michael Swanwick’s story “House of Dreams” is by one of my favorites, Gregory Manchess.
Both stories reviewed on SF Signal today have an underpinning of folklore. The first, “In the Greenwood” by Mari Ness takes a very familiar tale of a maid and a hooded hero and a sheriff and does something much richer and deeper than I’ve seen done before. It is beautiful like a stark Autumn day. Ness’ prose was lyrical and the piece evokes a strong mood. It is one I highly recommend, a 5/5 star story.
The second story is Michael Swanwick’s “House of Dreams”. It is the fourth in a series of stories but you need have no knowledge of the previous stories, as I can attest to, in order to be swept up in this cold, WWII-feeling alternate history tale. Again the writing was superb and it made me want to track down the rest of these short tales.
If you follow the link over to my more detailed, but non-spoiler, reviews at SF Signal you can very easily make the jump to read the stories for yourselves. And you really should take advantage of them, they are very good.
Have a wonderful December weekend!
Thanks for the link, I’ve read “In the Greenwood” and liked it very much. I didn’t see that ending coming, it was shocking… I have yet to read “The House of Dreams”. The artwork for this story is really beautiful.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t see it coming either, it was a shock, but was a powerful story. I look forward to what you think of House of Dreams.
I thought this was a great story, and the artwork is wonderful too.
I’m glad you enjoyed it too, Richard. I have only read one or two other Swanwick short stories and am now wanting to find the rest of these specific stories. I heard him speak at a convention once and thought he was interesting.
“The House of Dreams” was an interesting story – I loved the animal element, nice touch – and all through reading it I kept thinking of room 101 in Orwell’s “1984” and because of the whole dream vs reality mix, Murakami’s novel “After Dark” came to mind as well. The ending left me wanting a little, I kept thinking, that’s it? but it was a good story nevertheless.