My reading list in August was pretty diverse, and consisted only of new reads. I read two books that I’ve been anxious to read for a while now, a Datlow anthology that I bought last year, three books by indie authors from a book fair that I was selling at, and an absolutely massive classic sf collection that should really count as three books.
I kicked off the month with that huge Datlow cat based anthology. ‘Tails of Wonder and Imagination’. It’s rare that I don’t give a Datlow anthology five stars, but I can’t, in all conscience, give five stars to a book that contains two of the nastiest stories I’ve read in a long time. Look, if you love cats, or even if you’ve ever loved A cat, don’t read ‘Catch’ or ‘Life Regarded as a Jigsaw Puzzle of Highly Lustrous Cats.’ I will say no more about either story.
So, what we have here is an anthology of short stories, all of them a little weird, about cats, or cat adjacent beings. Some of the ‘cats’ in the stories are manticores, smilodons, jaguars, sphynxes, pumas, lions and tigers, but that’s close enough.
The collection starts most charmingly with an extract from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’ with Alice’s conversation with her cat, Dinah. It’s lovely. So is the next story, ‘No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be’ by A R Morlan, which is a gorgeous Americana tale of a barn painter and his cats. I’d like to re-read it one day. The third story is by Neil Gaiman.
Charles de Lint’s ‘Dark Eyes, Faith and Devotion’ is a hero story, and I loved it. More like this please. And then we get to a real treat, a Michael Marshall Smith story about a cat. I love MMS stories about cats …
Jeffrey Ford’s ‘The Manticore Spell’ is a straight fantasy story, with mythical beasts and wizards and magic, or not. Kelly Link’s ‘Catskin’ is exactly what you’d expect from this marvellous writer, a story so well constructed and written that it drags you into its strange little world and makes it feel … normal … Look, we all need to read more Kelly Link stories. And then we have ‘Mieze Corrects an Incomplete Representation of Reality’ by Michaela Roessna, another brilliant little story that concerns Schrodinger’s cat. I loved it.
George R R Martin’s ‘Guardians’ is a nice little sci-fi story about colonisation, ecocide, and cats. GRRM clearly has a lot of respect for our feline friends, this is another great story. Peter S Beagle’s ‘Gordon, the Self Made Cat’ is a lovely treat a third of the way through the book. Gordon isn’t exactly a cat, but he fakes it until he makes it. Lucius Shepard’s ‘The Jaguar Hunter’ takes a darker turn, diving into myths and legends and the loss of cultural identity. ‘Arthur’s Lion’ by the great Tanith Lee is another high spot of the collection, I enjoyed this story immensely.
Mary A Turzillo’s ‘Pride’ concerns the rescue of a young lab animal by a hapless young man. The rescue has consequences, but the love between the creature and its rescuer makes the story an absolute delight. The next story, by Lawrence Block, ‘The Burglar Takes A Cat’ concerns a bookshop cat. It’s a nice little story that fits in well and allows a short change of pace. The next story is something of a special gift, Joyce Carol Oates ‘The White Cat’ is a warning to anyone who finds themselves jealous of a loved one’s cat. Jack Ketchum’s ‘Returns’ broke my heart. Imagine loving a cat and not being able to protect it. I can’t stop thinking about this one.
Reggie Oliver’s ‘PussCat’ is a classic dark tale of a theatre cat and an actor who deserves everything that he gets …
Nancy Etchemendy’s ‘Cat in Glass’ is a full on gothic tale of a cursed ornamental cat and three generations of grief, horror and misogyny. It’s followed by a complete U turn of story with Carole Nelson Douglas’s ‘Coyote Peyote’ about a hard bitten feline detective in the desert city. The story is huge fun and I’d like to read more stories about the protagonist. Elizabeth Hand’s ‘The Poet and the Inkmaker’s Daughter’ is a great little story set in China concerning a romance, an evil stepfather, and a guardian angel cat.
Ellen Datlow has bagged a Stephen King story for this anthology. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and it’s lovely to see ‘The Night of the Tiger’ again. King was just 16 years old when he first wrote this one. It’s been rewritten and edited since then, and at over fifty years old, it’s wearing well. It doesn’t yet have that ‘Stephen King’ feel to it, but it’s a good bit of dark fiction, all the same. The closest King I can think of is ‘Needful Things’ in terms of the characters.
John Kessel’s ‘Every Angel Is Terrifying’ is a continuation of a Flannery O’Connor story which I confess that I haven’t read. This is a very dark story indeed. It’s followed by Graham Joyce’s ‘Candia’ which is a fever dream of a story. Nicholas Royle’s ‘Mbo’ is a classic ‘White Man In the Jungle’ story that twists when our hapless would be hero is rescued by the local wildlife service. Loved it. Ed Bryant’s ‘Bean Bag Cats’ is another nasty little tale of consumerism and cruelty that would make perhaps a scene or two of a Black Mirror episode. I don’t mind if the cats die, because we’re talking dark tales here, but wholesale cruelty isn’t for me when cats are in the sights. John Crowley’s ‘Antiquities’ also addresses a wholesale situation, but with humour and a sense of fun, as well as a nod to a little known historical factoid. It’s nice to read a story set in Cheshire.
Catherynne M Valente writes beautifully, and her ‘The Manticore’s Tale’ is a perfect little fantasy story. From there, we move to Nancy Springer’s ‘In Carnation’ which I really enjoyed. If only all romantasy was like this …
David Sandner’s ‘Old Foss is the Name of his Cat’ relates to Edward Lear and the true horror behind the Jumblies. Recommended. Carol Emshwiller’s ‘A Safe Place to Be’ concerns a woman who leaves home with her cat, heading for a place that feels safer, and trying to escape a world that wants to KEEP her safe … but she knows better. It’s a nice companion piece to the Sandner story. Sharyn McCrumb’s ‘Nine Lives to Live’ is a reincarnation / revenge fantasy … how would a cat go about killing a human? The next story, Kaaron Warren’s ‘Tiger Kill’ has a real feel for the old ‘Pan Book of Horror Stories’ tales from the 1970s.
Lucy Sussex’s ‘Something Better than Death’ dances with the idea of the Musicians of Bremen as characters in a love story gone wrong. Christine Lucas goes back to the Beginning with ‘Dominion’, a tale of Eden where the Serpent’s first creation is a pair of kittens. And that’s where the trouble starts, because when God banishes the cute little rascals from His Garden, the Serpent realises that someone is going to have to look after them … another great story.
Daniel Wynn Barber’s ‘Tiger in the Snow’ is one of the standout stories of the collection for me. And it’s a great collection. The story and the denouement aren’t stunningly original, but the execution is lovely and the ending is satisfying. It’s sad, but very enjoyable. The next story, Susanna Clarke’s ‘The Dweller in High Places’ introduces us to a mythical creature in a mundane place, and romps along to a fun finale.
Coming to the end of the collection now, and Dennis Danver’s ‘Healing Benjamin’ is a perfect little wish fulfilment story for cat lovers. I’ll carry this story in my heart forever now. The anthology ends with a sequel to ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’. Theodora Goss explores the fate of the island’s survivors and introduces a very special exotic young woman to rural England.
So, lots and lots and lots of stories, mostly about cats. As I said, there are a couple that I wish I hadn’t read, but there are many of them that brightened my day.
This is a book that I’ve wanted to read since it was published. I bought it with my December book money, and it joined a huge tbr pile. I know, I’m lucky. So, was it worth the wait? Yes.
This is a great English myth story, told as a series of slowly interconnecting vignettes. It’s masterfully written and at the end of it I wanted to go and re-read some early Alan Garner books (and also to re-read some Gwyneth Jones books, but I’ve just done that …).
So, a place, a myth, a song, a painting.
Very highly recommended.
OK, a quick musing, why aren’t Brookmyre’s books filling shelves at Waterstones any more? I’ve looked for this book on three recent visits, and eventually resorted to an online purchase.
So, as I’ve said before, I’m a sf / fantasy / horror reader. Crime isn’t my genre, although I’ll dip into it now and again. The big exception to this has always been Brookmyre, because he’s funny and clever and I like his references. I went into ‘The Cracked Mirror’ without any previous knowledge of the plot or the theme, and soon figured out that this isn’t the crime novel that it’s pretending to be. I’ll say no more, other than the warmth showed to and by the main characters is absolutely lovely and their relationship will stay with me for a while.
’10 Years of Unpicking’ by Jennifer Futter was one of books that I swapped for one of my own at a book fair in Scorton earlier this year. It’s a memoir of a young Scots woman who travelled to Africa to seek her fortune. It’s definitely not my usual kind of read, but I found it interesting all the same.
Another of my book fair swaps – ‘Joe with an E’ is a well plotted YA story with engaging characters and a measured pace.
The story takes the familiar SF idea of conflict between gendered and ungendered societies (see Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, amongst many others) and brings it to a near future UK, just a few generations away from the present day. I enjoyed the way that the author handled the exposition, explaining exactly how an ungendered population had come into existence. In some ways, the journal of the 21st century scientist was my favourite part of the book.
Parenthood, friendship, love and teenage romance themes are all explored sensitively and carefully.
A great sequel to ‘Joe with an E’ that wraps up the story. No spoilers here, but I enjoyed the character development and exploration of different relationships.
OK, this is a biiiiiiiggg looonnnng book. It’s three books in one binding, so yeah, it took a while to read it.
Book one examines how a single soldier would experience a centuries long interplanetary war if he was being shipped around at interplanetary speeds for relatively short postings. How would he cope with new colleagues born centuries after everyone he knew has died? How would he cope with massive changes in Earth culture and economics? It’s a fun concept, and the story covers it well. Book two follows that same conscript after the end of the war, how he copes with a quiet life far from the challenges of the last few years. The ending is, pretty literally, deus ex machina for fun and frolics. Book three backtracks to a version of earth in approx 2040 that is approaching two major scientific pinch points at the same time. Our hero is another smart conscript soldier who finds himself looking for better answers than his country is giving him. ‘Forever Peace’ was published a couple of decades after ‘The Forever War’ and is kinder to the female characters.
Handily enough, I finished this book on August 31st. Tune in next time for my September reads.