 | Title: Eyes Like Leaves
Sexual Content: None. Rating:
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying. |
Showing posts with label Charles de Lint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles de Lint. Show all posts
30 January 2012
08 August 2011
 | Title: The Urban Fantasy Anthology
 Sexual Content: No explicit sex scenes, but references to sex, rape, and incest are made. Rating:
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying. |
Description
Star-studded and comprehensive, this imaginative anthology brings a myriad of modern fantasy voices under one roof. Previously difficult for readers to discover in its new modes, urban fantasy is represented here in all three of its distinct styles—playful new mythologies, sexy paranormal romances, and gritty urban noir. Whether they feature tattooed demon-hunters, angst-ridden vampires, supernatural gumshoes, or pixelated pixies, these authors—including Patricia Briggs, Neil Gaiman, and Charles de Lint—mash-up traditional fare with pop culture, creating iconic characters, conflicted moralities, and complex settings. The result is starkly original fiction that has broad-based appeal and is immensely entertaining.
Review
This is my first experience with this type of broad, category driven anthology, and I find myself as enamored with the physical organization of the book as I was with it’s contents. Opening with Charles de Lint’s exploration of Urban Fantasy and it’s more precise sub-categories, the book itself is divided into “Mythic Fiction”, “Paranormal Romance”, and “Noir Fantasy”. Each section begins with an essay that explores the origins and characterizations of this genre so much of us enjoy, and while the stories in each section don’t actually match the content from de Lint, Guran, or Lansdale’s essays, they do have an interesting relationship to one another that makes this anthology as thought provoking as it was enjoyable.
De Lint’s essay opens the Mythic Fiction section and sets the stage for stories with a mood of wonder and uncertainty. The magical threads in this section dip and weave underneath reality and bring to life the myths of older worlds, gods and unicorns and Fae. My favorite stories of the mythic fantasy section were Neil Gaiman’s The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories and Peter S. Beagle’s Julie’s Unicorn. Gaiman mixes the gilt of Hollywood with the everyday magic of reverence in a way that creates a quiet pool of the extraordinary that I know I will return to. Julie’s Unicorn explores the real world consequences of magic, but without letting camp overcome a sense of infinite possibilities. My least favorite story in this section, Jeffrey Ford’s On the Road to New Egypt, reminded me of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS with magic in place of either as the drug of choice. Chaotic and arbitrary, if this story was reaching for greater significant or religious meaning, it missed the target with me.
While the stories in Mythic Fiction completely fit my concept of that sub-genre, the Paranormal Romance selections seem out of sync with their heading. Rather than the highly sexual, magic driven Happily-Ever-Afters that I associate with this sub-genre (and that Guran references in her essay), the Paranormal Romance section of this anthology serves only as a bridge between the wonder of Mythic Fiction to the less upfront portrayals of common paranormal creatures in the Noir Fantasy section. For the purpose of this anthology, “Paranormal Romance” means stories where both readers and characters recognize the magic they’re dealing with: vampires and zombies, ghosts and werewolves. There is little more than references to sex and other than Patricia Brigg’s Seeing Eye and Bruce McAllister’s Hit, none of these stories have anything close to a romantic happily ever after. However, once I adjusted my expectations, I found some things to enjoy. This was my second experience with Seeing Eye, previously published in STRANGE BREW, and it was my stand out favorite for the section. Briggs is adept at setting her characters into place quickly, without ever resorting to caricature, and I can never finish one of her short stories without hungering for more. I also enjoyed Suzy McKee Charnas’s Boobs for her new take on an empowered adolescent heroine and the werewolf mythology, and Norman Partridge’s She’s My Witch, which brought a crazy Bonnie and Clyde vibe to the paranormal table, with a tone that manages to engage, concern, and creep out, all at once. Francesca Lia Block’s Farewell, My Zombie seemed out of place for this section, more in line with the borderline realities and questions of the noir fantasy section, but despite this mismatch, the heroine was so bleak and compelling that the story left me shattered.
As I mentioned above, the third and final section in this anthology, Noir Fantasy, takes the vampires and werewolves we urban fantasy fans are so familiar with and turns the mythologies on their head. Either through the addition of mundane details, as in Susan Palwick’s heartbreaking Gestella, or through a questionable narrator, as in Thomas M. Disch’s The White Man, the stories in this last section marry the tone of Mythic Fantasy with the headliner paranormal phenomenon established in Paranormal Romance. I adored Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, which managed to create both a stellar heroine and an interesting world in the short space allotted (and is one of the few stories in this anthology that was deep enough to introduce characters I would want to read more about), and found Tim Powers's world building and characterization in The Bible Repairman haunting and gritty. Joe R. Lansdale’s own On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks didn’t contain a single woman who wasn’t a prostitute, a zombie prostitute or a cultist, and reaffirmed why few post-apocalyptic stories ever get any reaction out of me other than rage and/or a personal intention to bury myself in a bunker should society ever collapse. My reaction is meant more as a affirmation of my preference for pleasant, escapist reading material than any indictment of Lansdale’s well entertaining, if utterly bleak, story.
Upon finishing all three Urban Fantasy sub-genres, I realized that despite essays that discuss the commercially prevalent brand of Urban Fantasy that is fueled by “kickassitude” and happy endings, THE URBAN FANTASY ANTHOLOGY is composed of an older and darker strain of selections than I would have expected from the title. The stories I’ve mentioned above are only a few of the offerings, but overall, this book’s tone brings home the sense that magic doesn’t guarantee happiness (and sometimes can’t even save your life), but it is always, and inevitably, fascinating to poor humans and preternatural creatures alike. Unerringly provoking (both in a good and bad sense), while I sometimes found myself wishing for something different, I never could have asked for anything more out of these stories. This is one book I will be sure to keep on my shelf so I can revisit these varied moods and conundrums in the future, but while the essayists themselves point out that these stories aren’t meant to capture all aspects of the Urban Fantasy genre, it feels Beagle and Lansdale only focused on the bleaker side.
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Posted by
Julia
at 3:30 PM
Labels: anthology, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, patricia briggs, Urban Fantasy
Labels: anthology, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, patricia briggs, Urban Fantasy
11 May 2011
 | Title: Promises to Keep
 Sexual Content: References to child molestation and prostitution. Rating:
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Description
With the help of a mentor and an anonymous benefactor, Jilly Coppercorn has overcome abuse, addiction, and a stint in juvie. Though she still struggles to stay clean, she has found safety and love in a newly formed family that includes her loyal best friend, a lovely artist, and her caseworker. Temptation comes knocking, however, when her best friend from the bad old days rides in on a motorcycle and takes Jilly to a beautiful, mysterious city full of wonderful opportunities. It seems perfect at first, until Jilly discovers that it was a one-way trip—and she still has unfinished business in Newford. At turns playful and serious, this urban fantasy introduces de Lint’s most enduring character and grapples with the realities of life-changing choices.
Review
Confession time: This is my first ever Charles de Lint book. And yes, I’m suitably embarrassed that I run a blog called All Things Urban Fantasy and haven’t read the Father of Urban Fantasy. In my defense, I discovered the genre through Buffy, and it was quite a while before I even heard about Charles de Lint. My ignorance excuse ran out a long time ago, but I still shied away because once I understood exactly who de Lint was and what he means to this genre, I was terribly afraid I wouldn’t like his books and that would mean my UF love was really a sham.
My fear was 100% unfounded.
As I said, PROMISES TO KEEP was my first visit to Newford, but I never once felt like I’d missed something. Jilly Coppercorn, "the heart and soul of Newford” according to her creator, has been working hard at keeping her life together and putting a past that included physical and sexual abuse, drugs, and prostitution behind her. De Lint weaves episodes from Jilly’s past throughout the narrative at the exact moments I began to wonder. He gave me every piece of the puzzle I needed precisely when I needed it to understand Jill and the journey that brought her to where she was. Jilly is the perfect example of a character who you root for. One of the most damaged characters I’ve ever encountered, yet I was completely engaged in her story.
Glancing over de Lint’s website, I learned just how numerous and varied the creatures who populate Newford are, but in PROMISES TO KEEP, there really aren’t any. As one reviewer on Goodreads put it, “there seemed to be less of that whisper of magic that brings Newford alive and fills me with joy.” Instead, it’s the place that is the fantasy, and I’m not even talking about Newford, which comes off as nearly completely mundane. Mireya is the magical city in this book, but in a very subtle way. In fact, I would describe it as more lucky than magical.
For my first foray into Newford, I found PROMISES TO KEEP to be a strong character driven tale with the barest hint of magic, but with an easy going narrative style that forced the pages to fly and made me long for my next visit. If you have yet to try a Charles de Lint book, now’s the time. He’s the father of urban fantasy for a reason.
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Posted by
Abigail
at 6:30 AM
Labels: 4 bats, Charles de Lint, ghosts, Magic, Newford, Review, Urban Fantasy
Labels: 4 bats, Charles de Lint, ghosts, Magic, Newford, Review, Urban Fantasy
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