Short Story Monday: “Fair Ladies” by Theodora Goss

by Carol6 Comments
I was enchanted by the mix of realism and fantasy in "Fair Ladies" by Theodora Goss. The story starts of in a slightly unconventional way, at least in my opinion. Rudolph Arnheim's father, the Baron, announces that he has found a mistress for his son, who in his father's opinion is spending the time at university idly and is forming a relationship with a young woman who is quite unsuitable. The baron will pay for the woman's apartment and expenses. The woman is "The Pearl." Before the war, she was gorgeous and entertaining, the mistress of important men, and moved about freely in society, until she disappeared. She had been living in a small cottage in the woods, near the Baron's estate, and she was returning to the city only as a favor to the Baron. She would introduce Rudolph to the men he needs to know, set him up with a position, help him meet an appropriate woman, then return...
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Review: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

by Carol12 Comments
(Suggested reading level: Grades 4-8) I actually borrowed The Red Pyramid from my daughter, and I definitely enjoyed it. The story centers around a pair of siblings, Carter and Sadie, whose world is thrown upside down the night they watch their father blow up the Rosetta Stone and be captured by an ancient Egyptian god. Cater and Sadie learn the secret of their family history, discover they can perform magic and have to save the world from Set. It's a great combination. Fascinating Egyptian gods, siblings who learn to work together, magic, fight scenes. The book has everything to appeal to its middle school audience, even if it felt a little long. Sadie and Carter take turns narrating the chapters, which mean we get to see the events and characters from both points of view, and they are quite different from each other. Carter had been raised by his Egyptologist father, traveling around the world after their mother's death, while Sadie had been...
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Review: The Seven Songs of Merlin by T. A. Barron

by Carol2 Comments
(Middle school / Young adult) I read this out loud with Amber (11) over a week or two, and we finished it last night. This is the second in the series, but we read the first, The Lost Years of Merlin, about a year or so ago, so it wasn't fresh in my mind. I was able to catch back on pretty quickly, though. At the beginning of The Seven Songs of Merlin, Merlin is 13 and is given the task of traveling across the island of Fincayra, using a magical harp to rejuvenate the land which had been devastated in the first book. The problem is he's a teenager, thinks he knows best and abandons his job to bring his mother, Elen, through the mist to be with him.But within minutes of her arrival, Elen is poisoned by a deathshadow that the evil Rhita Gawr had meant for her son. Merlin spends the rest of the book, learning the discovering the...
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Short Story Monday: “Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)” by Ian Tregillis

by Carol3 Comments
I was in tears through the second half of "Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)" by Ian Tregillis, available to read online at Apex magazine. This fantasy story takes place in a town that exists outside of time. It had slipped into the chasm between tick and tock, to land in its own instantaneous eternity. And so its residents occupied their endless moment with pageants and festivals and reveled in century-long masques, filled forever with decadent delights. They picnicked in the botanical gardens, made love in scented boudoirs, danced through their eternal twilight. And they disregarded the fog that shrouded their city with soft grey light. And Time didn't care. Time left the city alone, except for one woman, the woman Time loves. But because Time cared for her, adored her, she was the only person in the town to age. She was also unique in that she was a clockmaker, although her timepieces were not always conventional. She is the only...
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Short Story Monday: Ponies by Kij Johnson

by Carol12 Comments
I read another Nebula nominee today, "Ponies" by Kij Johnson, available on-line here at Tor.com. It's an awful little story, not because it's badly written, but the end made me cover my mouth in horror. In this world, every girl has a pony with wings, a unicorn horn and a voice. A time comes, as the girl gets older, when she and her pony are invited to a cutting-out party, where the girl has to cut out two of her pony's three gifts. It's more like cutting a doll; it doesn't seem to physically hurt the ponies. Barbara and her pony Sunny are looking forward to their cutting-out party, but what happens is just devastating. I understand that it's a story about growing up, about the pressures to fit in and the tendency for girls to be downright cruel at times, but I almost wish I hadn't read it. It's well-written but so disturbing. 1,255 words Tor.com 11/17/10 5 out of 5 stars John hosts...
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Short Story Monday: “The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar

by Carol5 Comments
I know I've fallen in love with characters in a few of the books I've read over the years. But then the story's over and I move on to my next crush. It's not so in "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar. The piece starts out with a description of a book, perhaps part of an inventory. But after that brief introduction, the remainder is a letter copying what the writer found in The Green Book. The writer, Dominic, is an apprentice to Leuwin who has a library and spends his time collecting and learning. The Green Book is given to him because it is so special, so unusual. Dominic transcribes the writing in the book, writing done by four people throughout the years, although the two at the heart of the story are Leuwin and Cynthia. Cynthia is trapped in the book, a living death she can never escape. Leuwin falls in love with her, and is desperate to release her. The...
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