wendleness's reviews
324 reviews

Four stories, catching just a brief, but all too telling glimpse into people's lives. They are beautifully told. The art is bold and clear, often at odds with the message being delivered. The colour choices match the season the stories are in--pastel green, pink, and blue for spring, bright primaries for summer, deep orange and browns for autumn, and cool blues for winter. They set a mood that makes the reading easy and the tone light, despite the sombre narratives.

A wonderful little book, worth picking up and pondering over for a spell. Simple, and meaningful. I loved every page.

A slightly longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.

I first read this at school about seventeen years ago. I remembered that i loved it, but not much else. Turns out i still love it.

Bilbo is flawless and perfect. I honestly didn't like anyone else too much, but that's usual for me. I will admit i welled up a bit towards the end.

The Hobbit is a fantastic adventure that i never wanted to stop reading. I found the narrative voice perfect, and have never read a better omniscient third person point of view story.

So much love for this book. Re-reading this has tempted me to try reading The Lord of the Rings again...

My favourite story was The Disappearance, a quiet tale about people fading away. It surprised me how quickly and completely i became immersed in the story, invested in the one character we meet, and how quickly the tale flew by. I Hope This Email Finds You Well and Bird Girl are other stand outs, for the writing, the way the stories are told, and the concepts they are exploring. I found them fascinating. The other few stories were fine, but none quite grabbed me enough to leave a lasting impression.

There were a few notable poems this issue, as well. I’m not a huge poem lover and I freely admit a lot manages to go over my head, but here i found several to love. Small Animals, the last in the magazine, is a clear winner (always saving the best till last). It talks of bad days and good, and sharing your sadness and embracing the happiness… except it’s so much more than that and so, so beautifully written. The Cavern, about the good things we hold within us, afraid to let them out for fear of failure. Ash, about someone helping your burned heart grow something new. Rainbow, Refugee, This World No Deeper Than The Eye… the poems stood out in this issue, far and away.

A slightly longer review can be found at my book blog: Marvel at Words.

The real terror comes, not from spooky things that happen, but from the characters; their thoughts and actions and feelings around and about the things that happen. This book is not (necessarily) a straight up ghost story. There are levels to the reading of the book. You can take and leave haunting aspects as you like; everything could have an explanation, if you looked hard enough for one. I prefer a middle of the road interpretation, choosing to believe there is something nefariously otherworldly about Hill House, but that the characters’ psychology (and psychosis?) also have a significant part to play.

Eleanor is the main character, and she’s a very interesting one. I don’t want to say too much because, out of everyone, it is her character that (for me, at least) sheds doubt on the extent of the haunting of Hill House. She’s an innocent, troubled and entirely contradictory woman who i find infinity fascinating.

A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel At Words.

None of these stories are about what you expect. My favourite was Cuckoo, i think, because its elusiveness works so well; it has a well-rounded story that doesn’t give all of its pieces up at once. Robot Wasps and Meaty’s Boys are two that also sit strong in my mind. Meaty’s Boys is one of the longest stories in the book, but seemed to fly by in no time at all. It is also the story with the most well-built world. Though the world we glimpse in Robot Wars was fascinating and left me wanting to know more about it.

These weird little glimpses into strange quirky worlds are what i love about the best short stories. They don’t all make sense, they don’t all have an underlying message or meaning, and they don’t follow any kind of pattern. They’re mostly just light-hearted gems to while away a few minutes while you’re waiting for the bus. And if a few of them have any kind of depth to them, well, that’s a bonus for those who want to search for it.

A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.

I both liked and disliked the narrative style. The present day and flashbacks, side by side and interspersed. I liked it because it kept me guessing, kept me wondering, but unfortunately it made the story as a whole not work as well. I couldn't sympathise or root for the characters in the present day, because i didn't know their history; i didn't understand them. To be quite honest, i didn't like any of the characters.

The art, however, is absolutely amazing. It has depth and design and mood... it has so much atmosphere and detail. It was the art that makes this book any kind of good. It carried the entire thing. It held the emotions of the story, it had the horror, the loneliness, the despair, the joy, the love. It's all in the art, not in the words or the plot.

A slightly longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.

The premise is simple enough: the book is about a young woman with no face. It follows her as she struggles to build relationships and explores how she feels that she doesn’t fit in with everyone else. Sound familiar? It should. I’m sure everyone has gone through similar struggles. Because the concept isn’t about looks–it’s about identity. Face (as the character is known) studies the faces of the people around her and tries to emulate them, she begins a relationship and finds herself becoming them. She looks to external sources to find herself, with poor results.

The art work is mostly black and white, with colour used rarely, but to good effect. The style of the art changes throughout, too. The general panels are fairly simply, while the portraits of people the character takes note of and are important to her are rendered with such careful precision. It all blends and works beautifully together, giving so much life and texture to the pages and the story.

A slightly longer review can be read on m blog: Marvel at Words.

This book was created in response to the travel ban put in place in America, with authors from the countries included in the ban writing to “explore themes of exile, travel, and restrictions on movement.” I thought this was a brilliant idea, and with only seven stories (one from each country included in the ban), the book isn’t an intimidating read.

All the stories are wonderful. Not all are happy–in fact it could be argued that none of them are happy–but they are all so wonderfully told. I’m thinking about which ones i enjoyed the most, but i genuinely can’t pick a favourite. The few that stood out the most for me were Jujube, The Beginner’s Guide to Smuggling, and Storyteller. These were all about people looking to move and settle in other countries, but each story was unique in its approach to the character, the history, and the outcome. The other two stories that stood out for their much more unusual and less straightforward approach were Return Ticket (about a cosmic anomaly village called Schrödinger) and The Slow Man (about a conflict between the Egyptians and the Babylonians that changes the course of history).

Though these were stories, authors, and subjects outside of my usual reading matter, I really loved this book. It is a short, but worthwhile read and I would encourage anyone to pick it up and give it a go.

My overall impression was that Poe is a rambler. In most of the stories, he spends a lot of (in my opinion, necessary,) time setting the scene before launching into the story.

The stories in which Poe ‘got on with it’ and didn’t waste pages detailing useless descriptions, i found the most enjoyable—unsurprisingly. It was when i read ‘William Wilson’ (the fifth story in the book) that i was suddenly hooked. Suddenly i didn’t feel like i was forcing myself to keep reading. Suddenly the pages were flying by without me noticing. And the thing with ‘William Wilson’ was that i knew very early on what was happening, what the ‘twist’ would be, but it was the need to see how it would all unfold that kept me reading.

With some editing, all of the short stories in this book could have satisfied me enough to love Poe’s work unconditionally. Alas, even when Poe is literally claiming to be succinct, it takes him several pages.

My longer review with spoilers can be read at: http://marvelatwords.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/"

Let’s start with my favourites. Plural, because there were a few strong ones here.

Baby You Were Great was that perfect balance of fascinating new-tech sci-fi and creepy fucked up sci-fi. The idea that everything you see and even feel can be recorded for other people to experience, and how that can be exploited and manipulated. Lots to digest and unpack here, and that’s how I love my science fiction!

In a much more subtle, understated way, I also really loved Nobody’s Home. In a world where instantaneous travel exists, this story speculates how that might affect love and family and friendships, in such an open and lovely way. It also touches on genetic engineering and the value placed on intelligence–higher and higher.

There were a few stories I was really drawn into, but ultimately let down by, too.

The one I have the strongest feelings about is False Dawn. Set in a polluted dystopia this story was at first really interesting, following a mutant woman with archery skills who was being hunted by pirates. I was all in on this narrative… until it took a terrible turn, leaving our main character defenseless, mutilated, raped, and suddenly falling in love with the random bloke who rescues her. Erm… no, thank you.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and reading stories written by and specifically about women. I will always need more feminist science fiction in my life, and I can’t wait to read more in this series.

A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.