Phew, AW's long absense did not do wonders for my short story challenge.
I did read some! And I even took the time to type down some comments specifically for this thread!
And then for some reason managed to erase everything right before saving so I just had a blank page to stare at today. Argh. Let's see if I can still reconstruct after these few months.
2) 'The King in Yellow' by Robert Chambers, a collection of 10 stories. A bit of a classic, I'm told, but its very existance so far had managed to completely escape me. But I kept coming across references to in other writers' work, finally learned there was source material, and decided to seek it out. (I was therefor quite baffled to read at the end that Chambers was an influence for Lovecraft. I just hadn't considered its proper age. We live and learn.)
The collection was a bit confusing IMO. The first stories (The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In the Court of the Dragon and the Yellow Sign) all take place in the same sinister world with Carcosa and the King in Yellow. I can see why it has had so much influence up until now. Very vivid.
But then the next story (The Demoiselle d'Ys), while paranormal, had very little connection to the four previous ones, and because it was all in the same anthology, I kept expecting some connection back to the King in Yellow-theme. I liked this story, but I already knew the myth it was based on and so the 'twist' was no surprise.
But then further in the collection, even a tenuous link with the first stories kept eluding me and I felt like I had missed something important. This might be why the further I went into the collection, the less I liked the stories. (The Prophets' Paradise, The street of the Four Winds, The Street of the First Shell, The street of our Lady of the Fields and Rue Barrée.) They read more like romances and were apparently based on streets in Paris and I kept looking for a link I just couldn't find. And that left me quite dissatisfied.
3) Next up was 'The Trouble with Cupid', and anthology of 10 mystery/romance shorts based around a feline detective named Trouble, thought up by Carolyn Haines.
Each story was prefaced by a little introduction by the titular character which worked well to tie the whole thing together and create the illusion of hearing the private thoughts of a cat. Good immersive vibe.
Some of the stories were really sweet, but sadly I don't remember which ones I liked best. But some tried a little too hard and ended up making Trouble too smart for a cat. A cat pretending to be a human and type texts on a mobile? A cat having an syntax in caterwauling while so much of a cat's communication is non-verbal? Nope. That is taxing my imagination just a little too far. Still, these are minor quibbles. Mystery shorts are hard, IMO, and feline detectives even harder to pull off so I'm not going to harp too much on this. It was an entertaining read.
4) Last one up is 'Forests of the Night', a collection of 20 stories by Tanith Lee. Despite her being a household name in Fantasy, I don't recall having ever read something from her, so I decided a collection was the perfect way to sample.
Each story had a short text about what inspired her to write, which I enjoyed a lot. I like seeing writer's thought processes.
The trouble is, I don't know how representative this collection is of her work because I didn't entirely enjoy it. I don't mind stories with bleak futures or bad endings but it struck me how pervasive this bleakness was in the whole collection. No one seems to have had any fun ever, bar one or two stories on the whole, and most certainly wouldn't be having any after the story's finished. She might just be Not For Me.
Stories I most enjoyed were: Nicholas (even though I understood what it was about before the end of the first page. Still, some clever writing in not saying the one word that shines through the entire story.) Elle est trois (La Mort) and Crying in the Rain.
I am now currently engaged in a Pratchett comfort re-read, so it might be a while before I get to the last anthology/collection required for my personal challenge. I luckily have enough lined up to choose from.
4/5 anthologies or collections with authors I have not yet read before. Everything more will be a stretch goal that will earn me a praliné chocolate.
I did read some! And I even took the time to type down some comments specifically for this thread!
And then for some reason managed to erase everything right before saving so I just had a blank page to stare at today. Argh. Let's see if I can still reconstruct after these few months.
2) 'The King in Yellow' by Robert Chambers, a collection of 10 stories. A bit of a classic, I'm told, but its very existance so far had managed to completely escape me. But I kept coming across references to in other writers' work, finally learned there was source material, and decided to seek it out. (I was therefor quite baffled to read at the end that Chambers was an influence for Lovecraft. I just hadn't considered its proper age. We live and learn.)
The collection was a bit confusing IMO. The first stories (The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In the Court of the Dragon and the Yellow Sign) all take place in the same sinister world with Carcosa and the King in Yellow. I can see why it has had so much influence up until now. Very vivid.
But then the next story (The Demoiselle d'Ys), while paranormal, had very little connection to the four previous ones, and because it was all in the same anthology, I kept expecting some connection back to the King in Yellow-theme. I liked this story, but I already knew the myth it was based on and so the 'twist' was no surprise.
But then further in the collection, even a tenuous link with the first stories kept eluding me and I felt like I had missed something important. This might be why the further I went into the collection, the less I liked the stories. (The Prophets' Paradise, The street of the Four Winds, The Street of the First Shell, The street of our Lady of the Fields and Rue Barrée.) They read more like romances and were apparently based on streets in Paris and I kept looking for a link I just couldn't find. And that left me quite dissatisfied.
3) Next up was 'The Trouble with Cupid', and anthology of 10 mystery/romance shorts based around a feline detective named Trouble, thought up by Carolyn Haines.
Each story was prefaced by a little introduction by the titular character which worked well to tie the whole thing together and create the illusion of hearing the private thoughts of a cat. Good immersive vibe.
Some of the stories were really sweet, but sadly I don't remember which ones I liked best. But some tried a little too hard and ended up making Trouble too smart for a cat. A cat pretending to be a human and type texts on a mobile? A cat having an syntax in caterwauling while so much of a cat's communication is non-verbal? Nope. That is taxing my imagination just a little too far. Still, these are minor quibbles. Mystery shorts are hard, IMO, and feline detectives even harder to pull off so I'm not going to harp too much on this. It was an entertaining read.
4) Last one up is 'Forests of the Night', a collection of 20 stories by Tanith Lee. Despite her being a household name in Fantasy, I don't recall having ever read something from her, so I decided a collection was the perfect way to sample.
Each story had a short text about what inspired her to write, which I enjoyed a lot. I like seeing writer's thought processes.
The trouble is, I don't know how representative this collection is of her work because I didn't entirely enjoy it. I don't mind stories with bleak futures or bad endings but it struck me how pervasive this bleakness was in the whole collection. No one seems to have had any fun ever, bar one or two stories on the whole, and most certainly wouldn't be having any after the story's finished. She might just be Not For Me.
Stories I most enjoyed were: Nicholas (even though I understood what it was about before the end of the first page. Still, some clever writing in not saying the one word that shines through the entire story.) Elle est trois (La Mort) and Crying in the Rain.
I am now currently engaged in a Pratchett comfort re-read, so it might be a while before I get to the last anthology/collection required for my personal challenge. I luckily have enough lined up to choose from.
4/5 anthologies or collections with authors I have not yet read before. Everything more will be a stretch goal that will earn me a praliné chocolate.