The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories by Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton and Brenna Yovanoff

Published August 1, 2012.

Three Author Websites.

From acclaimed YA authors Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff comes The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories. 

- A vampire locked in a cage in the basement, for good luck. - Bad guys, clever girls, and the various reasons why the guys have to stop breathing. 

- A world where fires never go out (with references to vanilla ice cream). 

These are but a few of the curiosities collected in this volume of short stories by three acclaimed practitioners of paranormal fiction. But The Curiosities is more than the stories. Since 2008, Maggie, Tessa, and Brenna have posted more than 250 works of short fiction to their website merryfates.com. Their goal was simple: create a space for experimentation and improvisation in their writing—all in public and without a backspace key. In that spirit, The Curiosities includes the stories and each author's comments, critiques, and kudos in the margins. Think of it as a guided tour of the creative processes of three acclaimed authors. 

So, are you curious now?  (goodreads.com)

I LOVE YOU, CAROLRHODA LAB!  DON'T EVER CHANGE!

NetGalley noted the pub date for this book as today but Goodreads is showing back in August.  Considering Goodreads has the bump-up date for Meagon Spooner's SKYLARK I'm going with the Goodreads date for accuracy.

Okay, so book?  Andrew Karre is a publishing genius, never pandering to a wave or reading fad.  He's his own dowsing rod of incredible works, sniffing them out like a nifler and finding precious, precious gold.  Instead of lifting debuts out of the publishing ashes this time he's taken the minds of three already-established authors and exposed their twisted brains in bound book form.

Stiefvater, Gratton and Yovanoff have been experimentally writing as the Merry Fates for years now, stretching their writerly fingers beyond the scope of each of their perceived comfort zones.  The end result in THE CURIOSITIES is a peek behind Oz's curtain, complete with handwritten cliff notes and StiefTonOff (I need to copyright that) doodles to compliment the shorts scattered throughout.  They banter back and forth about each others' writing styles, throw comments about and generally boost each other up as they dip their toes into unfamiliar, and oftentimes murky, water.

The style of each author emerges almost immediately and you get an almost intimate sense of what each is comfortable writing and what was really a stretch into no-man's land.  It got to a point in THE CURIOSITIES that I didn't need to read who the short was written by, they were that distinct from each other.  You get to see some of their prompts and how each author sometimes interprets something as simple as a single name and even when they reach beyond their zone they all cling to something familiar, something stylistic that grounds them in the unknown.  They wax writer-like about drawing blanks, building a story from a single image or a single sentence or even a snippet of some weird dream.  It's a true look into the heads of authors without the classroom lessons of writing.  All you're getting are real world examples and they're so much more poignant.

Maggie is consistent Maggie even when she's trying to be Brenna or Tessa.  I will admit I was not thrilled with her Ballad of Faerie series.  While her writing was beautiful I felt it was more author than character and as a result I stepped away from her Wolves of Mercy Falls series, not wanting to read more of the same.  But what with her story in KISS ME DEADLY and now all of these it's only a matter of time before I pick up another Maggie book.  I just like her shorts far too much.  Her voice is so much more than just her and her range as an author is astounding.  She can flit in and out of genres as if she were skipping despite how taxing some of those stories were to write.  I am coming around again.

Tessa has a thing for grim fairy tales without really broaching into horror.  She plays at the line with her freaky dolls and pokes brownies in their eyes just for shits and giggles.  She takes a fey world and by sheer will of style turns it into something not only eerily dark but captivating and something wholly other, spinning metaphors into pure gold.  I love it when she dredged up barely touched lore and adds her platinum touch to it.  THE SUMMER ENDS IN SLAUGHTER is one such example that blends lore and darkness and Tessa touch into something that's captivating, drawing you in and not letting you look away.

Brenna prances across that horror line and plays with the dead, dressing them up in decaying dresses and stringing them up like marionettes to put on a show.  NEIGHBORS blew me away to the point of speechlessness.  The opening blurbs even warn about the stereotypical twist.  You know what's coming as you read but you don't because Brenna, in all her twisted horror glory, twists the twist and while you may see one you won't see the other.  By god I loved it.  I need more Brenna stories in my demented, horror-loving life.

THE CURIOSITIES is not only an excellent collection of short stories meant as a glimpse into the legwork of writers but an amazing introduction to the authors StiefTonOff.  See the genius that is Andrew's editing skills in compiling this novel of awesome and then read the expansive minds of three authors with rather set comfort zones shatter their own walls and wander into the wild.

Ban Factor: High - From vampires to fairies to a libido-laden dead teenager there is a veritable smorgasbord of screech-worthy banstuff in here.

Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

Published August 17, 2010.

Author website.

In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children.  With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remarkable economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.  (book back blurb)

Every once in a while I'll come across a book with such stunning writing that when I get to the end of it I can't help but heave a great big sigh of relief.  There is hope.  There is talent.  There are WORDS.

I like reading anthologies but they're usually a compendium of stories from different writers so each work is, by default, going to be different.  Different styles, different prose, different methods.  Personally I find it a lot harder for an author to write a single anthology composed entirely of their own stories and have each story differentiate itself from the last.  My experience in that is pretty even keel; one working out not so well and the other I ended up loving.  VANISHING?  Yeah, I pretty much loved it.

VANISHING has stories told of life.  They're not all that action-packed.  In many not much really happens outside of a character's internal monologues.  But the way they're all written Willis just sinks her claws into each and every one of her characters and forces them off the page so that you can't help but see them as their own individuals.  And that's exactly what they are.  From the grieving scientist in ESCAPE to the lonely teacher in THE FIANCEE to the boy-turned-man in AND THE LIVING IS EASY, each are individuals, each are wholly separate and each are as vivid in my mind as if they were all given their own books.

VANISHING is one of those books that one SHOULD read because it's that kind of book.  These are the stories that would get taught in literature classes, dissected for meaning, subtext, intent.  To some that's a bad thing but I loved reading good short stories when I was in school.  It was how I was introduced to the likes of Flannery O'Connor.  And she's pretty awesome.  But just because people SHOULD read it doesn't make it bad or dull.  They're all engaging stories, each and every one of them, with a range of protagonists, a range of ages and a good mix of both sexes.  There is literally something for everyone in VANISHING and the writing is so good all the rest would just suck you in anyway.

All of the stories are inherently real, spun golden by words that would make any writer envious (including this one).  But it's not a high falutin, overtly showy type of writing.  It's glorious, simple enough to hook the resistant but intricate enough to ensnare the more well-read, those with noses held higher than others.  When literary does it right, it REALLY does it right.  Willis's writing is effortless.  She doesn't come across as trying to impress or show off her writing prowess.  Her words are for the stories and the stories are for you.  It's that simple.  And they're wonderful.

There may not be anything supernatural in VANISHING but that doesn't make it any less engaging.  It still hooks, it still drags you in and then spits you out, leaving you reeling in your book hangover because the writing . . . THE WRITING.  It stuns.  It really does.

Ban Factor: Low - It's pretty innocuous.  There might be a couple of salacious pieces in there but that would require the banners to read and that's just downright silly to expect.

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory

Published July 26, 2011.

Loory's series of forty short stories, with their stripped and finely-tuned prose, weave seamlessly between the dream world and reality, between light-hearted anecdotes and nightmarish fables. In Loory's world, trees walk and talk while an octopus lives in the next door apartment. Televisions sing opera, men find invisible crowns, and books without words are best-selling novels. His tales introduce the reader to people living among monsters, skydiving moose, Martians that keep house, and quiet men who write poetry, all finding themselves in bizarre and sometimes terrifying situations. Despite the great diversity of these stories, the characters are tied to each other-and the reader-by the familiar emotions of fear, desire, and the consequence of action. Not always as it seems, these strange characters and places invariably show us ourselves, leaving us to question the limits of human morality, perception, and truth. (netgalley.com)

The blurb there really pulled me in. A collection of short stories with a little bit of horror, a little bit of sci-fi, a little bit of everything. It sounded right up my alley. And it really wasn't bad but it left me wanting. Not necessarily more stories but more out of the stories that were already in there.

There's a thin thread of similarity among all of the stories - there's something not right about them. Whatever it is, the ending will twist. The degree of that twist isn't always the same but they're strung together by a hint of the macabre in each. That I really did like. There wasn't a story in this anthology that I didn't like.

Kind of in that same vein they were so short that I think that was a big reason why I couldn't find one that I didn't like. All of them had enough to pull me in and hold on to me, with endings that were more often than not abrupt but still provided a punch. But at the same time they were so short that, for a lot of them I felt like I couldn't get too much out of them. There were some that did well as short stories, written succinctly and that the voice did it a service. One that really stands out in my head is with a little boy crawling through a water tunnel trying to find the end and getting stuck. The ending to that one is phenomenal.

But by the end of STORIES I was a little done with the writing. It's a very simple type of style that I think works really well in small doses and fit many of Loory's shorts but reading one after another in the same tone just got a little boring for me. While the subjects of the stories differed, the voice was the same in every single one of them. Aside from the short I mentioned above, not too many others really stood out to me because the voice blended them all together. I would have liked to have seen different tones for the different stories in STORIES. I think it would have made them pop a little more and differentiated each a little better.

But I would really recommend this one. It's short and to the point and really, the shorts are pretty good with some really good twists. But the voice just got to me after a while. I was looking for something different by the end. I know a lot of people like that simpler way of storytelling, straightforward and to the point with zero fat, and like I said above, it can fit, but it was a bit of an overkill here. I would have liked either a shorter book or a greater tonal variety. But still, read it. The stories are great and all are some level of creepy. Just keep your eye out for the voice. The one lone voice throughout the anthology. You might be better able to stomach it than I could but even if not, I'm sure you'll still like what you're reading.

Ban Factor: Medium - The creepiness in these stories is of the subtle variety so it would take your smarter than normal banner to pick up on that. Never say never.

Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow

Published June 28, 2011.

A hit man who kills with coincidence... A detective caught in a war between two worlds... A man whose terrible appetites hide an even darker secret...

Dark Horse once again teams up with Hugo and Bram Stoker award-winning editor Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft Unbound) to bring you this masterful marriage of the darkness without and the darkness within. Supernatural Noir is an anthology of original tales of the dark fantastic from twenty modern masters of suspense, including Brian Evenson, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nick Mamatas, Gregory Frost, and Jeffrey Ford. (goodreads.com)

I've got a short line-up of anthologies lately. First and foremost, the formatting on this digital galley was absolutely atrocious. To the point where I couldn't even read it on my eReader, atrocious. There were a few pages a story section that I could read but then the pages would double up and snap to microscopic print that I couldn't enlarge. I tried reading it but I ended up giving myself a migraine. So I ended up tethered to a computer to read this one and had the stories been bad, I would have dropped it like a bad habit. Not only did this take me longer to read but, as I said, I was tied to a computer to read it and since I don't have a laptop, it was a major inconvenience. But I kept reading it because I really liked what I was reading.

So putting the formatting issue aside, I really did like these stories. Trust. For how put out I was reading SUPERNATURAL NOIR, I would have stopped REALLY quickly if I didn't like it. Even if I somewhat liked it, I would have stopped because the format was an issue. But I didn't. I kept reading. Had I had this book in a normal print version, I would have flown through it, I liked it that much.

And now I'm back to reviewing an anthology of stories; an issue for me as I stated in my review of FEAR last week. Well, with SUPERNATURAL NOIR, each story was distinct enough to showcase the uniqueness of each author but at the same time all of their themes blended together seamlessly, each complementing the last as the book went on. Datlow did an amazing job of compiling such similar yet vastly different stories into one book.

What you have to understand with noir is that it's a bit over the top. Normally it's not really my thing but seeing as this was of the supernatural variety, I wanted to see what it was all about. And I really liked it. Yes, some of the stories read a bit like DICK TRACEY meets SUPERNATURAL but all of the stories had personality and I certainly can't deny them that. They stood out against the rest of the "normal" supernatural stories out there because of that noir effect, and I think it made them all the better.

My favorites were 'The Getaway' by Paul G. Tremblay (about a guy driving with a semi-prostitute that ends up at an inn, stalked by wooden gnomes), 'Comfortable in Her Skin' by Lee Thomas (about two women escaping battered pasts only to be sucked into a whole new world thanks to a wayward wolf hide) and 'The Maltese Unicorn' by Caitlin R. Kiernan (about a post-WWII female detective working for the wrong side trying to make a run for a crazy whore house owner). There's just this overwhelming grit to all of them that will leave you a little uncomfortable when you're done. I like it when my stories do that. It means they've actually moved me.

I wouldn't say the stories are inherently scary but there is some level of horror aspect to all of them (although the one with the gnomes was pretty freaky). The noir is more underlying, existing more in the personalities of the characters than in the overall story itself so if you're not big on it, you'll still probably get a kick out of them anyway as they're not dripping in it. But they definitely should be read for the supernatural aspect. They're different kinds of horror stories, playing into all manner of horror, not just your standard spooks. For that I can greatly appreciate what SUPERNATURAL NOIR has to offer, as would any genuine horror fan. It's a deviation from all of the other regular horror out there and will certainly leave a lasting impression even after you close the cover.

Ban Factor: High - Between the gratuitous sex, swearing and godlessness in the supernatural, the banners would be wetting themselves to get their nasty little claws into this one.

Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror, edited by RL Stine

Published September 2010.

Turn the pages if you dare. . . .In this collection of thirteen fabulously chilling stories--from thirteen true masters of suspense, including five New York Times bestsellers and a number of Edgar Award nominees, all edited by none other than R. L. Stine--nothing is what it seems. From cannibalistic children, to an unwitting date with a vampire, to a crush on a boy who just might be a werewolf, no scary stone is left unturned. A must-have for all fans of the genre! (goodreads.com)

Holy snot monkeys, I LOVE YA horror. The category is sorely lacking in all that is horror. Even if it's more compilations like FEAR, I'll take it. It makes me want to curl myself up in a blanket of nostalgia with a flashlight and read all night.

I always find it a little difficult to review anthologies like this because the writing in each story can vary so widely and quite frankly I don't want to nitpick short stories. So I'll review the book as a whole: phenomenal.

Stine knows his fear so when he rounded up his choices for this book, he hit each nail spot on the head in one single stroke. Each story was mired in creep factor but not all of them were your traditional horror stories, which I liked. As much as I love my classic horror, variety is always good. So while you have the creepy family living in the even creepier old Victorian next door, you have an issue with disappearing people on a planet filled with rich people. For each story the creep is distinct and will affect you in 13 different ways, each story with it's own unique bucket of creep.

My favorites were 'Welcome to the Club' by RL Stine (more of a psychological horror that makes you think, nothing paranormal which, I think, makes it scarier, using "normal" humans), 'Dragonfly Eyes' by Alane Ferguson (about a girl's death from her point of view post mortem), and 'Tagger' by James Rollins (about a Chinese girl dipping into her roots to destroy a demon intent on destroying her). Each are miles away from each other in terms of story but the creeper aspect brings them all back together.

If you have a night to yourself and are looking for a good scare with hints of nostalgia, pick up FEAR. It has every kind of horror story sampler you could want all wrapped up in 13 nicely pressed stories. The writing in each of them stands out as fantastic and each is written in such a way that it allows the horror to settled at the top, letting it be as spooky as it can be. I love it.

Ban Factor: High - I think horror gets an automatic high usually because it's dealing with something supernatural, usually has some kind of sex factor, swearing, and lots of killing. Banner heart attack central.