Desparately seeking story
It's been ages since I read much fiction. I think it's partly due to no longer having travel time to and from work, but it's also because of a growing despair that good stories are getting harder to find.
I love Of Science and Swords, but their latest catalogue doesn't give me much hope for the state of my bookshelves. Either the store is ( Read more... )
I love Of Science and Swords, but their latest catalogue doesn't give me much hope for the state of my bookshelves. Either the store is ( Read more... )
Loosely-strung-together collection of novels and short stories, set in a shared world, written mainly by USian authors in the 90s. The premise: at some point in the eighties, between the punks and the venture capitalists, Faerie came back. The stories are set in the once-human city that stands where it happened, a place where runaways and rejects from both worlds tend to gravitate. High Tolkenian elves with silver hair don't just mix with sharehousing ratbags who'd be at home in a John Birmingham novel, they tend to be them. There are magic-powered motorbikes cruising down the main street, ghosts in abandoned alleys, and penicillin and healing magic for sale at the local Chinese grocery store. People hold ceildhs in abandoned warehouses with spellboxes running the lighting, and muttering the wrong insult to the wrong scruffy streetkid at the wrong time can get you turned into something really peculiar. I'd start here if I was you, and move on to here and then probably here - something makes me think you'd get on awfully well with the character named Orient.
The Book of Lost Things is oddly reminiscent of C.S. Lewis, does some very interesting things with fairytales and Bettelheimian theory, and comes with its own free explanatory notes in the back.
And finally, if you're willing to branch out to graphic novels, the Hernandez brothers have finally started releasing their back catalogue in collectable (and affordable!) book form.
Of their two separate series, the Palomar stories have always been my favourites, but Love and Rockets is more in the sci-fi, fantasy-influenced side of things. I'd still recommend them both, though.
Also, if you see thekit in the new year, demand to borrow one of his Christmas presents! I'll say no more for now.
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