Yuletide Recs: Don't Need to Know Source
This is a special selection of stories which can be read without knowledge of the source, or at least without more than passing knowledge.
Songs for the Jingwei Bird. A Chinese fantasy consisting of nested stories which cleverly fit together, full of magical details and absolutely gorgeously written: a perfect little gem of a story. There are beautiful images which are integral to the story. It doesn’t require any previous familiarity with the source, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
by Pu Songling.
Cum Mortuin In Lingua Mortua. An intense, moving short story in which Siegfried Sassoon encounters the ghost of Wilfred Owen, who may or may not exist only in Sassoon’s own imagination. It’s based on the characters as seen in Pat Barker’s (brilliant, highly recommended) WWI novel Regeneration
, but all you really need to know is that Owen and Sassoon were friends and poets who met while recuperating from shell shock during WWI. Owen was killed one week before the war ended.
This Puzzle, the New World. A numinous and quietly funny fantasy set in a vivid Washington, DC. Based on Sean Stewart’s Mockingbird
, but you don’t need to have read that to enjoy this. It just takes the premise that magic is slowly seeping back into the world.
Lebenswerk. A novelette based on the film Sunset Boulevard. It tells the history of actress Norma Desmond and director Max von Mayerling in nine films, all illustrated with black and white images of the actors who played them, Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim; their stories are based on the true stories of the real actress and director. An impeccably researched, extremely well-written tale of old Hollywood, psychologically acute and often darkly funny. Look for cameos by real and fictional characters.
If you enjoy these or other stories, please consider leaving a comment. There has been very little commenting compared to Yuletides of previous years.
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1094520.html. Comment here or there.
Songs for the Jingwei Bird. A Chinese fantasy consisting of nested stories which cleverly fit together, full of magical details and absolutely gorgeously written: a perfect little gem of a story. There are beautiful images which are integral to the story. It doesn’t require any previous familiarity with the source, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
by Pu Songling.
Cum Mortuin In Lingua Mortua. An intense, moving short story in which Siegfried Sassoon encounters the ghost of Wilfred Owen, who may or may not exist only in Sassoon’s own imagination. It’s based on the characters as seen in Pat Barker’s (brilliant, highly recommended) WWI novel Regeneration
, but all you really need to know is that Owen and Sassoon were friends and poets who met while recuperating from shell shock during WWI. Owen was killed one week before the war ended.
This Puzzle, the New World. A numinous and quietly funny fantasy set in a vivid Washington, DC. Based on Sean Stewart’s Mockingbird
, but you don’t need to have read that to enjoy this. It just takes the premise that magic is slowly seeping back into the world.
Lebenswerk. A novelette based on the film Sunset Boulevard. It tells the history of actress Norma Desmond and director Max von Mayerling in nine films, all illustrated with black and white images of the actors who played them, Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim; their stories are based on the true stories of the real actress and director. An impeccably researched, extremely well-written tale of old Hollywood, psychologically acute and often darkly funny. Look for cameos by real and fictional characters.
If you enjoy these or other stories, please consider leaving a comment. There has been very little commenting compared to Yuletides of previous years.
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1094520.html. Comment here or there.