Tag: Short fiction

Categories
Fiction Horror Paranormal

Novella Review: Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar

A lucky find in a charity shop yesterday finally led me to read Gwendy’s Button Box. Yesterday? Yes! I sat down and read it in a few hours as it’s a fairly short novella with brief chapters and lots of great illustrations.

Let’s quickly take a look at the book and I’ll share my thoughts

Bookish Quick Facts

  • Title: Gwendy’s Button Box
  • Series: Gwendy Button Box trilogy, #1
  • Authors: Stephen King & Richard Chizmar
  • Illustrated: Keith Minnion
  • Published: 2017
  • Length: 171 Pages
  • Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ for an evening of great storytelling

Here’s the Synopsis

The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told… until now.

There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.

At the top of the stairs, Gwendy catches her breath and listens to the shouts of the kids on the playground. From a bit farther away comes the chink of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball as the Senior League kids practice for the Labor Day charity game.

One day, a stranger calls to Gwendy: “Hey, girl. Come on over here for a bit. We ought to palaver, you and me.” On a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat like for a suit, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat…

From Am*zon

My Thoughts

I’ve heard before that King got stuck on this in short story form and reached out to Chizmar to see if they couldn’t come to some kind of conclusion together. Other than the ending, I couldn’t tell that it was co written at all.

I’ve also read that it feels too stretchy for a short story but it covers too much ground to be anything other than a novella, which feels like the perfect length for the story. There are short scenes from ten years of Gwendy’s life and the authors pack so much into those years !

As soon as you hear “palaver”, you know this fits somewhere into the lore of The Dark Tower. When the man in black offers a 12 year old girl a box with buttons and levers, she takes it and learns all about fate, rewards, consequences, and secrets. Is it a take on Pandora’s Box? Maybe. Is it linked to the destinies of this world and Those Beyond? For sure.

I like Gwendy’s character too. She is a responsible young lady and King brings all the pinnacle experiences in a teenagers life onto the page. Definitely with a hint of supernatural overtone but she tries to be as normal as possible.

My only gripe is the ending. My personal issue is that you have this .*big climactic terrible thing* that happens and Gwendy seems to walk away from the event and off to college without a lot of emotional damage or other suffering. I mean ok 🤷‍♀️ And no spoilers but if anyone is familiar with King’s semi constant villain with the initials of RF – it’s a pretty soft ending for him. I feel Chizmar’s hand in there but I might be wrong

Overall, Gwendy’s Button Box is a fast paced novella that is great for spending a few hours absorbed in something that’s hard to put down, and there are great illustrations by Keith Minnion

Categories
General Posts, Non Reviews

Top Ten Tuesday: A Few Things You Can Read Fairly Quickly

I think today’s prompt is novellas under 150 pages or something you can read in one day, but there are plenty of things that you could read quickly. What about a short story here and there? Or a novella collection? Or an episode of Grimdark Magazine? Let’s look at ten things I’ve read recently that can be broken up into a daily chunk 😅

P.S. As always I will always comment back on anything that’s an actual list and I love to follow back other bloggers!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together

https://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/
  1. The Boddicker Letters by A.C. Cross. This is a quick spiral into madness in the form of letters. The chapters are short and I could have easily read this in one evening
The Boddicker Letters by A.C. Cross, white cursive lettering is floating towards the reader from a green aurora type background
Two vague and hazy brown faces, facing each other in a circle in side profile with Uneasy Beginnings in the same color brown underneath, black background

2. Anything from the Black Shuck Shadows collection is extremely short and fun to flip through. Featuring indie authors of horror and suspense, you can sample someone you haven’t read before

3. The Cosmic Comedy Collection is full of laughs. It’s fairly short and you could read it in one day, or read 1-2 short stories at a time

4. A short story or novella collection by Stephen King such as The Bazaar of Bad Dreams or If it Bleeds. King is known for his longer books obviously but he is a tremendously talented short story and novella writer as well and there’s a lot to choose from.

5. Ray Bradbury is another author with a huge short story and novella repertoire to choose from. You could read a few stories at a time or binge something like From the Dust Returned, although I like to take my time with it

6. I don’t remember exactly how long The Massive Planet is but I binged the audiobook during one drive and I think the average reader could experience the novella in one day too. Jeff Walker has a few shorter sci-fi adventures

7. May Sarton has a ton of short and sweet novellas from back before Cozy was it’s own genre. I loved The Poet and the Donkey, or for something heavier, As We Are Now is a great read

8. One of my favorite short reads from last year, it packs no surprises but I couldn’t rip my eyes off I’m Sorry About Tommy by Andre Pretty. It’s a 2-3 hour to read horror novella

9. Any of Lisa Schneidau’s books of folk tales are very short and easy to get through in one day, or take the short tales 1-2 at a time when you have a break

10. Shoot me for this one but as stuuuupid as Kiera Cass and The Selection books are – it’s kind of stupidly addicting like The Bachelor and I definitely can read one these books in one afternoon 😅

Ok Go, tell me what short reads you like!

Categories
Fiction Horror Paranormal

Uneasy Beginnings by Simon Kurt & Benjamin Kurt Unsworth

Two vague and hazy brown faces, facing each other in a circle in side profile with Uneasy Beginnings in the same color brown underneath, black background

I met these two authors while at a convention in the UK, and if anyone knows me y’all know that I’ll buy just about anything to support young authors. They were nice enough to sign the book for me too and here I am finally getting around to reading it.

Black Shuck Shadows is a UK publication of collected horror shorts featuring various authors. I’ve seen a few copies in the USA so I do believe it’s relevant, if not just a good way to feature different authors without a huge monetary or time commitment.

Anyway, seven stories are featured here. Dad, Simon, “edited” the collection and chose four of his old stories and three of his son, Ben’s. The thing is – he doesn’t tell us who wrote what. Three of the stories focus on kidnap and torture, and two don’t really have a beginning or ending, and I am going to assume those are Ben’s since they are less polished and more weird. The ones with clearer beginnings and endings I think are Simon’s.

He did a pretty decent job proofreading and editing but if it were me, even if it was terrible, I’d be holding the kid out by the scruff of his shirt collar like “HEY I MADE THIS AND HE WROTE THIS”. I don’t know if I’d make readers guess who did what, but it was fun food for thought.

I will, like I said, assume though that the stories with beginnings and endings belong to the adult. Some of the stories are pretty good, while some are just weird. I think the first is the best, titled “Button”, and it kind of goes up and down from there. There is other kind of horror than torture and I think Simon is the one writing about skin suits and ghastly medical suites, where Ben is doing the random unexplained torture chambers.

That said – Keep writing kid, everyone starts somewhere and I think that each story had high points for sure. I’d read more from them as their craft develops for sure, and they both seemed nice enough.

Bookish Quick Facts:

  • Title: Uneasy Beginnings
  • Authors: Simon Kurt & Benjamin Kurt Unsworth
  • Published: Black Shuck Books, 2020
  • Length: 114 pages
  • Recommend: for short fiction, horror fans & those supporting young writers!
Categories
Fantasy Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction

The Avram Davidson Treasury: Final Stories & Final Thoughts

*Breathes* is it over? Did I finish? Yes I did!

I’ve written on the prior sections of the Treasury in earlier posts, and now will sum up my thoughts on the final two sections and the collection in general.  Before starting, I noted that for an author that is rarely if ever circulated now despite his massive early  influence, it’s interesting to look at all the awards that he won or was nominated for.

http://www.sfadb.com/Avram_Davidson

How many authors win awards all across the mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy genres?  The entire Treasury itself also won and was nominated multiple times. Naples won a world fantasy award.  Davidson is like a shadow, an influential and widely acclaimed author that everyone seemed to love but now hardly anyone knows or talks about anymore. 

General thoughts

As far as The Seventies and newer stories, I largely liked Davidson’s older works much more than the newer ones. I have been reading through the collection slowly to avoid burn out but so much of the later stories just went straight over my head. Should I have DNF’d? Idk, I wanted to sample the works across the years.  I can’t say why the last bunch were my least favorites other than that I just tended to not understand them, or be bored by the long and winding trails from point A to point Avram.

I’ve been reading the collection since the end of January and definitely struggled at times, but feel like I learned a lot about genre history, general history, many odd facts, and about myself and my own reading habits where I love eclectic & brilliant minds but struggle to keep up sometimes.  If an author gives the editors hell and is considered Out There, I will gravitate towards it. (Y’all remember the Bukowski kick I went on recently)? That said, I can also admit when an author is just far, far too smart for me.

In the afterward, Ray Bradbury (my favorite short fiction writer, sorry Avram) agrees and stresses that reading one or two stories a night depending on the length is the best and only way to consume a book like this.  I also would stress that Davidson’s style starts ‘in a fog’ (Bradbury) and then slowly reveals itself, often times making us wait until the last paragraph or even the last sentence to get “the point” of the story. And oh, you’d better have been able to follow Davidson’s train of thought along the way too 😅. That’s where he lost me towards the end.

I’m not sad. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading these. I tried. If you want to try too, go for it. I think this is a great collection to get some highlights of his work and related words from other authors. I think Davidson has some great classic stories that deserve to stay in circulation today, but there’s always going to be a lot of ‘other’ to wade through.

The 70’s

IMG_20230329_102603796

From my final batch of stories, I’d like to nod to my favorites: essentially everything from the 70’s I loved except Manatee Gal, Wont You Come Out Tonight. Crazy Old Lady is sad and Selectra Six-Ten is hilarious. Obviously Polly Charms has much attention as well.

The 80’s & 90’s

IMG_20230329_102609052_HDR

This final batch just did not connect with me. The Slovo Stove was probably my favorite because if nothing else, I thought the running joke and legitimate but impossible interest in obscure customs was hilarious. As a group these went over my head

Final thoughts

The last thing I’ll do is share an article I found by Henry Wessels

He wrote one thing that I feel wholeheartedly and have mentioned before while reading some of these stories, which is that reading Davidson just makes me feel like my reading is lacking in so many ways.  So many great authors and great  stories are mentioned that I’ve never even heard of. It makes me feel inadequate 😅 I hope Wessels won’t care that I linked to his article, it’s something I do when frankly someone just says something more eloquently than I can!

Anyway, these are my thoughts and I hope you’ll check out my other writing on Avram Davidson as I’ve made my way through this wild, difficult, wonderful book!

Categories
Biographies, Memoirs, Nonfiction Fiction

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski (thoughts)

The reprint cover of Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Tiny snail assholes” and the savior’s balls, Bukowski had me at hello

One of the many things I’ve been trying to do over the past few years is expand my reading horizons.  I’ve got a fantastic reading list of international writers, past and present, who are brilliant and not necessarily all well known… and then I also just want to read off my shelves.

I compromised by ending 2022 with Notes of a Dirty Old Man, a collection of newspaper stories by Charles Bukowski. Funny enough it was originally compiled by an erotica loving imprint called Essex House, and is now published by beat generation enthusiasts & San Fran publishing gurus, City Lights Publishing.

Ahh I love all the history there, the web of ties between the publishers and beat generation writers, the crazy lifestyles, just something the average person can’t fathom. Bukowski was never to my knowledge grouped with that lot but he was tied up with the same publishers, knew the authors, and he had opinions 😅

About the collection itself, I found the eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction a little jarring.  I’m spoiled and used to sections and titles in short story collections now, so we know how it’s organized, but this seems like total hodgepodge or possibly chronological by publication date. I‘m not really sure why it was compiled at all (way back in 1969) unless Essex House (who published a lot of erotica) was looking for the vastest spread of sex stories possible.  Now I know that’s a vast  oversimplification but most of the stories are true, or have true elements! Some are pure fantasy (like a guy with wings playing baseball) while many others happened to some extent, and almost all include some kind of graphic sex (I’m not going there to describe it).

A few stories were sad to me, such as a vivid recounting of how years of beatings and other abuse turns someone into a living but kind of mostly dead person.  It’s an extremely personal look at his life. Alcohol, homelessness, bouncing around various places to live and taking menial jobs, abusive relationships that went both ways, these are the real life parts. Probably/hopefully exaggerated a bit but who really knows, people are crazy.

What’s interesting too is just objectively seeing what he chose to write about once he knew the editor gave precisely zero fucks and let him write whatever he wanted! Remember, everything in the book appeared in an underground newspaper.

That said, back to my note about finding the stories sad: most of the collection is pretty funny.  Bukowski said, at one point or another, that he put the comedy into his writing so that people wouldn’t pity him – and the ironic thing is that it attracted quite a few odd admirers, many of which he writes about. Some of the writing went right over my head and I had no idea what he was talking about. Some got a chuckle. Something about tiny snail assholes had me cracking up, like yeah if you eat something whole you’re eating it’s asshole too 🤣

Of the many columns and blurbs here, there is one about a party and the time Bukowski met Neal Cassady. He took a crazy car ride with Neal driving and John Bryan (who published Cassady’s letter to Kerouac in City Lights (and gave Bukowski the platform in his Open City paper to write the segments contained in Notes of a Dirty Old Man).  

P.S. John Bryan and Jesus’ balls, literally.  What a strange and irreverent road to publishing and more than a bit refreshing in today’s PC era to go back and read these old guys writing *what-the-fck-ever*.

I totally sidetracked there. Anyway, in that particular segment about meeting Cassady and his suicide, there’s quite a dig that shows how Bukowski really felt 😅

Screenshot_20221227-222510~2

Jack had only written the book, he wasn’t Neal’s mother, just his destructor, deliberate or otherwise 

Oyy ok let’s get this wrapping up, I’m rambling which means I had a lot of thoughts and didn’t know how to frame them. A little bit less gay bar action would have been nice for me personally but I don’t think anyone delicate or easily offended would read Bukowski past his introduction. I’m not worried about discussing the writing here. It’s irreverent in every sense of the world and the title is aptly named. I actually started listening to this book on audio because Will Patton’s voice is everything, but without actual chapter breaks it was too hard to follow.

Overall, I think Bukowski is an interesting character in American literature and I enjoy his short stories in small doses.  He’s a decent tie in for those interested in the beat generation and those looking for irreverence in everything.  Barfly (the movie he wrote about his life) wasn’t bad, I watched it after reading, but then I read that he didn’t like his actor’s portrayal.  I guess the takeaway is that you can see a lot of the stories in the film too. Anyway, give him a shot if you are checking out American short story writers

P.s. if anyone wants sources for anything I was writing about, I can find them for you for further reading. Most of the nonfiction type info is general knowledge or came vaguely summarized from a publisher’s information, or something else Bukowski wrote

Categories
audiobooks Horror Science Fiction

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft (Story Thoughts)

I was wide awake around 3am last night and looking for something to read on my phone that was short and GrimDarkTober appropriate. Hummm.  Not that I don’t have an entire library on my phone, but I started thinking about Poe which eventually led me to At the Mountains of Madness via the Project Gutenberg website. Originally published in three parts in 1936 in Astounding Stories magazine, this is one of the first chronological stories featuring certain Lovecraftian entities.  I guess it’s also in line with my sort of consistent sci-fi on Saturday posts too.

Here’s a little synopsis from GoodReads:

Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish vision, H.P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition’s uncanny discoveries –and their encounter with an untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization–is a milestone of macabre literature

Can’t go wrong with a little cosmic horror, right?  Well, this one was a mixed bag for me.  On one hand, I wish the novella had been a 15 page short story (it was somewhere around idk 130 pages)?  On the other hand, the weird parts are SO blessedly weird that it’s oddly endearing.

The things I think are important to know about Lovecraft are that 1) he actually was afraid of the cold and didn’t react to it well, and 2) most of his stories are connected in some way.  At the Mountains of Madness is the first of his stories in which The Old Ones are mentioned, plus he’s talking about the Cult of Cthulhu and The Necronomicon, as well as references to other stories.  I’d maybe like to re read some of the stories in order but man, ugh.

So… Ok.  It’s a great concept.  One disastrous and terrible expedition to Antarctica prompts the survivor to try to dissuade another team from going.  All things considered, the novella managed to put me to sleep because a girl can only take so much geology and archaeology in one story.  It was so slow to get to anything even remotely interesting, which I considered the discovery of the aliens.

Oh, the aliens! They’ve got heads, respiratory systems, tentacles, but they’re obviously vegetables.  They came about 100 million years ago when Antarctica was a jungle (book logic) and obviously couldn’t possibly be a threat.  It was interesting to learn about them (through statues and art because they can draw with tentacles, obviously).  Like I said, blessedly weird. The history of the Elder Ones vs the Shoggoth was probably the high point since to this day, it’s the most bizarre creation story I’ve ever read.  What gives that someone so full of such wild ideas can be such a dull writer?

“It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.”

Well…. Yeah obviously they should be left alone, but for the sake of the story not being three pages long, better dissect it immediately 

Towards the end when we are trying to build suspense, what the actual heck was Lovecraft’s fixation on the stupid penguins? I’m trying to learn about bodies and terror and the big bad guy in the cave, not the stupid penguins.  Also a little architecture is always cool but there was so. Much. Architecture.  Yes I get it, there are arches and cartouches (I know what this means now) in quantity, moving on. More book logic was that since they took four hours to walk into the cave, photographing and drawing everything, it would obviously take them even longer to straight backtrack in a hurry……right? Right!? I’m sorry I just can’t with this.

Unfortunately (or fortunately)? the novella would have been only 20 pages long if Lovecraft didn’t describe every angle of the sun and keep the characters pushing forward despite cosmic horror and certain death. Oh hey, the cave is too dark and obviously something tore these men and dogs apart. Nope.  Too short, have to send them forward.

Not going to lie I wouldn’t have finished it if I didn’t find an audiobook, of which I listened to the last three hours today.  I found a copy narrated by William Roberts by Naxos Audio, which was still honestly boring as hell but it sounded like a radio broadcast and fit the story well.  I would recommend that style in case anyone wants to tune out the truly droll parts.

Overall … I’m like ok, I definitely would stay the hell away from Antarctica if I heard this account.  That was the whole point of the story: the narrator was trying to scare off a future exploration expedition. He did succeed.  I liked it and love weird things, plus certain parts were definitely suspenseful, but it was just too long and repetitive and mostly boring for me to love At the Mountains of Madness.  I’m going with ⭐⭐⭐ but I do think sci-fi and classic fans should read this one!

Categories
Science Fiction

The Alien Stars: and Other Novellas (ARC) by Tim Pratt

Thank you so much to Angry Robot for the early digital copy of The Alien Stars: And Other Novellas! This is AR’s first novella collection, and seeing as I had recently read and enjoyed Doors of Sleep by the same author, I was definitely interested!

Pratt’s Axiom trilogy wrapped up in 2019 and there were a few side characters that he wanted to spend a little more time with, so these novellas (also readable as standalones) are a re entry into that world.

Bookish Facts:

  • Title: The Alien Stars
  • Series: Axiom (can read as standalone)
  • Author: Tim Pratt
  • Publisher & Release: Angry Robot, 4/27/21
  • Length: 237 pg
  • Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 for sci-fi fans!

Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:

In this collection of previously unpublished novellas, Hugo Award-winner Tim Pratt returns to the acclaimed sci-fi universe of his Axiom trilogy.

Each of these three stories takes fans and new readers alike deeper into the rich world of the Axiom than ever before, revisiting the crewmembers of the White Raven as they strike out on new and enthralling adventures.

Delilah Mears joins the crew of the Golden Spider, as its cyborg captain Ashok leads them deep into space to investigate a mysterious cosmic anomaly, leading to an encounter with a truly unusual band of space pirates; AI (and Trans-Neptunian Alliance President) Shall receives a strange summons from a past version of himself to help defeat an existential threat to the entire universe; And intrepid alien truth-teller Lantern journeys home to confront the monsters of her past, and the deepest secrets of her heart (or the closest thing she has in her circulatory system to a heart).

I always find it really hard to talk about novellas, but I enjoyed reading these.  It is definitely not necessary to read the Axiom trilogy, although I wonder if it will provide series spoilers (who lives, who dies, who marries who, etc) to those who decide to read the books. I added them to my TBR; it’s hard not to be drawn into the world of these characters with their dynamic personalities, taste for adventure, and snarky banter.

Each novella has a clear starting point, action filled middle, and clear ending.  A good novella contains an entire story in fewer pages and Pratt definitely did that.

The AI ethics and societal implications were my favorite part. Ashok and Shall are both really interesting characters and explore my favorite sci-fi topic, Robots/AI autonomy! I didn’t like the third story as much as the others because it’s heavily character based, and I just don’t know the characters well enough to care about their background together.  

The space pirates and rebel clone in the first two novellas were great reads though, and the final novella did have some wonderfully clueless aliens going for it.

Totally recommend for fans of sci-fi, banter for days, and short fiction!

About Tim Pratt: (from Amazon)

photo: Tim Pratt from timpratt.org. He may or may not have a beard now 😂

Tim Pratt was born in Goldsboro, NC, and grew up in various places in the American South. He relocated to Northern California in 2001. His fiction has won a Hugo Award, and he’s been a finalist for Sturgeon, Stoker, World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, Scribe, and Nebula Awards, among others. His other books include three short story collections; a volume of poems; contemporary fantasy novels The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl and Briarpatch; gonzo historical The Constantine Affliction under the name T. Aaron Payton; fantasy roleplaying game tie-ins; and, as T.A. Pratt, eight books (and counting) about sorcerer Marla Mason. He occasionally edits anthologies, including the Rags and Bones anthology co-edited with Melissa Marr. He works as a senior editor for Locus magazine, and lives in Berkeley, CA, with his wife Heather and their son River.