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Vampire Stories by Women: “Rampling Gate,” “Miss Massingberd”

December 30, 2011 in Book, Short stories by Emera | No comments

Reviewer: Emera
Date read: 12.25.2011
Read from: Vampire Stories by Women, ed. by Stephen Jones (2001)

Inevitable disclaimer: I was obsessed with the first three books of the Vampire Chronicles (and Rice’s two historical-fiction novels) in high school; haven’t read her since then. Also, this summary/review is spoilery.

“The Master of Rampling Gate” (1984), Rice’s only vampire short story, reads like an adolescent vampire’s dreams of an adolescent girl’s dreams of him (Twilight inverted?) – it’s a sentimental Gothic confection spun mostly of lissome sensuality and wish-fulfillment. Rice’s prose flows creamily (I use that word because I can’t help but remember Anthony Blanche’s indictment of Charles’ jungle paintings in Brideshead Revisited: “It was charm again, my dear, simple, creamy English charm, playing tigers…”), but there’s troublingly little depth to it. Maybe she was taking a break from the unrelenting moral horror that the VC protagonists wrangle with?

Young, idly wealthy Julie and Richard arrive in the country estate of Rampling Gate, having been commanded by their late father to tear it down “stone by stone,” but instead find themselves seduced by its quiet luxury and meditative, timeless solitude. A few gasps and midnight encounters later, Julie learns that the true master of Rampling is a mopy, beautiful vampire who dates to the Middle Ages and likes reading her fiction. (It must be true love!)

There’s a horrifying flashback to the plague years to explain why Rampling Gate, and the vampire, must remain – they serve as monument to the plague-devastated village that once stood there – but the story reverts so quickly to the couple’s delighted honeymoon-planning that the plague episode ends up reading as an ornament to the tragedy of the eternally lonely vampire, rather than a reflection on human misery and the awfulness of history.

The whole thing is especially creepy because Rice keeps on insisting that the chief attribute of both Julie and the vampire is their innocence, even when he’s lovingly showing her visions of them feasting together upon ladies in red-wallpapered bordellos – because she has to become his vampire mistress, natch. Hooray for eternally prolonged adolescence!

—–

Tina Rath’s “Miss Massingberd and the Vampire” (1986) is a crisply written, very Britishly humorous little story. As in the other story that I’ve read of Rath’s, “A Trick of the Dark” (review in this post), the vampire offers sensual escape from a buttoned-up life, here that of a schoolmistress whose evening encounter in a churchyard tweaks her life slightly out of the polite course of things. It’s a story that, like Miss Massingberd, seems to be smiling to itself.

Go to:
Stephen Jones: bio and works reviewed
Anne Rice: bio and works reviewed
Tina Rath: bio and works reviewed

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Bone Vol. 1, by Jeff Smith (1993) E

November 26, 2011 in Book, Graphic novels & comics by Emera | 2 comments

Reviewer: Emera
Date read: 11.23.11
Book from: Personal collection

Bone: Out from BonevilleBone, Volume 1: Out From Boneville

“After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins – trusty Fone Bone, grasping Phoney Bone, and obliviously cheerful Smiley Bone – are separated and lost in a vast, uncharted desert. One by one, they find their way into a deep, forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. Eventually, the cousins are reunited at a farmstead run by tough, cow-racing Gran’ma Ben and her spirited granddaughter, Thorn. But little do the Bones know, there are dark forces conspiring against them and their adventures are only just beginning…”

Late to the bandwagon as usual! I’d wanted to read the ever-popular Bone saga for years, and was lucky enough to find a slightly battered copy for half-off while comic-shopping recently. The first volume instantly brought me back to reading Asterix comics on the couch in second grade: Smith’s old-school art is fluidly expressive and filled with gentle slapstick and visual gags. (A recurring one: whenever he’s overcome by his crush on Thorn, Fone Bone’s mouth crumples up into a scribbled line, and he litters the area with trails of pink hearts.) It’s just comforting to read, sweet, funny, and expertly paced – a good old-fashioned adventure to enjoy on a sunny afternoon.

While I don’t feel too driven by the storyline yet (seems like war with the carrion-eating rat creatures lies ahead), I do love the oddness of the world: the way the seasons arrive with comically accelerated timing in the valley, talking katydid Ted and his giant cousin, the introduction of comics and paper currency (the latter with less success) to the valley inhabitants by the Bones. What exactly is the relationship between the valley and the external world, and what, really, are the Bones? I’m eager to see what comes along, especially if it involves more Gran’ma Ben thonking rat creatures.

And my favorite sequence of art: the evolution of Thorn’s facial expressions and hand gestures on this page (click for a close-up of the whole page).

Go to:
Jeff Smith: bio and works reviewed

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“The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall,” by John Kendrick Bangs (1894) E

November 7, 2011 in Book, Short stories by Emera | No comments

Reviewer: Emera
Date read: 11.4.11
Story from: Read it online here

“… The owners of Harrowby Hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight, but without avail. They had tried stopping the clock, so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight; but she made her appearance just the same, with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers, and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated.”

“The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” (1894) is one of the most hilariously prim ghost stories you’ll ever read, a sort of ghost story of manners:

“You are a witty man for your years,” said the ghost.

“Well, my humor is drier than yours ever will be,” returned the master.

“No doubt. I’m never dry. I am the Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, and dryness is a quality entirely beyond my wildest hope.”

It also makes itself an easy target for feminist readings – the ghost, a “sudden incursion of aqueous femininity” (!), repeatedly intrudes on the Harrowby masters’ cozy quarters with her indiscriminately sloshy woes… (Aligns well with Chinese ghost traditions, too – tsk tsk, so wet, not enough masculine principle.)

The twist introduced in the last paragraph ends the otherwise trifling story on a surprisingly sinister note. It’s a troubling moment that drags the faintly misogynistic tone of the story’s proceedings to the foreground, and leaves them hanging there for your consideration.

This version of the story online includes some charming illustrations, but lacks the final paragraph, without which the story is far less interesting.

Go to:
John Kendrick Bangs: bio and works reviewed

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Sorcery and Cecelia, by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (1988) E

October 26, 2011 in Book, Novels by Emera | 3 comments

Date read: 10.25.11
Book from: Borrowed from a friend
Reviewer: Emera

“… or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: being the correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality regarding various Magical Scandals in London and the Country.

Dear Reader,
A great deal is happening in London this Season. To begin with, there’s the wizard who tried to poison Kate at the Royal College – she must have mistaken Kate for the Mysterious Marquis (which is curious, as they look nothing alike). There’s also the man who seems to be spying on Cecelia, though he’s not doing a very good job of it – so just what are his intentions?
Then there’s the strange spell that has made our friend Dorothea the toast of the town. Could it possibly have something to do with the charm-bag under Oliver’s bed? (Speaking of Oliver, how long can we make excuses for him? Ever since he was turned into a tree, he hasn’t bothered to tell anyone where he is.)
Clearly, magic is a deadly and dangerous business. And we might be in fear for our lives . . .  if only we weren’t having so much fun!
Love, Cecy and Kate”

A mightily charming epistolary romp through magical Regency England, and a long overdue read for me. Sorcery and Cecelia is fast-paced and stuffed full of clever gambits, sardonic conversation, and plenty of historical slang and detail to please period buffs – the girls spend as much time outwitting fussy aunts and navigating delicate social constraints as they do uncovering wizardly misdeeds. Also, there are jokes about Byron.

My one disappointment is that the book doesn’t make much room for character development beyond what’s necessary to move the plot along. Between that and the lack of detailed physical description I had trouble telling the girls, and their respective love interests, apart – everyone is witty, quirky, and dark-haired. I must also confess to fantasy-nerdly hankering for more detail about the magical system and the greater role of wizards (they seem to have curiously little influence on society) – but seeing as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell also exists, I can hardly complain that that itch has gone unscratched.

In any case, S & C is a great divertissement: playful and vivid, with a lovable (if homogeneous) cast. Common sense says I shouldn’t (too much work to do these days!), but I’m already scheming about finding the sequel…

Go to:
Patricia C. Wrede: bio and works reviewed
Caroline Stevermer: bio and works reviewed
The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia C. Wrede, review by Kakaner
Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, review by Emera
Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede, review by Emera

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Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1985) E

March 19, 2011 in Book, Novels by Emera | 3 comments

Date read: 3.5.11
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

Words from the master (and by master, I mean Cimorene):

“Being upset is no excuse. If you’re going to be rude, do it for a reason and get something from it.”

I was down for the count with a stomach virus two weekends ago, which seemed an excellent excuse to loll around in bed with Talking to Dragons. I have nothing in the way of intelligent commentary, except to say that this series never stops being as clever and sharp and all-around awesome as I remembered it being. The combination in this book of Daystar being a hyperpolite semi-wuss (saved from true wussiness by his sensibleness and competence) and Shiara being as rude as possible to everyone they meet is particularly winning. Also, I didn’t at all remember that happening between Morwen and Telemain, so that ended up being a very pleasant surprise.

Cover-flap summary:

Daystar has never seen his mother, Cimorene, actually perform magic. Nor has he ever known her to enter the Enchanted Forest in all the years they have lived on its edge. That is not until a wizard shows up at their cottage shortly after Daystar’s sixteenth birthday. Much to Daystar’s surprise, Cimorene melts the unsavory fellow. And the following day, she comes out of the Enchanted Forest carrying a sword. With that and little else, she sends him off into adventure. Daystar doesn’t know why he’s tromping through the Forest fighting wizards and monsters, but others seem to know. Accompanied by a quick-tempered firewitch, Daystar stumbles upon a number of characters from his mother’s past: Morwen the witch, Telemain the magician, and Kazul the king of dragons.

Go to:
Patricia C. Wrede: bio and works reviewed
Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1990) E

Daystar has never seen his mother, Cimorene, actually perform magic. Nor has he ever known her to enter the Enchanted Forest in all the years they have lived on its edge. That is not until a wizard shows up at their cottage shortly after Daystar’s sixteenth birthday. Much to Daystar’s surprise, Cimorene melts the unsavory fellow. And the following day, she comes out of the Enchanted Forest carrying a sword. With that and little else, she sends him off into adventure.

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The Bell at Sealey Head, by Patricia A. McKillip (2008) E

January 2, 2011 in Book, Novels by Emera | 2 comments

Date read: 12.30.10
Book from: Public library
Reviewer: Emera

The Bell at Sealey Head

The Bell at Sealey Head contains the most outright sexual passage I can recall reading in any of Patricia McKillip’s work. Tellingly, it’s also a tongue-in-cheek commentary on bibliomania:

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more. Judd knew that about himself: just the sight of Ridley Dow’s books unpacked and stacked in corners, on the desk and dresser, made him discontent and greedy. Here he was; there they were. Why were he and they not together somewhere private, they falling gently open under his fingers, he exploring their mysteries, they luring him, enthralling him, captivating him with every turn of phrase, every revealing page?”

A-hem.

McKillip was possibly my most protracted love affair during my high school reading. Though I’ve grown away from her work a bit since then (particularly since I wasn’t much taken with her last two novels), reading The Bell at Sealey Head was a pleasant return. It’s a bit like Georgette Heyer meets Ombria in Shadow. Much of the novel concerns itself with gentle comedy and small dramas of courtship, set in the titular seaside town “at the edge of the known world.” But the underlying mystery that drives the plot concerns a ghostly bell that rings at sundown, and a strange world of knights and ritual occasionally glimpsed through the doors of a decaying manor.

McKillip occasionally writes overwhelmingly large, hectic casts, but here the slow pace and loose plot give the characters room to breathe. I found most of them endearing, if not all terribly memorable as individuals. There’s a book-obsessed innkeeper’s son (Judd); a merchant’s daughter being courted by a cloddish squire, but who would much rather write novels; an itinerant scholar with a keen interest in the history of the phantom bell; a maid who has befriended the princess who lives in the manor’s past; and so on.

As in The Tower at Stony Wood, there’s a strong feminist thematic, with a particularly pointed attack being made on the conventions of the courtly romance: the princess is made to constantly fulfill fractured, meaningless rituals in service of the faceless knights who ride in and out of the castle, with the expectation of eventually being married off to one of them purely for the purposes of bearing another child to carry out the rituals. (Spoiler: We eventually learn that she has literally been imprisoned in images out of a storybook.) Several of the other female characters are quietly rebellious, and seek self-determination or otherwise subvert social expectations. One of the most interesting, though least-seen characters is a woman of wealth who is forced to conceal her intelligence and private desires by perfecting a mask of exquisite boredom and frivolity.

All in all, a sweet, thoughtful, and frequently witty read. Not as urgent or eerie as my favorites of McKillip’s works, but as usual, it’s full of memorable, otherworldly imagery, rich and occasionally glinting with menace. It also has some awesome lifestyle inspiration, in the form of an herbalist who runs around barefoot and lives in a book-filled, garden-surrounded house built in and around a hollow tree trunk. Excuse me while I radiate envy/aspiration…

—

P.S. Happy 2011, all!

Go to:
Patricia A. McKillip: bio and works reviewed

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Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1990) E

November 21, 2010 in Book, Novels by Emera | 5 comments

Date read: 6.8.10; umpteenth re-read
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

book dealingwithdragonsI feel like I shouldn’t need to introduce this book or this series. If you’ve never read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, what have you been doing with your life? Before Catherine, Called Birdy, before Ella Enchanted, before Robin McKinley’s heroines, Cimorene rocked my life. A princess who really just wants to fence, learn Latin, and be a dragon’s librarian/cook/mystery-solver? Sign me up, please. Add in Morwen, an acerbic, ginger-haired, hypercompetent witch with spectacles, bottomless sleeves, and a house full of attitudinal cats, and you have two pinnacles of no-nonsense badassery. In this first installment (actually published second, as the fourth book, chronologically, was the first written), Cimorene runs away from home and, thanks to the advice of a talking frog, promptly becomes the princess of a dragon named Kazul. While occupying her days with cooking, cataloguing, and fending off meddling wizards and persistent knights bent on her rescue, Cimorene uncovers a plot that threatens the dragon kingdom, and sets out to unravel it with the help of her new friends.

For the past few years I’ve been hunting down, very much out of order, the original hardback editions of the series, with Trina Schart Hyman’s cover illustrations (see above). When I finally got Dealing With Dragons, I couldn’t resist an immediate re-read, and luckily, the humor, energy, and inguenuity of Wrede’s writing hold up just as well with later reads. Though it’s clear to me now how utilitarian much of her writing is (e.g. “here I will insert a scene of Cimorene giving Kazul a bath so I have an excuse to make them talk about dragon history for a chapter”), and how often the plot relies on convenient coincidences to move it along, the characters are still utterly winning, and the world full of marvelous, clever detail. The book can be summed up, really, as delightful.

I was also struck this time around by my realization of how extremely polite Cimorene is, at the same time that she’s entirely intolerant of fluff and indecision – I had remembered how sarcastic she is, but not how carefully and strategically sheathed she keeps that sarcasm. Tears of admiration were wiped!

Go to:
Patricia C. Wrede: bio and works reviewed
Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1985) E

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Un Lun Dun, by China Miéville (2007) E

July 20, 2010 in Book, Novels by Emera | 1 comment

Date read: 7.17.10
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

What is Un Lun Dun? It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up… and some of its people, too – including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose head is an enormous pin-cushion; and an empty milk carton called Curdle. Un Lun Dun is a place where words are alive, a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets, and a dark cloud dreams of burning the world. It is a city awaiting its hero, whose coming was prophesied long ago, set down for all time in the pages of a talking book.

When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.

Un Lun Dun is basically Neil Gaiman‘s Neverwhere meets The Phantom Tollbooth, and owes debts – some playfully acknowledged in the text itself – to many other classics of children’s and fantasy literature, including A Wrinkle in Time and, of course, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s a cleverly crafted and delightful book: Miéville lets loose yet again with his famously phantasmagorical imagination, filling out his alternate London with topsy-turvy architecture (houses constructed of obsolete technology, a ghost town whose buildings constantly flicker through various historical incarnations, a web-cocooned “Webminster Abbey”), a lovingly detailed bestiary, and a vast arsenal of puns (some of my favorites: UnLondon’s sister cities include Parisn’t and Lost Angeles).  All of these are complemented by Miéville’s appropriately inky, energetic illustrations. For fans of his adult fiction, there are also plenty of touches of eerie, deeply unsettling dark fantasy, some of which could have come straight out the New Crobuzon books – I couldn’t help feeling that the Black Windows of Webminster Abbey might be lesser cousins of Bas-Lag’s Weavers. With his usual anti-authoritarianism, Miéville also takes a good amount of pleasure in dismantling and inverting the tropes of the fantasy quest, so that we get a very unintended heroine who quite literally refuses to go by the rules of the (talking) book.

For all its delights, though, Un Lun Dun somehow failed to really surprise and engage me. It felt a bit like a themepark ride: there’s plenty to see, but it all goes by rather quickly, and you’re not sure how much it really meant to you at the end of it all. The characters are all likable enough, including the quick-thinking, occasionally snarky heroine, but few are really memorable enough to be lovable, and I had about the same feeling about the book as a whole. Its pleasures lie more in its ingenuity and dazzling wordplay than in any real emotional connection. I also had a little difficulty with the writing style, which is heavy on short, bluntly declarative sentences. And though I appreciated the plot’s pro-environmental, pro-literacy bent, the messages were shoehorned in a little awkwardly and obviously.

So, like Kakaner, I’m going to have to make a conditional recommendation for this one: try it out if you’re a big Miéville fan, are looking for pure entertainment, or have a younger reader of strong constitution to share it with. I would have loved this so much more had I read it when I was about twelve – too much younger and I think certain scenes might have kept me from sleeping at night, though I would have read them with relish anyway.

Go to:
China Miéville
Un Lun Dun, by China Miéville (2007) K

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Changes, by Jim Butcher (2010) E

July 6, 2010 in Book, Novels by Emera | No comments

Date read: 6.13.10
Book from: Library
Reviewer: Emera

Ah, with the beginning of every summer comes the shutting-off of my brain for approximately 24 hours, as I devour the newest installment of my beloved narcotic of choice, Jim Butcher‘s Dresden Files series. Changes, as the twelfth book and approximate halfway point of the series (…I am simultaneously disturbed and awed to realize that I have, in fact, read all twelve), is, well, a game-changer. Butcher, who’s already infamous for his gleeful sadism towards his characters, ups the stakes tenfold in this book, and packs it with even more explosions, evil twists, and shocking revelations than usual.

On the first page of the book and in one stupendously awful phone call, Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, finds out from ex-girlfriend Susan Rodriguez that not only do they have a daughter whom he was never told about, but that she’s been captured by the vampires of the Red Court. Behind the kidnapping is Duchess Arianna Ortega, who’s out for revenge for Harry’s role in the death of her husband. With the wizards’ White Council both unwilling and unable to help him, Harry has few allies at his side and little time to accomplish a seemingly impossible rescue. Harry finds himself forced to weigh his love for his daughter against his principles, and may have to go further than ever before in sacrificing his beliefs for the sake of power.

Multitudinous OMGWUT moments aside, I actually didn’t enjoy Changes as much as most of the preceding books. Butcher is so heavy-handed in writing emotional distress that I was irritated pretty much as soon as I heard the novel’s premise and realized that Harry’s emotional state for most of the book would be Righteous Fury of Wrath and Righteousness. I love Harry as a protagonist, and generally find the improbable extent to which he holds to his principles endearing and actually pretty admirable, but reading Harry in continual high dudgeon for close to 500 pages just gets excruciatingly repetitive, even with my brain mostly turned off.

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“Brief Candle,” by Jason K. Chapman (2009) E

February 22, 2010 in Book, Short stories by Emera | 3 comments

Date read: 11.15.09
Read from: Clarkesworld #38
Reviewer: Emera

Jason Chapman’s “Brief Candle” is a clever, winning tale of an unpreposessing sanitation robot onboard an imperiled ship. In a sort of AI-fueled homage to Flowers for Algernon (down to the name of the protagonist), the robot finds himself taking on much more responsibility than, literally, he could have ever imagined. It’s a breezily entertaining story, with a quick, crisp narrative that revels in the meticulously imagined details that it unfolds.

Some of the humor was a bit too cute and obvious to work for me, and by the same token, the efficacy of the ending may depend on your willingness to have your heartstrings tugged; I felt a little resistant to the overt emotional appeal, but possibly I’m just being curmudgeonly. After all, I do tend to smile whenever I think of this story – it’s hard to be a grump about something so warm and fun.

Go to:
Jason K. Chapman

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