Shelfari

Angela Slatter's Sourdough and Other Stories

By Jeff VanderMeer

    

Electronic books may indeed be the future for publishers, but there's also a thriving trade in exquisitely-made physical books from independent presses. One such publisher is Tartarus Press, which creates books-as-artifacts that last and that accrue in value. One of their latest releases, Sourdough and Other Stories by Australian writer Angela Slatter, is also an example of how specialty presses provide an important outlet for great story collections. Slatter's created dark folk tales that have a vibrant and three-dimensional inner life. From the dust jacket: "In the cathedral-city of Lodellan and its uneasy hinterland, babies are fashioned from bread, dolls are given souls and wishes granted may be soon regretted. There are ghosts who dream, men whose wings have been clipped and trolls who long for something other. Love, loss and life are elegantly dissected in Slatter's earthy yet poetic prose."

Here's a short excerpt from my afterword to the collection...

You could call what she's created her "take" on folktales, but I think that's too limiting. She's not just riffing off of what's gone before but creating something new that's less stylized and more three-dimensional. The opener, "The Shadow Tree," is a glorious and complex start to staking out her own territory, with its examination of the deliberate and thoughtless cruelty of those with unlimited privilege. But Slatter's narrator isn't there to relay a story so much as to be her own true self"”someone in exile, in a difficult situation, using every advantage at her disposal. The queen and the sociopathic kids aren't out of your normal fairy tale scenario, either. They have a freshness and a specificity that carries weight without being weighty. This means that the narrative can accomplish more than lesser efforts that start out with the stale crumbs of "Once upon a time."

In short, these characters exist somewhere on the edges of our real world. They aren't just echoes of echoes passed down through oral storytelling"”they've popped out of the tapestry on the wall and into our lives. Slatter's narratives stay true to this fact by being firmly wedded to the concerns of the people in them.

As exciting for the reader is the level of invention, especially devilish invention. Slatter writes that gallowberries taste "without exception, of rotting flesh and spent seed"”their garden lies at a crossroads, under the gallows...The lives of such men shudder to a halt, their last breath and last pleasure simultaneous." What a wonderful/horrible line in the best possible sense!

But description without completion is meaningless, and the completion is as much of a joy as biting down on the flesh of a less ghoulish fruit: "She popped one of the gallowberries she habitually carried about in her pockets into her mouth. As she moved forward, she mouthed a word or two, bit down hard and blinked out of existence." Voila! For me, that's a blissful fictional moment.

Oprah's Next Pick?: Tao Lin Plays Franzen

By Tom

Forgive me for what must seem like my 10th straight Franzen post, but the well keeps providing. In this case, it's my friends at the Stranger, our local weekly with, among other things, consistently the bestcovers in the wholeworld. And this week's, pictured to the right, is a gem. I have yet to acquire a taste for Tao Lin's mirror-world of self-promotion and 'net-era banality (though I've been told by folks I trust--and who have shared my past skepticism--that his new novel, Richard Yates, is actually pretty compelling), but there is something vertiginous and human about looking at him looking slightly off to the side as he fills Franzen's Great American Novelist silhouette with a discomforted pride nearly equal to that of the original.

Continue on to his profile inside the paper (written, of course, by himself), and you'll descend further into that mirror world. What begins, and often returns to, a nearly word-for-word parody of the Franzen Time piece also veers off into what I assume is typical Lin material, which reads like an endless bewildered and self-sotted status update. There are a few layers of jokes going on here, but though I'm fond of anyone working in the vast shadow of Timese parody cast by Wolcott Gibbs in 1936 it's too late at night for me to try to sort them out (Thought Catalog took a stab at it, but Gawker doesn't even seem to realize that there is a joke involved...). But what I liked best, and what got under my skin most--aside from those averted eyes!--was the lost and distractedly manic sense of Lin's self-portrait juxtaposed with Franzen's already famous superglue sealing off of himself from the busyness of the world. Lin, for better or worse, vividly shows why Franzen would do that, and why you might be glad he did. --Tom

Omni Daily News

By Lynette Mong

Obama's Wars Leaked: Prior to next week's release, the New York Times obtained an embargoed copy of Bob Woodward's Obama Wars: "The book.... depicts an administration deeply torn over the war in Afghanistan even as the president agreed to triple troop levels there amid suspicion that he was being boxed in by the military. Mr. Obama's top White House adviser on Afghanistan and his special envoy for the region are described as believing the strategy will not work."

"The day you've dreamed of--and dreaded--has arrived.":Jon Stewart talks up Earth (sort of) during last night's Daily Show--and today, it's taken the top slot on our Bestsellers list.

National Book Festival: If you happen to be in the D.C. area this weekend, head to the National Mall and check out the 10th Annual National Book Festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress.

Moving and Shaking:NPR's Fresh Air feature on David Rakoff sends Half Empty--a collection of essays on "the value of pessimism"--climbing up our Movers & Shakers list this morning. (You can also check out Tom's interview with Rakoff on coping strategies, American optimism, and... doughnuts).

News Flash! Angry Robot Invades North America with Infernal Devices

By Jeff VanderMeer

 
(Amazing covers for Angry Robot by master designer John Coulthart.)

I've been watching from afar as Angry Robot has published some great fiction in the British Commonwealth. Now, the Angry Robot imprint is invading North America, and I'm delighted to be among the first to welcome them to our shores--as well as provide an exclusive showcase for two amazing covers by John Coulthart for their 2011 reprints of K.W. Jeter's classic novels.

How does Angry Robot's publisher, Marc Gascoigne, describe the imprint? "It's post-YA," for those of the Twilight and Harry Potter generation ready to graduate to more grown-up fare. An impressive eighteen new titles will be released in the U.S. between now and November. We'll be turnign the spotlight on several of them in the months to come, but for now, here's a quick look at the first six...

  
(A sighting of Angry Robot books in the wild. Reports that a friendly, helpful robot appears any time a reader possesses six or more Angry Robot titles cannot be confirmed...) 

Triumff by Dan Abnett--The acclaimed author imagines a world where the Elizabethan age never ended. Alchemy and Magick flourished during the Renaissance, thus negating Europe's Industrial Revolution. "A ribald, rollicking adventure in the tradition of Flashman...The concept is clever and creative, and magic, treason, and Spanish grandees make for an entertaining read." - Publishers Weekly

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes--An astonishing near-future SF debut reminiscent of Neal Stephenson that hinges on a techno-corporate conspiracy of epic proportions. "Moxyland does lots of things, masterfully, that lots of sf never even guesses that it could be doing." - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer

Winter Song by Colin Harvey--Wrapped in the trappings of traditional hard science fiction, this engrossing novel features rich characters with heart and personality, along with an epic scope. "Harvey paints a grimly convincing portrait of a subsistence existence on the inhospitable world. [The] novel depicts a fascinating universe of want and plenitude, to which he will hopefully return." - Eric Brown, The Guardian

Kell's Legend by Andy Remic--The Quentin Tarantino of fantasy takes the heroic fantasy of genre darlings R.A. Salvatore and the late David Gemmell to the sick, twisted heights of extreme gamers. The action never stops and the blood freely flows, with no excuses given. "His staccato prose is punchy and he delivers in the action stakes" - Alasdair Morton, SciFi Now Magazine

Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon--This first novel re-imagines the faerie genre in the context of a modern London, with an unwitting everyman getting caught-up in a shadow world  to save his daughter from an ominous power. "Mike Shevdon strikes sparks from the flinty core of English folklore, as a hero every reader can relate to finds he's part of an incredible and scarily believable parallel realm. If you've been thinking urban fantasy has nothing fresh to offer, think again." - Juliet E. McKenna

Slights by Kaaron Warren--The award-winning Warren has penned a tale of a young woman who, after a near death experience, finds herself in a room full of the spirits she's maligned during her lifetime. Her curiosity over whether others experience the same thing when they pass leads to a horrific quest. "In the sickening blur of Stevie's narrative, what 'really' happens is both uncertain and obvious; the details she commands so confidently are infinitely mutable, but the gruesome consequences slowly become apparent. With outstanding control, Warren manipulates Stevie's voice to create a portrait of horror that in no way reads like a first novel." - Publishers Weekly, starred review

On My Door Desk: What I'm Reading This Week

By Lynette Mong

Anyone who visits our offices can attest to the fact that Amazon is filled with book lovers. Books--advance reader copies, finished copies, copies that have been dogearred and stained by errant coffee cups, passed from reader to reader--are everywhere around here: on our bookshelves, our windowsills, lining our cubicles, and stacked high on our door desks. My personal preference is to keep the must-reads on my desk, within easy reach as I head for the bus each evening. So, to give a little well-deserved attention to the books that I am so eager to read, I thought I'd share them with you, Omni readers:

• So Shelly by Ty Roth: Reimagining Byron, Shelley, and Keats as high school students was enough to intrigue the literary geek in me--and Roth certainly doesn't gloss over any of the not-so-politically correct actions of the Romantics in this dark young adult novel.
• Skippy Dies by Paul Murray: One of Anne's favorites this month--and nearly everyone who's read it is raving about it.
• The Informationist by Taylor Stevens: Not out until March, but this thriller had me intrigued by the author's bio alone (and so far, it's living up to its potential).
• The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman: I've heard nothing but good things about the practicality and deliciousness of Bittman's recipes.
• A Scattered Life by Karen McQuestion: This novel has been blowing up on Kindle--and Carolyn Parkhurst (whose The Nobodies Album is also a great read) loved it so much, she reviewed it for us.

--Lynette

Omni Daily News

By Seira Wilson

Bon Appétit, Big Apple:  Bon Appétit magazine announced it is moving from Los Angeles to New York City, but longtime editor Barbara Fairchild has decided not to go along.  Besides editor in chief of the magazine, Fairchild is also the author of The Bon Appétit Cookbook, The Bon Appétit Cookbook: Fast Fresh and Easy, and the forthcoming Bon Appétit Desserts (available November 2).

Remembering Mark Twain: 2010 marks 175 years since the birth of Samuel Clemens and the centennial of his death.  If you are in New York City, don't miss the new exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum, "Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress," which includes among other Twain treasures, four pages of Twain's iconic work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.   If New York City isn't in the cards, opt instead for theAutobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (available November 15), the first of three volumes to be published in accordance with Twain's instructions that his autobiography not be made public until 100 years after his death.

Get Smart: Fans of the Hunger Games trilogy take note--The Daily Beast's Shannon Donnelly offers her pick of "Smart Young Adult Books", ten YA novels that are "every bit as smart, savvy, and morally ambiguous as their adult counterparts". 

Moving and Shaking:  The True Dynamics of Life is topping the Movers & Shakers list this morning, thanks to a 24-hour event on the author's website asking members to purchase the book with a goal of reaching the Amazon bestseller list.

--Seira

Defending Prickliness: Janet Fitch Stands Up for Franzen

By Tom

I don't mean to continually be caught in the swirl of Franzenia, but I was sent a post from last Friday by Janet Fitch that I thought was worth passing on. Having gotten to talk to him last week and see him respond to a room full of varying levels of adoration and skepticism with both humor and skepticism of his own (in part by telling a room full of Amazon employees how much he dislikes the Kindle), I thought Fitch made a compelling defense of his, well, prickliness. She's talking about his appearance in LA, where he was interviewed onstage by Meghan Daum:

I would not have wanted to change places with her. He is a difficult
interviewee"“though I don't think he means to be, he just very clearly
struggles to speak with precision, authenticity and honesty, and is
embarrassed and uncomfortable with anything that would tempt another
writer to cozy up to an audience or be a "good boy" for the
interviewer"“the very trait that caused his Oprah troubles to begin
with.

We are not used to seeing difficult, authentic, often awkwardly
honest writers on the national stage. We expect prominent writers to be
performing seals to a certain degree, dealing with interviews and
audiences with the confidence and aplomb of pitchmen selling miracle
floorwaxes at the County Fair. So to see someone struggling to be
honest and authentic, rather than charming and appealing, is a lot like
catching an appearance of Hailey's Comet.

I would extend that by saying that we either expect our prominent writers to be performing seals or charismatic recluses like Pynchon, Salinger, or, nearly, Denis Johnson. Or, if they are going to confront us awkwardly, at least do it with the counterculture brio of a Mailer or Hunter S. Thompson. But Franzen is both polite and awkward, wanting to be accepted and not wanting to say what would make it easier for us to do so, and I think that's part of why he ends up being such a lightning rod. He's as uncomfortable playing the bad boy as he is the good boy.

Read on (including the celebration of thesauri)--it's a great post that, among other things, made me want to read more by Janet Fitch. --Tom

Old Media Monday: Reviewing the Reviewers

By Lynette Mong

New York Times:

• Aimee Bender on Room by Emma Donoghue: "Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations. Jack's voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel: in him, she has invented a child narrator who is one of the most engaging in years "” his voice so pervasive I could hear him chatting away during the day when I wasn't reading the book. Donoghue rearranges language to evoke the sweetness of a child's learning without making him coy or overly darling; Jack is lovable simply because he is lovable."
• Julie Myerson on Sourland: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates: "Oates has written about the grief and shock of her first husband's death in 2008, so it's not surprising that loss and bereavement are dominant among the collection's themes. But don't expect a widow's resignation. Don't expect timidity. This book is angry and tough and deeply, viscerally unsettling, not least because Oates seems determined to explore the idea that the bereaved wife is a kind of guilty party, a victim who in some way deserves everything (and it's usually a violent 'everything') that comes her way."
• Holly Morris on The Wave by Susan Casey: "The relationship Casey builds between investigating big waves nautically and scientifically "” and riding them "” feels at times like a marriage of convenience: not entirely sympatico, but by and large the partners hold their own. Casey is fluent in 'gnarly' and proficient in 'wonk,' and she writes lucidly so the rest of us can come along for the ride."
• Steven Strogatz on Proofiness by Charles Seife: "Seife, a veteran science writer who teaches journalism at New York University, examines the many ways that people fudge with numbers, sometimes just to sell more moisturizer but also to ruin our economy, rig our elections, convict the innocent and undercount the needy. Many of his stories would be darkly funny if they weren't so infuriating."

Washington Post:

• Connie Schultz on Big Girls Don't Cry by Rebecca Traister: "By the middle of Chapter 2, Traister's book felt increasingly like the minutes of the Mean Girls Club -- and a waste of this 53-year-old woman's time. But with age comes patience. Good thing, too. I ended up admiring Traister and loving her book. In its best parts, it is a raw and brave memoir of a journalist who discovered that all is not well for women in America, and a description of how she and other young women are laying claim to their rightful place in the fight."
• Eugene Rogan on The Balfour Declaration by Jonathan Schneer: "British historian Jonathan Schneer has produced a remarkable book on this complex and divisive subject. His 'Balfour Declaration' is engagingly written, adding to our knowledge of this frequently told story without ever taking sides."
• Charles Kaiser on American Dreams by H.W. Brands: "Brands does a passable job of summarizing the facts behind major political events, but when it comes to social and cultural change, he never has anything interesting to say. The author avoids controversy so assiduously that his book sometimes reads as if its main purpose were to win acceptance by the Texas Board of Education, which decides what facts are appropriate for high school history books."

Los Angeles Times:

• Wendy Smith on Yellow Dirt by Judy Pasternak: "Studded with vivid character sketches and evocative descriptions of the American landscape, journalist Judy Pasternak's scarifying account of uranium mining's disastrous consequences often reads like a novel "” though you will wish that the bad guys got punished as effectively as they do in commercial fiction."
• David L. Ulin on Zero History by William Gibson: "In the end, this leaves 'Zero History' oddly unfulfilling, like a facsimile or a knockoff in which the material that once felt so fresh has come to be a little worn. Gibson may have had to improvise a new kind of science-fiction novel in the wake of 9/11, but the cultural implosion that the tragedy set in motion is now the substance of daily life."

The Globe and Mail:

• Lynn Coady on The Death of Donna Whalen by Michael Winter (amazon.ca only): "The adjective I would have chosen previously to describe Winter's style is 'expansive.' Here, however, he has produced a novel that feels in some ways like moving through a tunnel "“ narrow, focused, deliberate while at the same time gloomy in the literal and figurative senses of the word. The deeper you go into 'The Death of Donna Whalen,' as one character's divergent, often self-contradictory perspective is layered on top of another's, the more obscured your vision becomes."
• Matt Kavanagh on Zero History: "A standout thriller and vital introduction to Gibson's trademark style, 'Zero History' also bears the burden of a final volume in a trilogy: tying up loose ends and bringing the overall narrative to satisfying close."

The Guardian:

• Blake Morrison on Freedom by Jonathan Franzen: "All the characters in 'Freedom' have periods "“ long periods "“ of being on their own, and try to embrace the isolation... But people need their chains "“ of work, marriage, family. The subtext of 'Freedom' is something Franzen himself learned while blocked and depressed in the 1990s "“ that anyone suffering from 'an overwhelming estrangement from humanity' needs to get out more. Other people might be hell, but loneliness is worse."
• Jacqueline Rose on To the End of the Land by David Grossman: "'To the End of the Land' is without question one of the most powerful and moving novels I have read. But we do the novel, and Grossman, no favours if we turn it into a sacred object, beyond critical scrutiny and outside the reach of the history to which it so complexly and sometimes disturbingly relates."

Exquisite Treasure: Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month

By Jeff VanderMeer

Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month ranks among 2010's most exquisite and overlooked treasures. This beautifully illustrated volume of short fictions and poems by El-Mohtar takes as its inspiration the author's tasting of 28 different kinds of honey, one per day. Each tasting leads to a different literary creation, but she begins each entry by describing the honey in terms that will be familiar to wine connoiseurs.

Take, for example, "Day 3--Sag Harbor, NY, Early Spring Honey," which has a color "pale and clear as snowmelt" and the smell "cool sugar crystals," but also brings to mind "a stingless jellyfish I once held in my hand in Oman." The taste? "...like the end of winter...[when] you can still see clumps of snow on the ground and the air is heavy with damp but it all smells so good...the trees are black and fragrant though they've barely begun to bud."

As for the prose, "Day Five--Cranberry Creamed Honey," with its dark amber color, sharpness, and tartness serves as the jumping off point for a character study that begins with a similar intensity:

There is fire in his wrists, fire in his sharp-shod walk, fire beneath his fingernails. He is red, redder than rowan berries, for rowan doesn't bleed as cranberries do, and it is cranberries that he gathers, that he stews and crushes, cranberries in which he steeps his skin. Lacking a Mithrasian bull, he takes them, bathes them, rinses his hair red-black, seeking transcendence.

The differences between the types of honey allow El-Mohtar to move back and forth between the poetic and the more casually contemporary, with the experiment of the tasting enough to provide a unifying structure. For example, "Day 7--Thistle Honey," with its "pale clear gold" color, "light" taste with "a tiny bit of green apple," and taste that is both crisp and mellow at the same time inspires a vignette about the narrator's encounters with a (possibly magical) woman named Scraggle in contemporary Cornwall.

The poetry is similarly diverse in tone and approach, from "Zambian Honey" with tight lines like "You do not know me, little one/with your wings thin as sky/buzzing like rain" to "Peach Creamed Honey" with its more expansive style: "And I know she'll let me tell her how the peaches lost their way/how they fell out of a wagon on a sweaty summer's day,/how the buzz got all around that there was sugar to be had,/and the bees came singing, and the bees came glad."

To top it all off, Oliver Hunter's finely rendered color illustrations make encountering such rich, heady prose even more delightful. A lovely introduction by Danielle Sucher, whose honey provided the inspiration, is also unexpectedly moving.

The book's a slim 73 pages for a reason: like the honey described, any more and it would be too rich for most readers. As it stands, however, The Honey Month is the perfect length, and the perfect gift for the Omnivoracious reader: a hidden treasure that deserves your consideration. Highly recommended.

        

 

Talk Like a Pirate Day: It's ARRR Not ARRRGH, Whether You're Unsinkable, Looking for a Pirate Guide for First Graders, or Just Two Pirate Brothers Meeting a Mermaid...

By Jeff VanderMeer

That's right--it's "Arrrrrrrr!" on Talk Like a Pirate Day, not "Argggggh!" If you've been saying "Arggggh!" all of these years, it's more likely you've been prepping to watch Lucy pull the football away from Charlie Brown. For more tips and information, assuming you like pirates and don't despise them for their vile crimes against humanity, you should probably check out the Talk Like a Pirate official site. (They also have a book out.)

As you can see from this map I've pirated off of that site, not only is Antarctica bigger than the other continents and about to devour us all, but Talk Like a Pirate Day parties are rapidly becoming an international phenomenon.

   
  
And here's some booty I've pirated this year to help myself and others better understand Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you're new not just to pirates but life, you could do worse than pick up A Pirate's Guide to First Grade. (If you're reading this and in the first grade, please get off the intertubes right now and go raid a treehouse or something. No, wait. Raid a groundhouse. Climbing into a treehouse could be dangerous, and you're not really a pirate...yet.)

     

According to Pirates Weekly, I mean Publishers Weekly, "this story follows a boy and his entourage of ethereal salty dogs through the first day of school. "Me great scurvy dog slurped me kisser when I was tryin' t' get me winks!" The protagonist's fruitful imagination turns ordinary routine into a high-seas adventure complete with a small, skirted buccaneer walking the plank during recess. In the end, where does X mark the spot? Treasure abounds in the library, with the chance to experience the adventure of the written word. The illustrations have a vintage feel, complete with boisterous grog-drinking, scabbard-waving, and bubble-pipe-smoking pirates."

But what if you're not in first grade? Where can you get your piratical fix today while you're terrorizing your neighbors by stealing their gold coins and rigging their yard-arms? You should probably graduate to The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier, a wonderful graphic novel published by the always swashbuckling First Second publishers. Indeed, when I asked the publisher's first mate, Gina Gagliano, to comment, she said, *&#^*@@#%$!!! Bilge rat! Lubber! Grog!" before tossing me overboard. (If you don't believe pirates will like this, check out this photo.)

    

Still need convincing? Hooklist, erm, I mean Booklist, wrote in a starred review: "The excitement centers around a cursed skull stolen from the lair of two deep-sea crustacean witches. Like all who look upon the skull, Walker's beloved Grandpa falls deathly ill when he finds it, and the boy sets out to return the skull from whence it came. In two of the more impressively clever feats, the inventive lad turns a pirate ship into a proto-all-terrain vehicle and uses an enormous blank canvas to recreate the night sky...this comic really is just about everything you want from a rip-roaring adventure: exciting, deep, funny, and scary, with tremendous villains and valor galore."

But if that's not your style, and you're one of those hip, modern pirates you'll want to try one of two books: Terese Svobova's new novel Pirate Talk or Mermalade, cunningly released just a few days ago, or dive into Fast Ships, Black Sails, the pirate fiction anthology edited by me and my pirate wife, Ann, that features original stories by Garth Nix, Michael Moorcock, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Carrie Vaughn, and more.

       

What's Pirate Talk about? Pirates Weekly writes, "Told entirely through dialogue, this quirky tale of period pirate wannabes makes a jeu d'esprit of the privateer life even as it baldly de-romanticizes it. Its protagonists, two unnamed brothers (one of whom might not be male), put out to sea from their Nantucket home in 1718 bedazzled by fantasies of gold doubloons and buccaneer booty...Svoboda (The Ask) plays these travails mostly for laughs, presenting them as ongoing pratfalls in the brothers' klutzy comedy of errors."

So, there you have it--a full gamut of piratical choices before you walk the plank into Monday's hectic workday. (Coming into work with a sword is not recommended.)

I'll leave you with this image: your faithful correspondent as Steampunk pirate, from a portrait created by Krista Brennan for the forthcoming Steampunk Bible...apparently, I have a winged cat. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!