Instead of Three Wishes...

I became a fan of Megan Whelan Turner's writing from her exquisite series of books, The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia. And I enjoyed the style of Instead of Three Wishes very much, even though it is a collection of fantasy short stories, and I'm not too fond of the short story as a literary form. Yes, I know, I both write and read fanfic, which is usually short stories too, but short stores based on established and specific characters .... It seems to make all the difference.

My favourite of the stories in this book was "Leroy Roachbane", about a black American boy named Leroy who is told to write an essay on his ancestors, and writes a story about Scandinavian missionaries. Sent by his mother to buy some pesticide to deal with the cockroaches in their apartment, Leroy accidentally falls into the dark ages - think Beowulf - and finds himself a hero known as Leroy Roachbane. I loved the way the story was race-blind, and the way it dealt with mythical history.

The title story had an interesting twist. it was set in a town called New Duddleston, which could be anywhere in the English-speaking fairy tale world, but which turns out to be in Ontario. A reference to Ontario Hydro blew its cover, and then the University of Waterloo. The last paragraph blew it by talking about the "Meech Lake Accord" (yes, very Canadian), and then "the French and Indian War", which no Canadian would say. But I'm not sure it's a mistake. Turner might have been thinking that her American readers would have no idea what the "Seven Years War" was.

"The Nightmare" is one of the best stories I've read on the theme of "treat other people the way you want to be treated".

All the stories here were good. None of the stories - not even the one about Leroy - has the panache of the books about Eugenides, but Turner is a darn good writer in any case.

(no subject)

Quoted by shon_rowgan:

"I do find the idea of beautiful men making love erotic...I just perceive sex as an act of worship. The worship of life. Sex is a mysterious thing, and therefore, to me, magical." - Storm Constantine

An odd evening...

Pat had to work late and Sandi, much as she tried for an hour or more, couldn't get my .avi files to work in her computer. In the end, instead of watching the Doctor Who episodes "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday", we watched the first few Confidentials and talked about books. It was actually a rather nice evening, though not what we'd planned at all.