Tag Archives: books

Super Speculative Fiction: The Twice-Sold Soul and Red Side Story

13 Nov

The Twice-Sold Soul
by Katie Hallahan
McKenna Ellerbeck is on the run since an epic magical battle occurred a decade ago. Currently she is hiding out in France when she attacked by hellhounds. Luckily she is saved by her ex, the shapeshifting Archdemon of Desire, Remi. Unluckily for McKenna, Remi has decided to call in a favor and demands McKenna come back to her hometown and stay at the hotel owned by another ex’s family, a hotel which just so happens to be hosting McKenna’s 10 year high school reunion. This is Hallahan’s first novel, but she has been involved in the creation of narrative fantasy games which is reflected in the fast pace and well-crafting of the story. Hallahan has created charming, diverse characters and an interesting world filled with magic. This feels like the reunion special of Buffy or Vampire Diaries, the what comes after high school. I think this novel will especially appeal to those who enjoy New Adult Fiction. If you are sad about the recent end of Lana Harper’s Witches of Thistle Grove series, than this will be one to check out. I loved all the twists and turns the plot took and the fact that the motivations and true identity of many of the characters is often not what it first appears. I hope we see more from Hallahan in the future and am looking forward to the sequel. If you are heading home for Thanksgiving this would be a great read on a long plane ride.


Red Side Story
by Jasper FForde
Red Side Story is the long awaited sequel to Fforde’s novel Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron. Fforde’s novels are always highly original and quirky whether it is imagining a world where you can enter books like in his Thursday Next Series or a world filled with anthropomorphic rabbits like in The Constant Rabbit. Shades of Grey takes place in a dystopian future where humans can only see certain colors; which colors they see gives them different levels of status with the greys on the bottom having the lowest status. Marriages are encouraged to create children with better color vision and discouraged to avoid those on the opposite ends of the color wheel. Color shown to people also has effect on everything from ovulation to the dreaded mildew which is deadly. This novel picks up from the last story and I would definitely recommend reading the previous novel first both due to spoilers and for a better understanding of the world. This novel focuses primarily on Eddie Russet (a red), Jane (born a Grey), and Violet (a purple). Jane and Violet were childhood friends, but Violet now looks down on Jane as being lesser. She has tricked Eddie into marriage in order that her child be able to see the redder spectrum of the color purple which she is weak on seeing more the blue end of the color. Eddie though is in love with Jane. Several adventures play out over the course of the novel that have them exploring the world. The ending felt a bit abrupt to me, but gave sufficient closure whether this is last of the series or if there is another long wait before the next edition.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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Imitation and Reinvention: Mad Hatters and March Hares and Kill the Farm Boy

12 Sep

Sometimes an author’s world and the words they wrote resonate so deeply that they live beyond the works themselves; there are many retellings of Alice in Wonderland and there are some especially terrific interpretations in the new collection edited by Ellen Datlow.  At other times authors may be inspired not by what stories in the past contained, but what the story leaves out. This is the case for the thoroughly modern fantasy Kill the Farm Boy by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson which seeks to reinvent the genre with a modern sensibility.

Mad Hatters and March Hares: All New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland
edited by Ellen Datlow
MadHattersandMarchHares
Mad Hatters and March Hares is a collection of stories based on not only characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and it’s sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, but many also involve the book and the real people associated with stories like Alice Lidell since the tale of the writing of the books often seems as intriguing to readers and authors as the story itself. The story “Worrity, Worrity” by Andy Duncan takes a surrealistic look at why John Tenniel might have dissuaded Carroll from featuring a certain illustration.  Like the nonsense rhyme that filled originals, the collection begins and ends with two poems, the first of which “Gentle Alice” by Kris Dikeman is in the shape of a teacup reflecting the concrete poetry Carroll used in his own work.  Two of my favorite fantasy authors Catherynne M. Valente and Seanan McGuire have excellent stories included;  McGuire’s “Sentence Like a Saturday” was my favorite of the collection and looks at what happens when a certain Kitty enters the “real” world.  I found it interesting that on the whole the stories were dark fantasy and some in the horror genre reflecting the menace that can be seen just below the surface in the original with characters like the threatening Red Queen and Jabberwocky.  You can read about more Alice in Wonderland related books and movies in a previous blog post.

Kill The Farm Boy: The Tales Of Pell
by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson
KilltheFarmBoy
This novel, according to an authors’ note, started as a conversation between Hearne and Dawson in an airport about the need to “kill the farm boy” which they feel represents the cliche of the white young male who lives in a rural area and finds out he is the “chosen one” and goes on to be the center of many adventures. White males can be pretty awesome and many deserve hero status, my dad, husband, and son are all examples of that, but there is definitely room especially in the fantasy realm for more diversity.  This novel made me think of many fantasy novels I’ve read especially the Once and Future King with its interpretation of the Arthur legend.  The novel starts out with the typical farm boy, but he meets an unfortunate accident that keeps him unable to continue his quest and instead the main story focuses on a variety of adventurers including a dark skinned female warrior and her newly met romantic interest a bard who is herself under a spell so that she has rabbit like features.  There were some bits where Kill the Farm Boy had me laughing out loud and it was very original with some of the directions that it took the adventurers in while skewing dated cliches of typical fantasy novels of the past as well as our contemporary society.  The novel manages to be more than just a parody and I hope the fun and original characters of Pell have many more adventures in store for readers.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Head of Reference

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