I’m not mad…

… I’m just disappointed. Okay, that’s not true, I’m a little mad. The book offerings this year have been extremely meh. I already have eight DNFs and those of you who know me know that I do not DNF lightly. I used to not DNF at all but then I turned forty and well… life is short, read decent books and all. But as an author, I’ve read as much as seventy-five percent of a book before putting it down to give a fellow scribe every chance in the world. This year, I’ve DNFed for much more petty reasons like using the same word six times in the first two pages because I have less time, because the world is on fire and I read to get away, and. because what in the nine hells, every word has at least one synonym.

That said, if I review something, you can consider it a ringing endorsement. I have four for you this week. Let’s get into it.

(March 10)

A magical hotel runs out of gas and gets stuck on Earth. It finds what it needs in a single mom and her adorable, inquisitive son. So does its manager, a retired Paladin.

Different? Weird? Misunderstood? Good. You belong here. In my house, weird has always been a superlative and woe betide anyone who uses it to denigrate or insult. The Wayside Hotel is another such place, not the mere, Tardis-like transport it’s intended to be but, rather, a home for those who aren’t like everyone else and, quite frankly, have no desire to be. Why would anyway want to be part of the school when there are coral reefs to explore and octopodes to investigate and you can have wizard days with snowball fights and cocoa? Well, the metaphor fell apart but you get the idea and yes, I said wizard days, you’ll just have to read the book.

In a world where it’s become the norm to mold your face and forget that color exists, just… don’t. Sometimes, rebellion means not changing anything at all. Continuing to be your weird, whacky, kind self when everyone else wants to follow the rules and conform. It means finding your tribe and loving them hard and planting a garden. They’re worth the fight. And so are you.

March 10

This is the second vampire novel I’ve read set primarily in Amsterdam this year and I’m really digging the alternative settings. Translocation is neat and also, sliding the mythos over a few countries gives the author an opportunity to stretch where as Transylvania, Paris, and London are a little played out where our creatures of the night are concerned.

The Fox and the Devil adds and additional spin in that it brings in folklore from Greece, Lesbos specifically, which added a depth and breadth to the story I wasn’t anticipating but which I thoroughly enjoyed and which has definitely sparked a interest in my digging out my Penguin Book of the Undead (if I can find it in my human-height stack of research tomes).

White’s book didn’t only grab me with an extended vampire mythos, however, but also with its expansion of the Van Helsing story, including: what it would have been like to grow up with the great Abraham as a father, what it would have been like to discover he was only a man, and how utterly devastating it would have been to try to follow in his footsteps. It is a tale of obsession, devotion, realization, and love, of that second, most important step into adulthood, and, most importantly perhaps, of finding one’s place in the world when one finds out that the place we believed we needed to be is taken away through no fault of our own. It is about letting go of the past and embracing what makes one truly happy which is, perhaps, the most important quest of all.

Why are conservatives so afraid of color?

Because it undermines what they believe to be the pure. The epitome of absolutism. Literal white supremacy.

While the explanation is, of course, more nuanced, the principal isn’t. Black and white are untainted. Color is “primitive.” It is “disruptive.” It “conceals.” And who knows what it might be hiding.

So before you decide the mid-century revival with its gray-avocado and creams is it, before you decide that maybe Cloud Dancer isn’t so bad, I urge you to flip through Chromophobia because Batchelor wants you to know that controlling color is only the first step in a larger goal of controlling you. And no, this isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a color theory and a political theory and a social theory. One you really need to be aware of.

This is the first book this year I’ve been able to simply sit and enjoy.

It is a book of oddities and strange snippets, scenes and short stories. Some are linked by the concept of imaginary anthropology while others stand alone. In many, Goss is revealing lost parts of herself (say thank you) while in others, lost parts of characters we’ve met briefly or from a man’s perspective - the Bride of Frankenstein, for example, and Mina Harker - or would have liked to have met - the many mad scientists of literatures’ daughters, the empresses of countries imagined into being and their American husbands, Beautiful Boys. But in all of these tales we are privileged to enter fantastical worlds I have no idea how Goss thought up let alone spun out and I feel very lucky to have been in all of them.

The variety of characters - all of whom I felt for no matter how long I knew them - and settings would have been enough, and the gamut of genres is impressive, but Goss also works with every tone from tragic to hilariously funny, which always impresses me in a short story collection, especially one that fits together as well as this one does. I only skipped one story, entirely due to my personal attention span at the moment, and skimmed one other; the rest were devoured in full, which is a testament to any single author anthology from me and, I think, would be from many other readers as well.

This is a weird book in the very best way and I plan on recommending it to everyone.