Masked

We know Lou Anders, and we know his style and what he is capable of. So when we picked up MASKED, a superhero story anthology, we already knew we were going to have to reevaluate our appreciation for the genre. Superheroes, to us, have only ever been as interesting as their villains. Villains, in actuality, are the driving force behind the superhero tale. The reasons for this can be boiled down to the fact that the Heroes are almost always reactionary, waiting around for something bad to happen, and the Villains are the ones who have the grand plan or scheme.



It's because of this that neither of us are big comic book gurus, or even fans. Did the two of us, a couple of hard-sells in the genre, enjoy the anthology? You bet your Bat-Mobile!



It's par for course for anthologies that not all the short stories will shine, and MASKED is no exception, there were a few of the 15 that just didn't strike home with us. The majority of them were fantastic though.



To start off, we would like to address the introduction written by Lou Anders. As we read it, we knew that he was taking this project very seriously. It wasn't a joke to him, or the authors involved. Through the intro, and knowing a bit about Lou in the first place, we could really tell he has a passion for the subject matter and wouldn't settle in the compilation of this anthology. He was looking for the best. It's safe to say he largely succeeded. To do so, many of the authors Lou grabbed are comic book writers. They know their stuff, and it shows in the stories they tell. And here are our thoughts on some of them:



The Non-Event - Mike Carey

This is easily one of our favorites. The focus on the "mundane" superheroes/supervillains, and their goals was refreshing. Not every Hero is out to save the world, and not every Villain is out to destroy or rule it, and not every plan goes smoothly. The short story is told as a confession from a villainous lock-pick after a job going awry...which was a neat touch. The part that really hit this story out of the ballpark for us is that in its climax it showcases what it is to be human and how those threads tie us--Villains and Heroes alike--together.



Downfall - Joseph Mallozzi

This entry is quite possibly the shining star in the anthology. In what might seem, at first, to be standard reformed Villain fare, we are given an amazing tale about identity. With plenty of twists and surprises, this story turns its seemingly vanilla-flavored premise into a deep and engaging tale. We were both surprised by the depth we found here and agreed this was easily a contender for the best entry in the anthology.



Cleansed and Set in Gold - Matthew Sturges

One of the darker stories, and (predictably) another of our favorites. It's more difficult to talk about why we liked this story so much without including spoilers. Let's suffice it to say that the theme explored here is sacrifice, and what it truly takes to be heroic. A bonus point to this story is that its exploration of morals asks the question of whether what happens in the story is actually heroic at all. It was a bit surprising that the anthology started off with this story, but it certainly kicked everything off with a bang.



Message from the Bubblegum Factory - Daryl Gregory

If you have been following EBR you know that Daryl is one of those authors that we have only recently discovered and really liked. Upon finding he had an entry in MASKED, excitement to read his take on superheroes is an understatement. In true Daryl Gregory style he takes the tale for a spin. The narrator is insane. Off to a good start here, and it only gets better!



Thug - Gail Simone

A comic book heavyweight delivers the story with the emotional impact of a freight train. At first the writing is distracting, as it is full of misspelled words, bad grammar, punctuation issues, etc. All of this is done on purpose of course, and after the first page or so becomes less of a distraction as the emotional weight of the story starts to get noticed.



Secret Identity - Paul Cornell

The reason we didn't like this story was that it just felt so rough. It was more like a brainstorm session, chalking up the important points in a vague semblance of order, to remember for later. It bounced back and forth, and in the end we were just left shrugging our shoulders with a "Meh!" as we turned the page to the next entry. We will give him credit for an extremely unique idea, and something that could have been very cool had it not been for the presentation. As it is the metaphor we think he was going for here about identities, and hiding yourself, is almost lost in translation.



Vacuum Lad - Stephen Baxter

Is this really a superhero story? By far this is the weakest entry in the anthology. There is a lot of discussion of science, and not much else going on here. While the rest of the authors are reveling in the opportunity to tell a superhero tale, Baxter seems to only have the vaguest sense of willingness to participate.



"Where Their Worm Dieth Not" by James Maxey, "Tonight We Fly" by Ian McDonald, and "By My Works Shall You Know Me" by Mark Chadbourn were all easily worth mentioning as fantastic entries, each bringing a different emotional vibe to it and dealing with various human experiences. They explored death and punishment, remembering the past, and friendship and betrayal respectively.



What you may have noticed from our comments was the common theme of the stories. Heroes or Villains were used to tell a story that goes underneath, or perhaps beyond, the "superhuman", and is strikingly--sometimes hauntingly--human.



This is the greatest strength of MASKED. All the authors brought their A-game to tell us stories that, in the end, strike home so forcefully in their theme and presentation it is impossible not to be impressed by their work, entertained by the stories, or enthusiastic about the genre. The "Redemption Arc" is one of the most typical superhero/supervillain story arcs in the business. For us, MASKED itself was a redemption for the entire genre.



Recommended Age: 18 and up.

Language: Yep, there is cursing.

Violence: Well of course. There is plenty of fighting and gore, but in such short prose there isn't a lot of time to dwell on it, so the descriptions of it come and go quickly.

Sex: It is included in a couple stories, alluded to in others. Nothing to be too terribly concerned about.

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Posted in Anthology , Books We Like , Lou Anders , Short Fiction

Warriors

WARRIORS is an extremely cool idea for an anthology. It is a collection of multiple stories, from various genres, written by some of the biggest names in speculative fiction. Martin, in his preface talks about how he wanted the book to have no specific genre attached to it (though the cover makes it seem as if it is an epic fantasy anthology), and in this sense the anthology succeeds magnificently. There are short stories from genres spanning fantasy, historic fiction, SF, WWII, and even western. Each of them tells a tale of a "warrior" in that particular setting. Martin's thought here is that books should broaden our reading perspective, and WARRIORS specifically should show us something new. In this anthology, there truly is something for everyone, and any reader would be hard-pressed not to enjoy it.

Let's get on with the name-dropping. The anthology was edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, and contains short stories by Tad Williams, Robert Silverberg, Cecelia Holland, Naomi Novik, S. M. Stirling, David Weber, James Rollins (or James Clemens for you fantasy-only readers) and a bajillion others.

With anthologies it is usually the expectation that there will be a few gems, a majority of average stories, and then a few puke-worthy filler pieces. Warriors goes ahead and throws that expectation in your face, with the force of a 733 page book. Yeah, this is a large anthology. Very nearly every story in the collection met our expectations, and entertained us completely. Some noteworthy mentions:

Cecelia Holland continues to write magnificent historic fiction (we have loved her writing since we picked up VARANGER at World Fantasy 09, and then read the rest of her novels). Her short story is gritty, immediate, visceral, and wholly entertaining. What else would you expect from a tale about viking warriors?

Robert Silverberg gives us the most interesting (to Nick anyway) tale. While being slower paced than some of the other entries in the anthology, it is much deeper and much more engrossing. Silverberg's characters are soldiers that have been left out of contact with their superiors for a long time, and who struggle with how long they should continue in their task. The naming syntax used in this short story was also pretty ingenious. It was nothing done new, but it was especially evocative in this specific case.

Carrie Vaughn's story is probably the most thought provoking, and gives us a glimpse into a fairly unknown part of our own history. During WWII there was a group of pilots called WASP, or Women Airforce Service Pilots. The story is powerful, engrossing, and illuminating. Not too shabby from the chick who writes Urban Fantasy.

George R. R. Martin gives us a new Dunk and Egg story. This is where we had our biggest problem with the anthology. It took immense, god-like, control on our parts to not let the name George R. R. Martin color our review of the rest of the anthology. This was not easily done, especially when he not only has a novella included in it but, his name is on the cover as one of the editors. We have both (but Nick especially) begun nurturing the beginnings of resentment and general loss-of-respect for GRRM. It seems like he is doing absolutely everything within his power to do everything he possible can...other than write anything worthwhile in the A Song of Ice and Fire sequence. We have Wild Cards stuff coming, an HBO series, and this anthology (among other works), while we sit and wait for the next ASoIaF novel--a novel which isn't even anything close to bringing to story to a close. Its just the second half of the incomplete 4th book. He has repeatedly stated he doesn't owe his readers anything, but his is false (not to mention absurd). When you write a story, you make a promise to your readers. So...while The Mystery Knight (the novella by GRRM) is well written, as we have come to expect from George, we hated what it represented. Its like being promised a new car for Christmas and getting a Hot Wheels. Yay...

On the other hand--speaking of editors--Gardner Dozois' story delivered and was suitably dark and entertaining for us. Not only that, but it mentions Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Lindsay Lohan, Facebook, and World of Warcraft. Sadly he neglected Elitist Book Reviews. We emailed Dozois about his oversight. The story is extremely bizarre and foreign, but shows just how weird things can get if you are a good writer.

We could go on about all the fantastic stories, because most of them were, but instead we urge you to pick up WARRIORS and see if George R. R. Martin can convert you to his spinner-rack idea. When all is said and done, WARRIORS is the kind of anthology that everyone should be reading. It is the kind of quality anthology that readers have been waiting for. Instead of buying some anthology of beginning writers, most of which won't write anything else of value in their futures, how about you pick up this mammoth 733 page anthology written by proven professionals so you can learn from the best. It is well worth the cover price. This is perhaps one of the best anthologies we have ever read.

Recommended Age: 18 and up
Language: Its a mixed bag. Some stories don't have any. Others (like James Rollins-who wrote a brilliant short story) have quite a bit.
Violence: The title of the anthology is called Warriors...
Sex: There are various depictions of sex, from adultery in the Lawrence Block story, to the Carrie Vaughn story which has sexism is one of the central points.

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Posted in Anthology , Books We Like , Short Fiction

The New Dead

THE NEW DEAD is a zombie anthology (surprised?) edited by Christopher Golden, and it goes by the title ZOMBIE in the UK. Included in this collection are stories by Tad Williams (the guys is everywhere lately), Jonathan Maberry, Max Brooks, Mike Carey, John Connolly, Joe Hill, Kelly Armstrong, and a bajillion others. This was one of the few short-fiction collections that really had us excited, and we were lucky enough to get a copy sent to us by Jonathan Maberry's publicist for review purposes.

The short version? This was an excellent collection. Long version? OK fine, we'll give you that too.

Typically, short-fiction is hard for us to read, not to mention review. Most of the time we begin a short-fiction anthology, and can't even finish it. Of course, at that point, it isn't worth writing a review about, and it wouldn't be worth your time to read the review of the terrible collection. THE NEW DEAD, however, was quite different. While there were a few throw-away stories (like there are in every anthology), a majority of the stories were fantastic.

Now, what makes a good zombie story? Is it the fact that corpses are running around eating people? Or that "survival-horror" element? The way people deal with an apocalypse? The humor inherent in chase scenes involving slow-moving, animated corpses? Or is it the concept of resurrection? Well, the truth is ALL of these have potential. Luckily, since this is short-fiction, we get to see all of these ideas in action, and we get one of the most entertaining reads of the year thus-far.

The opening story by John Connolly, "Lazarus," is a different take on the resurrection of Lazarus in the Bible. Jonathan Maberry's "The Family Business" is a tale of a young boy trying to figure out his place in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. It was one of the standout stories, and thankfully, Maberry is taking it and expanding it/reworking it to be a YA series titled ROT & RUIN--the full length novel will be released later this year, and we are anxiously awaiting the advance review copy. Max Brooks, of course, give us a story from his World War Z creation, which was fantastic. We were surprised to find a story by Mike Carey (author of THE DEVIL YOU KNOW). It's about a stock trader who consciously becomes a zombie so he can keep working without needing rest. For a guy known primarily for Epic Fantasy, Tad Williams has the story that was Steve's favorite. It has an Urban Fantasy feel to it, with a slight Lovecraft stylistic approach. Yeah. It was fraking awesome. The most surprising story? Joe Hill's (if you didn't know, Joe Hill is Stephen King's son) story told in Twitter tweets. We initially figured it would just be to odd to be good, but it turned out to be surprisingly funny and simultaneously horrific. It follows a girl Tweeting from her family vacation, and their trip to The Circus of the Damned.

Look, if you a fan of Zombie stories like we are, you should go buy the collection. It will run you around $15, and it's a trade paperback (Nick's favorite format), though we would have happily paid a hardback price for it. Seriously, we didn't even talk about Kelly Armstrong's story, or David Liss' story (we have to leave you some surprises after all). This just has too much good Zombieness in it to be ignored. It is seriously one of the most entertaining anthologies we have read. Period. Good job, Christopher Golden.

Recommended Age: 17 and up.
Language: Yeah. Lots.
Violence: Seriously? It's a zombie anthology. What do YOU think?
Sex: Yep. Some stories have some, some don't. Some is graphic, some isn't.

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Posted in Anthology , Books We Love , Short Fiction

Scenting the Dark & Other Stories

During our adventures at World Fantasy in October, we had a chance to meet and chat with Campbell Award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal. If any of you are listeners of Writing Excuses (and if you aren't, you really should be), then you may remember Mary from her guest appearances on the podcast. They were some of the most entertaining and insightful episodes that the podcast has put together.

As it turns out, Mary has a short story collection being published through Subterranean Press (we love them). Needless to say, we were excited to read a review copy of the collection.

First, let's discuss short stories a bit. No, you don't have a choice but to indulge us. As we stated when we reviewed the novella collection, METATROPOLIS, short fiction is hard for us to review. Simply put, we don't care too much for it. We've made our attempts to read the Writers of the Future anthologies, and we just get bored. We've read short stories in magazines, and in other various anthology collections, and they are really hit-or-miss...much more so than long fiction. Perhaps this is due to authors not writing that much short fiction anymore. It just doesn't pay the bills like a novel does. Authors don't practice it, so when short stories are published, the quality seems to suffer. Once again, these are our general observations and opinions.

So what does it take to write a short story that doesn't suffer like the majority? Well, if we knew for a fact, we'd have a bunch of stories published ourselves...but that's neither here, nor there. In Mary's case, her collection SCENTING THE DARK & OTHER STORIES seems to do all the right things...at least for us. And we are picky. So when we say we liked Mary's collection, that should tell you something.

SCENTING THE DARK & OTHER STORIES contains eight (8) short stories...at least we think it does. Confused? So are we. Our review copy only had seven of the eight listed in the Subterranean Press book listing. Heck if we know. Anyways, of the seven stories we read, we realized that we do indeed like short stories when they are done right. The story "Death Comes but Twice" is a great throw-back to Victorian SF. "Scenting the Dark" is a fantastic study on fear. Every story has some great material and inspiration in it.

We could go on about the individual stories, but really, we've decided that going into short stories blind is the best way to read them. Think about it. A short story usually takes one, single idea and makes a scene out of it, so if you read it without prior information, it becomes MUCH easier to enjoy. With regards to that one idea that make a short story, perhaps this is why Mary's collection succeeds where others fail. With her experience in the puppeteer (how awesome is THAT!), Mary seems to have a better grasp on how to express things with a single expression, or with a single word. Her experiences have allowed her to tell short stories in a most effective manner. This kind of quality just isn't seen too often in short fiction anymore.

The major problem we had with this short story collection is that it was too...uh...short. With only seven (or eight...whatever) stories, we finished the collection in an extremely short amount of time. If the quality of the stories hadn't been so high, this would have been a serious deal-breaker for us. Though, to be fair, Subterranean Press is only charging $25 for a signed and numbered copy of the collection. You decide if it is worth it. We certainly thought it was. Though we do also think the cover is on the weak side.

Before we finish, there is one last thing we want to mention. At the end of every story in the collection, Mary has a brief paragraph or two describing what gave her the idea behind the story. Ladies and gentlemen, this should be done at the end of EVERY short story published. Not only do we get further insight into the story, but we gain a similar measure if insight into the author and her (or his) creative process. If you are and developing author trying to write short stories, Mary's collection SCENTING THE DARK & OTHER STORIES should be on your bookshelf. You won't get any better instruction at a better price.

We are now officially WAY excited to read her novel, SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY, which comes out next year. High-five, Mary. You made us like short stories again.

Recommended Age: 15 and up. If you like short stories, or want to write them, you should pick this up regardless of your age. This would also be a good place to retry reading short stories in general.
Language: A little.
Violence: Not really.
Sex: Some is alluded to, but nothing is shown.

The List of Important Links:

Mary's Website - http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/
Mary's book at Subterranean Press - SCENTING THE DARK & OTHER STORIES
Subterranean Press' Front Page - http://www.subterraneanpress.com/
Writing Excuses - http://www.writingexcuses.com/

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Posted in Anthology , Books We Like , Mary Robinette Kowal , Short Fiction

METAtropolis

How about something new and different for our review here at EBR? We read and review novels pretty much constantly, but we have yet to discuss any short fiction. The thing to be wary of when reading short fiction, in our opinions, is that you can't treat it like a novel. Where novels have several fully developed ideas that all contribute to the plot, setting, and characters, short stories and novellas typically only have one or two fully developed (sometimes) ideas. If you go into a collection of short fiction with the right mind-set, you will find that it can be a refreshing change from the novels that you have been reading.

All of this brings us to the collection of novellas METATROPOLIS, edited by John Scalzi. Included in this collection are five stories about the world's (mostly, however, in the USA) future cities in a post-apocalyptic setting where all the eco-crazies and capitalism-haters were right. Each story was written by a different author: Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder, and John Scalzi (who, as we mentioned before also acted as the project editor). METATROPOLIS is different from most collections of short fiction. In most anthologies or collections, we get a handful of stories that all include one common theme (vampires, zombies, robots, etc.), but are otherwise unrelated. METATROPOLIS came together through the collaborative communication of the five previously mentioned authors. They brainstormed together. They read each others work during the process so they could give feedback and figure out how to connect the five stories. To us, this sounds like an ideal creative situation.

As individual stories, each of these novellas could be considered average. However, by putting them together, the old saying is completely true where the finished product is far greater than the sum of its parts. Each story brings something new to the table while building on the ideas introduced in the prior story. We get deeper ideas like one man's attempt to overthrow and entire society (Jay Lake's "In the Forests of the Night"), and a look at the evolution of networking and gaming theory (Karl Schroeder's "To Hie form Far Celenia"). The other stories give us pieces of how societies and their components evolved in the created future of METATROPOLIS. Want to know about the way people are placed for work, and a cities ability to deal its responsibility to the dying (literally) suburbs? John Scalzi has you covered in "Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis." How about ecological protests, and the future of micro-transactions? Tobias Buckell's "Stochasti-City" gives you the details. Lastly, an economy built on reputation alone? Elizabeth Bear tackles this subject (as well as the aftermath of the events from Buckell's novella) in "The Red in the Sky is Our Blood."

As you can see, it is an impressive list of ideas and themes that blend together extremely well. We have to assume that good editing and project managing by Scalzi helped the effort, but we also imagine that five incredible authors working together from step one through completion had serious beneficial impact on METATROPOLIS.

We will be the first to admit that we prefer novels as opposed to short fiction. We like seeing a big, developed story. However, METATROPOLIS won us over. The writing was fabulous in each story, as well as extremely accessible. There were moments where the casual reader might feel some of the stories were preachy, and we have one thing to say to those readers: Stop thinking so hard. Read the stories for the enjoyment of them. Not everything has to be profound and earth-shattering. For us, the cool factor of METAROPOLIS is in the execution of the fantastic ideas.

What do we want now? How about direct sequels to the novellas? We can't think of it having been done before, and these five authors would be the perfect people to pull it off. How bout it Scalzi? Get the gang together again!

The one thing that is tough about this collection is that it isn't widely available. We paid $30 for our copies from the amazing Subterranean Press, but they are currently sold out. Amazon says they have some copies available, but we don't really trust the listing (we've been burned before...). At one point, Scalzi mentioned to us in an email that he would have an announcement on the future availability of METATROPOLIS shortly. Hopefully (for you) this means a paperback release (or a hardback re-print at the very least) is coming soon.

Regardless, however you can get it, do it now.

Recommended Age: 15 and up. Some deeper material at times that may go over the head of some younger people.
Language: Some, but nothing excessive.
Violence: Not really. This is more about the evolution of ideas and society. Violence wasn't really needed to get the points across.
Sex: Some light innuendo.

OK. We want to see more projects like this in the near-future, so the best way we can think of to accomplish this is for all our faithful readers to bug the authors of METATROPOLIS until they give in. Drop by their sites, and beg them for more collaborative imagineering.

John Scalzi -- http://whatever.scalzi.com/
Jay Lake -- http://www.jlake.com/
Tobias Buckell -- http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/
Elizabeth Bear -- http://www.elizabethbear.com/
Karl Schroeder -- http://www.kschroeder.com/


Also, go bug Subterranean Press to get more collections like this. They are a terrific provider of limited edition novels and collections. We've been customers of their online establishment for a year now, and have immensely impressed by them.

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/

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Posted in Anthology , Books We Like , Short Fiction