The nitty-gritty: A clever and surprising mystery steeped in myth, Comfort Me With Apples is told in Catherynne M. Valente’s unique style. If there’s one thing I can count on with Catherynne M. Valente, it’s that she always surprises me. Her stories are not your normal, run of the mill variety. Rather, she creates scenarios […]
The nitty-gritty: Fragments of an old, dead world become something quite new in this emotional and surprisingly hopeful post apocalyptic tale. Catherynne M. Valente is truly one of a kind. I have never read another author that comes close to matching her whimsical writing style, so when I picked up The Past is Red, I […]
The nitty-gritty: Big on atmosphere but lean on plot, Space Opera is a colorful, musical, over-the-top love song to music and musicians everywhere Except that the Voorpret turned out to be really rather good at the whole civilization thing. Yes, yes, they obliterated the natural biodiversity of any region they touched, but wherever their infection […]
The nitty-gritty: A powerful collection of loosely tied together stories of the women who fell in love with superheroes—and died because of it. I never wanted children. Let’s get that straight up top. All I ever wanted to do was to drink beer, play my horn, and ride mutant armadillos till the end of the […]
The nitty-gritty: A weird and wonderful trip to the stars and planets, a perplexing and unsettling mystery, and a rather frustrating—but ultimately rewarding—reading experience. Pluto and Charon in a verdant jungle embrace: between them grew vines as thick and long and mighty as the Mississippi river, great lily-lime leaves opening, curling toward the distant star […]
The nitty-gritty: A luminous and magical Snow White re-telling, with gorgeous imagery and writing beyond compare. Mr. H liked more than anything to see me dressed like a boy, with a cattleman’s hat and a revolver made to my hand. It had a grip pounded out of the first silver bars of Mr. H’s fortune, […]