“Oh, we’re such a caring school,” the principal told me. Blah, blah. blah. Let me tell you the first thing I thought when I walked into that playground on that kindergarten orientation day was cliquey. Cliquey, cliquey, cliquey. I’m not surprised someone ended up dead. Oh, all right. I guess that’s overstating it. I was a little surprised.” What if I told you that you were going to love a book about 3 moms whose kids start in kindergarten and then they drink champagne for […]
The Crow Flies Straight
In the introduction to Sons of Anarchy: The Official Collector’s Edition, creator and show runner Kurt Sutter jokes that the book was originally over 6,000 pages and what is left is everything that cleared Fox censors. I’m not sure if there is any truth to that but while the book is pretty comprehensive it’s not the end-all-be-all inclusive book about the critically acclaimed television series that I had hoped it would be. It’s good, but there is a lot of missing pieces that if included […]
A Little Pilot-Light-Sized Flame
This issue of Granta explored the theme of fate in all of its beautiful, terrible glory. The introduction warns that the selections to follow “are concerned with fate in its most serious manifestations: love, sexuality, identity, death, illness, religion and war.” The issue included beautiful images of Mexico’s retablos or exvotos, painted on pieces of metal or wood, “which are offerings of gratitude to a Catholic divinity, usually placed in a sanctuary shrine or altar, that condense a charged moment in somebody’s life, perhaps of anguish or even terror, usually […]
Do you cyborg?
Cyborgs are a common theme in SciFi, so Upgraded, edited by Neil Clarke, with short stories from authors from around the world is a welcome anthology for the genre. I picked it up, specifically to read Madeline Ashby’s contribution, “Come From Away” but I was definitely invested in reading more. Unfortunately, more doesn’t begin to describe Upgraded. In all, there are 26 stories, which, might honestly be over-egging the pudding a bit. When your theme is so narrow that every story pretty much has to begin […]