Reviews
November 17, 2010
Resurrected from the Dead: Gary Lutz’s I Looked Alive 1
by Shannon Elderon
Partnerships in this collection are never just a matter of “me” and “you.” There is me and you, but there’s also the person I’m channeling through you, the person you’re using me to forget about, the person I’m imagining you to be.
November 16, 2010
Beyond Harry, Oz, and Narnia: Lev Grossman’s The Magicians 2
by Daniel Roberts
The characters in The Magicians fully acknowledge the existence of the Harry Potter books, which, if anything, makes the realm of the novel feel all the more realistic.
November 15, 2010
Hint Fiction: Brevity is the Soul of What? 8
by Emily St. John Mandel
How short can a story be and still be a complete story, as opposed to, say, a fragment of something that probably should have been longer?
November 10, 2010
Vampires, Inner Demons, and a Desirable Form of Hell in Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps 1
by Anne K. Yoder
The Slutty Teenage Hobo Vampire Junkies take shelter in Safeways, 7-11s, and gas station bathrooms of the Pacific Northwest. They roam a countryside populated by meth houses, railways, gravel pits, and decrepit strip malls… In a way, they’re just angry teenage misfits who act out, who wreak havoc for no reason.
November 9, 2010
Identity Crisis: William Boyd’s Ordinary Thunderstorms 0
by Malcolm Forbes
We might scorn them but the two main rules of the thriller are incontestable: excitement is the drama of movement rather than stasis; and you can strain the reader’s credulity but don’t try our patience.
November 8, 2010
Elmore Leonard Knows What to Leave Out of Djibouti 6
by Bill Morris
Walker Percy was a big Elmore Leonard fan. Way back in 1987, during the high noon of a career that has now reached its rich and plummy twilight, Percy asked: “Why is Elmore Leonard so good?” Percy answered: “He doesn’t stick to the same guy in the same place.”
