Hopeful in this Day and Age? Review of Cloud Cuckoo Land

 I recently watched a panel discussion on writing horror in the age of a pandemic. It was sponsored by the Skeleton Hour and the Horror Writers Association. The authors involved (I'm sorry. I don't remember all of their names) thought that more hopeful books, even in horror, will be the trend. They also saw climate change as a future trend in horror.

With that in mind, I'm printing my review of Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. It's not considered horror but it does have lots of war, a pandemic, and some science fiction. Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for letting me get a first look at Cloud Cuckoo Land which will be available for sale in September. 

Wow, oh wow.

All the Light We Can Not See was so good that I didn't think Anthony Doerr could top himself.

But, he sure did with Cloud Cuckoo Land.

There's something for everybody. The future scenes are like science fiction with an all-knowing presence named Sybil controlling the "spaceship." There's two wars, the siege of Constantinople in the 1400'.s and the Korean War, and there is an ancient book that manages to show up across thousands of years.  Ultimately, it is a book about survival, family, love, religious intolerance (a child and his family are persecuted because he was born with a cleft pallet, a sign of God's disfavor) and the love of knowledge.  It may be one of the first great climate change books of the 21st Century.

It also points out the things we're still struggling with a thousand, two thousand years later. The shepherd is poor, the family shunned by their religion is poor, the girls in Constantinople who embroider for a living are poor, Bunny, the mother of a main character in 2020, struggles to find jobs cleaning hotel rooms to support her son. It seems like we can never defeat poverty.

But, like I said, ultimately it is a hopeful book and one that will dwell in my mind for a long time.

Does all this sound like a downer? It's not. It left me with a hopeful feeling, that we will get through this. It's also so beautifully written that I sometimes felt as if I were walking through a dream.

Horror Writing Tips from Kirkus Reviews

 Every little bit helps and here are some horror writing tips from one of the major reviewers.

Writers' Center | Kirkus Reviews

I'm in this. Well, my story is. I find being physically in a book is confining.

 

Take a Deep Breath and Dive Beneath the Surface of Shallow Waters—Where Nothing Stays Buried. With 23 Dark Fiction & Horror tales diving beneath the surface of life, death, and the mystery that lies beneath, volume seven includes suspenseful stories with themes of isolation, the drive-in, cars, love, tragedy and loss, post-apocalypse, and camp horror. Buy now for only 99c! Cribs by Linda J. Marshall Going Home by Lee Smart Snack Money by Jay Bechtol First Time at the Drive-in by Mark Allan Gunnells The Perfect Match by Madeline Mora-Summonte The Things You do for Love by Beverley Lee Back Soon by Michael Patrick Hicks Ashes by Martin Aguilera Nineteen Weeks by Theresa Derwin Cracked Pot by Armand Rosamilia For Beth… by Derek Odom Diversion by RJ Meldrum Write Time by Robert W. Walker The Thirteenth Step by Denver Grenell Red by Liam Hogan There is No Bunk #7 by Patrick Barb The Sower of Second Lives by Ben Norris Alone on Campus by Mark Allan Gunnells The Bone Tree by Michael Harris Cohen Lure by Catherine McCarthy Sometimes They Die by Michael J Moore A Bright New Future by Philip Harris The Little Thief by Esteban Vargas

Find My Short Stories! It's worth the search.

 

You can find my stories in any of these horror anthologies from Crystal Lake Publishing including the Bram Stoker nominated anthology Arterial Bloom.  All are available from amazon and the Shallow Waters books are only 99 cents.

Shallow Waters Vol 7 Buy it or giant spiders will get you.

 New anthology of horror Flash Fiction now available from Bram Stoker winning publisher Crystal Lake. 99 cents! 99 cents! 99 cents for 99 pages. You can't beat that for awesome horror flash fiction. Flash fiction! You can read these very short stories in those unused moments you have--like when your steeping your tea or caught in a giant spider web.

Did I mention that my prize-winning story Cribs is in it? It has nothing to do with babies if the thought of baby-horror gives you the willies. It has everything to do with ghosts.

For 99 cents you might as well buy it because where else will you get 99 pages of tingly horror? My story Cribs is in it. Did I mention that?

Buy it or I'll send those porch spiders to get you.

Creepy possum/baby hybrid. Review of Slewfoot.

 I found much of this book original and colorful. I have a family of possums living under my house and if they're anything like the baby-faced possum in Slewfoot, I'd better watch my step.

The nature god and/or devil who wasn't sure who-what-or where he was was intriguing. For awhile I thought he was just too confused, that he'd never amount to anything, but he pulled through with the help of the strange hybrid baby/wildlife creatures. Some of the abuse of the women accused of witchcraft or harboring witches went on so long that it started to seem like torture porn. But, that is the nature of much horror writing and I shouldn't be surprised by it.

By and large I liked the book with Slewfoot's realization being particularly satisfying. There was one spot where the women, Abita, who was accused of witchcraft, was offered the chance to die quickly or die slowly. The magistrate said hanging would be quick because it would snap her neck. I'd like to point out that a quick drop hadn't been discovered yet. Read about the poor women and men hanged at Salem. They stepped off a ladder, and seized and kicked until they suffocated. Sometimes a man would hang on to their body in an attempt to make them die quicker.  And yes, the correct word is hanged. Laundry is hung. People are hanged. See the exceptional book: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. 

Although I like the story and the idea of the story, I'm begging on my poor aching knees that characters quit smirking, biting their lips and rolling their eyes. I want to crawl on my poor aching knees and beg editors to mark out smirking, lip biting, and eyeball rolling. My smirk-o-meter went off the charts in Slewfoot. It's like there is a guidebook that says 2/3 of the characters have to smirk, everybody bites their lips at some point, and halfway through someone will bite their lip until they taste blood. I swear, these things are in almost all of the books I've read recently. Why come up with an original idea and then make it sound like all other books? Slewfoot had a lot of smirking, lip biting, and an overabundance of hissing.  But, I thought, "Thank God, nobody has rolled their eyes. Then 91% of the way in, BANG, a character rolled her eyeballs.  Geez.

At least reward us after reading all the smirking and lip-biting by bringing the cat back to life. Is that too much to ask? I liked the book but damn, stop all the lip abuse. All the smirking and biting has to be tiring.

                       Nice cover, although she was riding with a goatish beasty thingy in the book.. 

                         Thank you to Netgalley and Nightfire for allowing me to read this ARC.

Poetry. Can I Do It? Yes, I Can!

 I'll be honest. I want to win a Stoker. I've had a few short stories published but so have lots of people. I strive to write better short stories, so that helps. But, it occurs to me that there are few horror poetry collections out there so my best shot would be to write horror poetry. 

Major problem. I don't write poetry. Don't understand poetry. Haven't written poetry since my angst-ridden teen years. So I borrowed this book from Netgalley. It's about writing poetry, not horror poetry, poetry in general. A charming book and more easily understood than most how-to. So here is my Netgalley and Goodreads review for your eyes.

Does that really suck, to want to write horror poetry to try to win a Stoker? Even if it sucks, it's good to learn new skills. I'd rather write poetry than learn to make sourdough bread even if I can't eat poetry. Except sometimes, when I'm really hungry. Here's the review.   Beautiful cover, too.

 

I have to admit that I don't understand poetry. That's really weird because I have a MA in English Literature. But, I want to understand poetry so I undertook Lucy Newlyn book, The Craft of Poetry, to help me recognize what I didn't absorb in seven years of undergraduate and graduate work.

She shows us more forms of poetry than I ever knew existed. Each form is illustrated by one of her poems written in the style she's presenting. All the poems revolve around a beck, a local word for a stream. Even though I'm not much of a poetry reader, these are some lovely pastoral poems. They made me feel like I was walking or dreaming beside the beck and the surrounding countryside. Some poems are hopeful, some sad (lost lambs) some are funny. All are appealing.

I write short stories but I haven't tried writing poetry since high school. Yes, I avoided poetry classes in college. I can see me buying The Craft of Poetry as a reference book because I'll try my hand at poetry. Her examples are easier to understand than are some of the "how-to" poetry books out there.

STEM or Magic?

 After surveying hundreds of current children's and YA books, it was shown that female characters in books  (for young people) used magic to solve problems or protect themselves but male characters used science or technology for problem solving. I do read a lot of books where girls and women use magic or supernatural powers in their lives. I love that stuff but is it keeping girls from going into the science, technology, engineering, and math fields?

I think not. For the first time in history more women than men are in medical school. Women have outnumbered men in veterinary school for years. My own daughter-in-law has a PhD in chemistry, though I have to admit she faced a lot of sexism and downright cruel behavior from the male professors. She is a brave young woman to put up with that and graduate.

I just finished reading a middle-grade book called Tia Lugo Speaks No Evil. Because the cover shows a girl in botanical store, and because her grandmother tries to protect her by using herbs, beads, candles, and statues, I thought it would be a case of the supernatural coming to Tia's aid. Although she doesn't use science or technology, Tia does use her wits and her friendship to get herself through the witnessing of a murder. And some of her grand's magical items do protect her, but not in the way we'd think. It's a surprise. (Hint: you can use a protective statue to bash someone.)

In our own writing, we should think about adding STEAM (we can't forget about the arts) to the magic and supernatural. Frankenstein anybody? Although that didn't go quite as the scientist planned, now did it?

Look into my crystal ball. The upcoming trend in horror.

 I leaned something else while watching The Skeleton Hour on zoom tonight. The authors interviewed did not see pandemics selling well, although Lucy A Snyder said she just sold a pandemic novel to a major, big four publisher.  The main things they saw for the future of horror was climate change. There's even a name for it now, Cli/Fi. 

They also predicted a resurgence of gothic because we've been stuck, lonely and isolated at home. Even if readers don't want to think about COVID, they'll be inclined to think about the spookiness of isolation. 

Right now, I'm putting my money on climate change as being the big scare of the future. Or now.

Gutless Characters. I mean really gutless because their intestines are all over the floor. A review of The Queen of Cicadas

  

There's different kinds of horror. The kind that makes you feel like something is creeping around or creeping after you but you never see or hear it. It makes you wonder about your own sanity. If the unseen thing doesn't kill you, the suspense will.

And then there's the other kind of horror. Guts being ripped out. Throats cut. Bugs flying out of and into mouths. Murders, gore, and slashy things. That's the kind of horror that is The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro.

I admit that I'm biased toward the quieter, suspense, am I insane or not type of horror. But, if you're into more bloody type of horror, a goddess without skin, bad guys getting their intestines removed, lots of gore in front of witnesses type of horror, this is right up your grisly alley. There's some graphic sweaty romance novel type of sex with a billionaire. It's funny that I can suspend my disbelief and believe in a goddess of death, but when the protagonist has a billionaire bicycle up to her front door and they start an affair, I'm like "that's not gonna happen in real life." Go figure. Bloody goddesses are more believable than bicycling billionaires hopping into bed.

Thanks to Netgalley and Flame Tree press for allowing me to read this advance copy of The Queen of 

Cicadas.

HopePunk and Why Haven't I Heard of This Before?

 So tonight I zoomed in on Skeleton Hour, a virtual panel discussion held with well-known horror writers and sponsored by the Horror Writers Association. Horror writer and teacher, Richard Thomas, said that he's writing more "hopepunk" and less dark fantasy now. The other writers, A.C. Wise, Josh Malerman,  Sarah Langan,  Lucy A. Snyder, and Usman T. Malik all agreed that after four years of the former guy, the misogyny, the racism, the conspiracy theories, that writers and readers want to feel hopeful.

Hopepunk! I'd never heard of it. I googled it up and discovered that I'm three or four years behind the times which is normal for me. About the same amount of time that the former guy was in office.  Hope punk must still be a thing since they talked about it tonight.  How do you feel about hope punk as opposed to grimdark? Ha, I learned a bunch of new old stuff tonight. I didn't know what grimdark is. Think dystopian. 

This is what the writer Alexandra Rowland said about hopepunk in Vox.

Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts.

Also in Vox:

The concept of hopepunk arose from a political mood of resistance

One more thing about watching the Skeleton Hour tonight. Where is the button to slow Josh Malerman down? My goodness he was on a sugar high. He couldn't sit still. It was cute to watch, though. Like a big little kid who happens to write about things that tear you to pieces if you see them.

Live forever and do cool things. Review of Addie LaRue.

 

Review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Boy howdy. You'd think by now that people would realize that deals with the devil or with gods that only come out at night are like casinos--you can't win. Maybe you win temporarily, but in the long run the deck is stacked against you. I'm just full of cliches tonight. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue we have a couple of characters who sold their souls. When will they learn and what does the devil (or whoever) do with all these souls? Warehouse them? Use them as movie extras? Anyway, every time Addie thinks she finally tricks Luc (the devil-like character) it turns out he was pulling the strings all along. Addie could be a little annoying for much of the book. I know she had to steal because, due to circumstances, she couldn't hold a job, but sometimes she stole expensive clothes from innocent people and that was annoying. I felt she got more interesting when she met another lost soul and finally had someone to remember her. There was a lot of lip biting and eye rolling. If you read my reviews you'll know that's a pet peeve of mine because all current books seem to be filled with lip biting and eye rolling. It's like a shortcut to having to write emotions or dialog. And Addie LaRue had something else! All the minor elderly characters "toddled." Actually, I don't see that many elderly people toddling in real life. But, all the elderly toddled in Addie LaRue. When the elderly cat walked, even he "toddled." Despite the toddling and lip biting and eye rolling, I liked the book. I do want to know how Henry could afford to live in Brooklyn, go out to eat almost nightly, and go to entertainment venues almost daily on a bookstore clerk's salary. He was supporting Addie, too, and meals, rent, and entertainment were never a problem. I need to work in that bookstore. It's a cash cow. Moral to this story. Do not sell your soul to Luc and/or the devil unless you want to live a long life while staying young, travel all over the world, and visit cool places. Or work in a bookstore that pays really really well.