The degree to which literature can influence or affect an individual is dependent on many factors, and is all but impossible to measure objectively. Even narrowing our focus to look only at the way gender is portrayed in children’s books, and the part these books play in shaping the attitudes and ideas a child forms in relation to gender stereotypes, is difficult to gauge. One person may say that a particular piece of literature had such an impact that all of their views on gender are based on just one book; for another, literature has played a tiny part in an immense amalgam of conflicting and complementary ideas and influences from all manner of sources; and for another still, literature may have no direct influence whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »
The effect of literature on the individual
Posted: February 2, 2015 in Rants, Reviews & RamblingsTags: gender
Review – Stories: All-New Tales Edited By Neil Gaiman And Al Sarrantonio
Posted: February 2, 2015 in RantsTags: Al Sarrantonio, Anthology, Carolyn Parkhurst, Chuck Palahniuk, Diana Wynne Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Gene Wolfe, Jeffery Deaver, Jeffrey Ford, Joanne Harris, Jodi Picoult, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Carroll, Joyce Carol Oates, Kat Howard, Kurt Anderson, Lawrence Block, Michael Marshall Smith, Michael Moorcock, Michael Swanwick, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Review, Richard Adams, Roddy Doyle, Short fiction, Stewart O'Nan, Tim Powers, Walter Mosley
Stories is a collection of twenty-seven short fiction pieces, penned by separate contemporary mainstream writers. These are works of fantasy, but not fantasy in the traditional mainstream sense. Neither elf nor dwarf nor wizard makes an appearance. There are no dragons, no castles, and no kings in this book. There are a couple of vampires, some gods, a ghost, and an alien or two, that is true. But this is fantasy fiction that, for the most part, defies the traditional, stereotypical norm, each piece selected by Gaimann and Sarrantonio based on the fact they were difficult to nail to a particular genre; imaginative fiction, encompassing a broad range of subjects, intended to leave the reader asking “What happens next?”
And in this sense the book is a success. Stories gets you hooked and leaves you hanging for the next page’s fix. Read the rest of this entry »
Red Jill
Posted: December 8, 2014 in Red Jill, Short stories, starts & writingTags: Science Fiction, Short fiction, Speculative Fiction
Vacant, unblinking stare. Brown eyes, lit by a cold white sun. The light is more grey than white through the black slats of the blind. Brown eyes gaze down the length of a soft forest of shadows cast by the raised thread-trees of a faded, laurel-green terrycloth zig-zag-patterned bed-cover. A bed-cover-plain. In the distance, over the bed-cover-horizon, an ill-proportioned composition of cool-grey carpet, beige wall and window form a bed-sky. And in that sky a single speck of dust catches the grey sunlight as it floats toward the floor. It could be a flake of skin. Her skin. Part of her being. Or it could be insect excreta, or cigarette ash, sentient life en route to the bed-planet perhaps. Whatever its origin, it is agonisingly slow in its angled trajectory, its movement determined by some immeasurably small draft or other. Brown eyes stare at that speck of dust until their vision blurs and the smudge of beige carpet, louvered by the cold, slatted sunshine, and the wall and window become one great grey mess.
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The Devil & Georges Servan Aballaird – Part Four
Posted: November 18, 2014 in Short stories, starts & writing, The Devil & Georges Servan AballairdTags: Short fiction
I shall never forget that feeling. His slimy, rigid skin moving under the grip of my shivering hands. Royalist or revolutionary it was impossible to tell, but I could feel his waterlogged flesh move, far too much of it, over his mortified bones and tendons. His body was coming apart and the tissue of his hands and forearms felt like it could come away in a solid sheet at any moment. I thank the Almighty it did not and will curse the Devil forevermore for contriving to place me into such a heinous undertaking. Read the rest of this entry »
The Devil & Georges Servan Aballaird – Part Three
Posted: November 17, 2014 in Short stories, starts & writing, The Devil & Georges Servan AballairdTags: Short fiction
Were my memory a book, the first page of the chapter that was the night I first met Georges Servan Aballaird would begin, “Here begins a new life.”
I felt no panic or fear. I embraced him tenderly, cradled his brow as he stared into the vast darkness below, gently took his hand, and as we floated away from that hellfire and toward the shore I heard a voice softly singing, “They do not know you anymore.”
The sea had become a shining blanket of reflected stars and Georges and I were flying, falling through them, arms outstretched, into eternal darkness, into fire and ice. Read the rest of this entry »
The Devil & Georges Servan Aballaird – Part Two
Posted: November 15, 2014 in Short stories, starts & writing, The Devil & Georges Servan AballairdTags: Short fiction
When I next came to my senses the first thought I had was that I had let my flint get wet. Why I’d ever be worried what those bastard officers thought important I’ll never know, but here I was; the words running through my head that I was “as good as fucking dead!”
Then I noticed the strange green flashes playing out in the strange gelatinous velum I was in, that I was unable to breathe, the multitude of black things trailing down around me and that never-fucking-ending headache that dogged me wherever I went these last… How long had it been? Weeks? Months? It was impossible to say.
January seemed years ago and yet only yesterday. Yet here I was, and this ever increasing high-pitched buzz in my ears that made the green flashes slowly fade to red and black, until it properly hit me. I was under water! This nauseating taste in my mouth was sea water and I had to move up, up, up or else I would be drowned.
To hell with the rummin’ flint! I didn’t even know where the musket was anymore. Read the rest of this entry »
The Devil & Georges Servan Aballaird – Part One
Posted: November 15, 2014 in Short stories, starts & writing, The Devil & Georges Servan AballairdTags: Short fiction
The Press Gang. Those great servants to the Admiralty.
They were always going to get a hold of me someday. You don’t spend as much time as I had done, all those… How long had it been? It was impossible to say. Weeks? Months? Sodden and unconscious from too much drink. Rum, ale, grog, sky blue, it didn’t matter a hell of a lot what really. Lucky you go a week in some parts without those sadistic bastards getting their paws on you.
But the timing is a blur. I do not remember anything clearly. Nothing since that cold night in January anyways. In the middle of the journey of my life and I found myself within an impenetrable darkness where the straight way was lost, where I turned to grog houses and inns and in the gutter and worse I found my repose. Read the rest of this entry »
