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A Flurry of Reviews and Such
- Fun with "The Ant King and Other Stories":
- I had a chat with John Joseph Adams over at Sci Fi Wire about the book.
- the LA Times called it one of their favorite books of 2008 (also here).
- New York radio station WFMU listed it among their top 10+ books of 2008.
- Dan Hartland at Strange Horizons liked it considerably less.
(Am I the only one who finds it somehow oddly reassuring to get a bad review? There's something tension-making -- at least seen through my own personal neurotic filter -- about a sequence of almost entirely positive reviews -- one waits for the other shoe to drop: eventually I'm going to disappoint these people. Whereas when a bad review finally arrives -- especially a relatively engaged and perceptive reading -- that shoe is on the floor; and your neurotic inner voice, convinced it has finally discovered What They Really Think About You And Aren't Saying, responds, relieved: "Hell, that's all you got? I knew that already...")
- Relatedly, a roundtable at Torque Control.
- The L.A. Times also likes Tumbarumba which they got wind of 'cause of the wonderful Gwenda Bond.
- Several reviews of Fast Forward 2, including mention of Cory and my collaboration "True Names":
- I am tired of posting about me now, so here is a Bookslut interview with Chris Barzak, for whose new book, The Love We Share Without Knowing, I cannot wait.
I was re-reading the ant king the other day and on my latest reading I suddenly had exactly the opposite reaction to the collection than my first several readings...
On my first several go rounds I kept being dizzily impressed by how different all the stories were... they leap around, scene to scene, genre to genre, voice to voice... oh, diversity! excitement! thrills...! whee! which is nice because who doesn't need a snack of thrills and derring do from time to time when relaxing in one's private time?
Suddenly the other day, I had this epiphany that all of the stories are more alike than different and that in fact the reason they all "scratch the same itch" for me is pretty simple structurally...
Is it just me, or can every story in the ant king (excepting maybe the cities)be essentially summed up like this: a protagonist struggles with the reality of their life, something happens and then their world ends and their life is totally transformed and a new future becomes possible and then the story ends in that perfect grace note.
And then the reader is left with that tone perfect, ahhhhhh experience of "wow, that was just right. I love that story. What a clever author... why do I love that story so much? wow."
In fact, I love that experience so much that I come and read the blog because I want a taste of it and sometimes it works its way into the posts especially when Noah is involved and I get to have a magic rock in my heart and embrace a childlike love of doubles food cake and the world is never the same again.
How do you take that experience into a novel though? Do you struggle with that?
