Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Ok, standard disclaimer that I seem to have to write every time I review a collection of short stories – I don’t particularly like them. I am not a fan of short stories, I’m not fan of stand alone stories that aren’t part of a larger series and I’m not a fan of collections of stories that aren’t related to each other

Now, this is a collection of short stories, none of them are from series, and none of them are related to each other. There’s also 19 short stories in this book. I tend to lose interest in any collections of stories that go over 10. I don’t think there’s even really a uniting theme – they’re all by the same author and they’re all speculative fiction, but that’s about it

In other words, I started this book trying very much to like it because I’d heard good things – but fearing that I was going to hate it simply because of my own dislike of short stories.

Thankfully, I loved it. Most of it anyway

It started really well with The Easthound. I loved how this really creepy story of a dystopia led by children really managed to pack a lot of world building in through without any real infodumping – the lack of adults, the fear of growing up, literally starving themselves so they wouldn’t age, the horror of being children with no adults to look after them and how that permeates how they react to the world. They’re children trying to survive – and the way they look at the world is childlike, almost a terrifying game of survival.

I think this sense of the creepy works really well in many of the stories – Old Habits. It’s take on ghosts and what they hunger for is chilling and a truly terrifying view of a horrific afterlife without being s dramatic and gory as so many others

The Smile on My Face  was amazing fun and an awesome look at body issues and self-worth with a dash of mythology and a whole lot of getting behind someone and cheering her – and a great scene of battling against rape and sexual assault without graphic depiction of victimisation – it’ strong and awesome all through. I especially like how, despite their being a Mean Girl, Gilla still reaches out to her in clear solidarity (even if it is also an excellent snide put down) because even a Mean Girl would need someone to believe her if she were a victim. On the other end of the scale, Emily Breakfast was also a fun little story (with a large number of LGBT characters and my only brief issue is the only real characterisation was distinctly sexual in nature) that wasn’t as creepy or intimidating as some, but who can be against dragon chickens? More thoughtful was Shift which not only completely took a Shakespearean story and brought out a whole new idea from it – but then had several shifts and complexities that made this story (and it’s apparent antagonists) much much more fun than I imagined and, again, very thoughtful.

Cover Snark: POC Erasure

The above image comes from a truly excellent study into YA covers performed by Kate Hart and we strongly urge everyone to go read her brilliant piece and the amazing work she’s put in on this to raise a very vital point about publishing.

Naturally following this excellent study we cast a gaze over the books we’ve read. Before we go any further we stress that we realise this is a publisher problem, not an author problem - authors usually have very little control over the covers of their books.
Still, there is one area where authors do bear some responsibility -  most of the books we’ve read won’t have a POC on the cover quite simply because they don’t have a major POC in the actual book. The erasure that is so common in the genre automatically assumes a white person on the cover because that’s what the reader will find within anyway. Even if the publishers were saints and faithfully representing the content on the covers, we’d still see a vastly overwhelming White majority.

 

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Toronto has become a ruin, a dystopian city of extreme poverty. After the riots it was largely abandoned by the government - wealthy Torontonians fled to the outer ring, leaving the inner city core to descend into poverty and lawlessness   

Ti-Jeane lives in Toronto with her baby and her grandmother, who makes a living from her herb-lore and healing. Trying to get by in the torn city, her life is complicated as the father of her child gets in over his head with the criminal boss, who all but rules downtown Toronto. Unsurprisingly not only is he addicted to drugs, he sells them for a living - that is when he can stop skimming off the top. Ti-Jean comes face to face with illegal organ harvesters (note we aren’t even certain why the organs are an issue), her grandmother’s magical legacy, menacing dark magic, a neurological atypical mother, and through it all she must somehow save herself and  protect the family she has left.

This was very different from a lot of Urban Fantasy in that we focused on Caribbean mythologies, cultures and belief systems, which meant a departure from the standard witches, vampires, and werewolves, of European mythology. This imbued Dark Girl in the Ring with a world that was fairly unique, compared to many books in the genre

Fangs for the Fantasy podcast, Episode 32

This week we discuss the horror that was True Blood's latest episode "And When I Die".

We also discuss the books we've been reading - the Angenou series by Lynsay Sands, Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. We also discuss Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong and the new show we're watching - Lost Girl

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast - Episode 9

This week we discuss: Being Human (US), Anya Bast's Elemental Witches, Marjorie Liu's Dirke & Steel, Nalini Singh's Psy/Changeling series, Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl and the Ring and Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris.