Getting ready for RIP (thanks to Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings)

          So there I was, enjoying the sunshine, that it is still summer, and I went to Carl's page and saw this post by him, and read the stunner of a story he links us to, Mrs Henderson's Cemetery Dance by Carrie Cuinn.   It has a delightful humorous touch, a gothic feel, a melancholic dead skeleton story, for lack of a better description.  Not ghosts.  Skeletons. It is very good.  And it put me right into the frame of mind for Carl's upcoming Readers Imbibing Peril VIII challenge coming up in the fall.

So, even though I have a shelf already full of books ready for RIP, and it's still sunny and very warm outside, I ended up going to one of my favourite sites for finding what's new and good in the world of horror and science fiction and fantasy:  Locus Magazine, online.  Carl, by the way, also has a post up about Locusmag, because he has the July edition featuring NEIL GAIMAN on the cover, and darn it, I let my subscription lapse in April. Boo me!  I have just resubscribed, and am hoping I'm in time for the July edition.  Anyway, it looks a really good interview by Neil in it, so if you're a Neil Gaiman fan, go and take a look.

In the meantime, when I wandered to Locus Magazine to see what was happening, I discovered that they have a listing of all the current nominees and winners of the various awards given out for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, the world over.  This is an excellent way to find out what's good in any of these areas of literature.

I have promptly added (and drooled over) the following books I didn't know existed:

All nominated under 2013 British Fantasy Award Nominees,  Anthologies:
- Magic, An Anthology of the Esoteric and the Arcane, ed Jonathan Oliver.
- The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, ed Marie O'Regan
- Terror Tales of the Cotswalds - ed Alison Littlewood

Nominated for Best Horror (the August Deleth Award), under the same British Fantasy Awards:
-  The Kind Folk -Ramsey Campbell
- The Last Days - Adam Nevill
  Neither of which I knew was out, and I will be seeking at the library.

Here is the entire list of 2013 British Award nominees.  I am happy to see Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan nominated, as is Railsea by China Mieville.  I am delighted to see Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce, nominated in both categories, as I have it on my pile to read asap.....

The  2012 Bram Stoker Awards were also announced in New Orleans in June, winning list is here.  There are some very good books on this list too.  Caitlin Kiernan (Drowning Girl, which I have to read), Maggie Stiefvater, Bentley Little (I just found one of his books to try), and The Diviners by Libba Bray, which I am so hoping to read for RIP!!  when a list includes these names, there are going to be some really good horror/dark fantasy/ghost stories to read somewhere on it.  Even more awesome, a list of poetry books!!!  And when Joyce Carol Oates wins in a tie for best collection, well, there is something for everyone for RIP.

Have fun planning!  Enjoy the summer daylight while it lasts, and soon autumn will be here, with cooling days and darker nights....., and thank Carl for this, today!

Forests of the Heart - Charles de Lint

I didn't plan on reading this for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge. After seeing Kailana and Carl write about their shared read of Spirits in the Wires last week, I wanted to read it, but don't own it and it wasn't in Chapters when I looked. I had Muse and Reverie put aside for this challenge, but it's a collection of short stories, and I wanted a novel to sink my teeth into and be absorbed by.  So, I looked for something by him on my shelf, and thought, ok, I'll try Forests of the Heart.  I'm not sure why I was resisting it, I think it was because it opens in the desert, which is not the place I associate with Charles' writing.  This time, it was magic.  I really enjoyed the Spanish and Mexican flavours of Bettina  San Miguel and her family, and especially the myths that are touched on in this book.  Mostly, the stories of being a curandera, a  healer, and shapeshifting.  Los cadejos were my favourite, the dancing half goat, half dog in rainbow colours that are the oldest dogs in Bettina's culture, laughing dogs that have such joy - clown spirit dogs, almost.  They were delightful and funny. 
                                             
Forests of the Heart does take place in Newford, the city de Lint invented where his fantasy for the most part takes place.  Newford is a bustling city with room for ghosts, spirits, myths, and legends to go walking in the shadowy places of the city, as well as in the parks, and in this book, in the bars and in an artist's retreat called Kellygnow.  Forests of the Heart is a blend of three different cultures - difficult to to do two, almost impossible to do three, though it works well in Forests of the Heart.  It works because de Lint writes about mystery and spirit as if at the same level, it moves in the same way - that a healer is the same no matter what culture one comes from, that spirits come to us in the same way no matter where we come from, and the way that spirits talk to us and that we have to be careful what we say to them, is the same.  Even some of the way the myths work - the basic seed - is the same, as in only some people can see into the spirit world, only some people are artists, though as one character says, everyone carries a bit of mystery in them.  This is how the aboriginal elders, the Creek sisters, are able to recognize the latent power in Ellie, a sculptor, who is not interested in anything but art, and in Bettina, whom they meet for the first time in the spirit world.  Bettina is not able to see it in others yet, though it comes to her as she gets more comfortable with her power.  This bridging of cultures through seeing the links in myth and magic, through the basic way that people approach spiritual power and medicine, is wise and profound in de Lint's  writing as a whole, as well as Forests in the Heart in particular.  Mexican, Aboriginal, Irish/Gaelic - the book blends the three cultures, and it works.  If you want a glimpse of what it is like to walk between the worlds in the timeless place where the world began, then de Lint's books - and Forests of the Heart - are a wonderful place to visit.

On to the book itself:  Bettina finds herself in Kellygnow, unsure of what she is doing so far north from her desert, except that she was called there after she could not get over the disappearance of her grandmother.  Her grandmother, her abuela, teaches her everything Bettina knows about being a curandera which has as its source a spiritual power and gift that runs in their family.  There is also another gift, that Bettina discovers in the book, a shapeshifting skill that I wish we could have gotten to learn  a little more about.
   
Bettina is one central character - much of the book is from her point of view, a grounded healing point of view that centers the book in plain speaking from the heart.  This kind of wisdom lets the fantastical  story unfold as completely believable - that there is a mask, that other characters want Ellie, with her gift of sculpting, to make, to bring back a myth to life.  They think they can control the myth.   At the same time, we have Ellie herself, who is  a white girl who had a normal upbringing, who wants to help others when she is not sculpting, and rides around in a van helping the homeless at night.  She works with Tommy Raven, a recovering alcoholic aboriginal man who is nephew to the Creek sisters on the Kickaha reserve just outside Newford. Like all skilled storytellers, everything is connected, in Forests of the Heart. 

Donal and Miki are the two siblings at the center of the book for the Newford side, along with Hunter, the owner of a record store in Newford.  You knew there would be music in this book, right?  There always is.  I've always wished I could play an instrument the way de Lint's characters do.  They have such a fabulous time making their music, playing, dancing and singing to folk and celtic music, and musical names are dropped all the way through this book. I always come away with thinking I have to know a lot more about fiddling and celtic music before I dare to write a celtic fantasy!  and that there is whole lot of music out there, music and groups, that I have never heard of.

Forests of the Heart is also about using your creative gifts properly.  Miki is afraid to reach out for her touring life she wants to do, to bring her music to a wider audience.  Bettina discovers that she needs to heal herself before she can claim her real power, and fill the empty space inside her.  It's what happens to Donal that makes the darkness in this book:  Donal never is able to let go of his melancholy even as an artist, and this gloom hides a darkness in his spirit that eventually eats away at him until almost nothing good is left.  No one understands what is happening,not until it is too late. It is he who works with the Gentry, and starts the mischief that quickly turns dark and nasty.  The Gentry are the homeless spirits who cause much of the problems in this book. This is a dark fantasy, and there is some violence and death.  The Green Man, when he is finally brought to life, is nothing like what any of us would imagine, tainted because Donal's reasons for summoning him are for the wrong reasons - for hatred, revenge, power.  The way that the Green Man is finally defeated is using a combination of all the energies and power of all the three cultures combined, through Aunt Nancy, Bettina and Ellie. 

And may I just say here, that speaking as someone who's family is not from here, but from away, that it is really good to read a story that deals with what happens when myths and spirits from other lands meet up with the native spirits here.  The Gentry can't settle because the manitou, the original aboriginal spirits who guard the land here, are already here and won't let them in.  The manitou are facing their own problems, with the growing city of Newford cutting into the virgin land of the forests. 

Everyone is lost, in Forests of the Heart. It's a book about finding your home.    Both Aunt Nancy of the Creek girls, and Bettina of the Mexican people, discover that they share a common way of saying, the secret place in your heart that you go to, that is your home.  It's a lovely way of saying it,' in the heart of my home.' Because they are connected to power and spirit and are powerful medicine women, they find their  home of their heart in that spirit world they cross over into.  And each is different unto the person, which also shapes the cross-over place.  (We return to this world in The Onion Girl and Widdershins, later books.) Donal and Miki are lost, orphans except for each other.  Bettina is far from everyone she loves, Hunter has just broken up with someone, and long ago, Donal and Ellie dated.  Everything connects.....

I really enjoyed Forests of the Heart.  When Bettina says to the corderjos near the end, that she is welcoming them into the forest of her heart, I cried.  She had struggled so hard to heal herself.  that was a beautiful moment in the book. I cried because I've been trying to answer what is my home, where is it, and who do I let into it?  so the themes of this fantasy really struck a chord in me.

I highly recommend this fantasy.  I read it for the myth section of Carl's Challenge.  It is deep and funny and bittersweet and true, and there is room for love and magic, too. Plus an ice storm, and an artist's colony that I'd love to go to!  I've always wanted to visit Newford, I love how de Lint is blending fantasy and myth and magic with city living.  5/5

Sunday Salon - Neverwhere , fantasy at its best

I read Neverwhere for Carl's Once Upon A Time 3 challenge (yes, I still have to do the wrap-up....). As is usual for me, I come upon authors late, and read their earlier books much later after other people often do. This has been the case with Neil Gaiman. Of all his novels, I believe American Gods was the first one I read by him! I'd read his short story collection Smoke and Mirrors while in England. They both almost made it onto my books of the year list, but not quite; American Gods was fascinating, but I felt somewhat removed from what happened to the character, and I still can't quite figure out why, since I enjoyed it very much. So when I read Neverwhere, after hearing for some time on our blogging world about how it's possibly one of his best written, I knew it was going to be good; except for the odd short story, I haven't read anything by him that I haven't really enjoyed. I wasn't prepared for how good Neverwhere is. It is possibly the best book he's written, or at least in a close tie with The Graveyard Book, which is one of those books that I keep turning over in my mind.

An aside here: the reason Smoke and Mirrors didn't make it on my list of favourite books for that year, is because by far the most effective story in it is in Neil's introduction, about the wedding gift - the letter - he gave his friends (or was going to give.) Very very creepy, but not an actual story! That one I can't get out of my head! Although I read it so long ago that I have to re-read it to see if Snow, Glass, Apples is as frightening as I remember....as a whole, short story collections don't make it onto my favourite reads for that year. I don't know why, it might have something to do with the unevenness - no short story collection is perfect, which is why Locus, the Nebula and World Fantasy awards have 'best novella' and 'best short story' categories........Although, I do here have to make a comment for Fragile Things, which I did read last year. In the confusion of being sick (I got strep throat in Nov) and going to England, I did finish Fragile Things, but it got left off my list of books read, and looking back now, it's not even on my list of favourite books of last year. Which is just wrong, because despite what I just wrote about short story collections, I think it's one of the best short story collections ever written! I'll have to create a special place for it, maybe one of those lists of 'books I've overlooked and don't know how this happened' kind......maybe a short story collection list......

Anyway, back to Neverwhere: On the post I wrote for Fantasy and Science Fiction Day three days ago, Nymeth left me a comment about Neverwhere that catches what I was attempting to say about why fantasy is relevant to our modern life. Nymeth wrote: ..."especially what you said about how fantasy creates myths for today. It reminded me of how I felt looking at the names of underground stations in London after reading Neverwhere. I know the stories are not real - and yet having them at the back of my mind makes my life a little better, a little richer, a little more mysterious. That's what myths do."

Nymeth is absolutely right. I'd just been to London at Christmas, so the Tube was fresh in my mind, as well as central London, where we spent most of our time visiting. I am in a way glad that I read Neverwhere after I was in London. Because I'm not sure I could have gone down into the Tube again. I'm pretty sure I'd be looking for doors and hidden staircases that no one else seemed to see....

Also, ever since the film An American Werewolf in London 20 years ago, I've never been able to be really comfortable in London's Tube. Plus, I hate being underground anyway. Even if it's a great way to get around London - and it is - I want fresh air and to know that at anytime, I can get away if I have to. Always now in the back of my mind is the memory of July 2005, and the bombings on the Tube . So, with all this already in my mind, already predisposed to think the Underground as fairly creepy, I opened Neverwhere.

Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew and how one night, he rescues a girl who is bleeding and in distress. She turns out to be the only survivor of her family, who were massacred previously. She lives in the Underworld, where Richard follows her after he is threatened by the men who are her would-be assassins. How Richard finds her, and helps her, and what he discovers on his journey underground, makes for a fabulous imagining of what London's Underground world could be like.

Gaiman has held back nothing in creating this underworld, 'London Below Ground'. There are references to myths and fairy tales, there are monsters, evil characters and heroes. All set in a world just a little below where we live. This is real fantasy. I particularly like that Gaiman holds nothing back - one character dies, that had me yelling out "no!" and crying, in a horrific scene that is among the worst nightmare voyages across a bridge that I have ever read. There is betrayal, some satisfying - what happens to the two assassins is particulary fun to read, if graphic! - and some astonishing. I want to go to that moving market, even if it is scary and nightmarish, it still looks fun! And I really want another story with Door. I think she is the best female character he has created so far, with the exception of Coraline. I liked Door. I didn't like Richard at the beginning - I really wanted him to get a spine, the way his fiancee pushed him around! - but by the end, I did. I understood his decision, even as it feels like a loss to the world. And it is.

The power of Neverwhere is that even though Richard becomes an outcast as we would describe it 'Above World', he really finds himself in the underworld. It is a very accurate retelling of the Hero's Journey as Campbell describes it in A Hero With A Thousand Faces, except the message Richard would bring back, about this alternate society below ground, is completely unaccepted and unacceptable to the real world. No one wants to know there is a whole society underground. So all the things Richard learns about himself, all the strengths and skills he acquires, the position he attains, can't be brought out into the real world. It is an unfinished journey for the world, but for Richard his journey is done, and in the end he has to choose where he lives.

Now when I think of London's Underground, as well as all the layers I previously mentioned colouring how I see it, I have Neverwhere transfiguring it. All the way through the book, as Nymeth says, I looked at the names of the Underground stations used in the book, and I remembered what they were really like when I last saw them, and then superimposed Neverwhere's version of the Tube. *shiver* This is what really good urban fantasy does. It reimagines our landscape, using fairy tales, myths, shadows, and 'what if's' to show the landscape in a different light. Pure magic.

This book is dark and frightening and as disgusting as you would imagine life without light far in the earth to be, and it is weirdly wonderful and true and eerie, like a dark carnival. I found myself liking life underground better - there was more honesty it seemed in the life and death situations and in the rules followed, than in London Above, where Richard finds success empty if it has no meaning.

This book also reminds me about the cost of making a journey for the soul. We either take the journey and discover something precious, or we don't take it, and life half a life, where nothing is very deep. If the journey is taken, something is always lost, or has to be given up, by the hero at the end, even if it is the lie that was the previous life, or love that didn't last, or the future only half dreamt of. I know which I prefer. Neverwhere is a powerful work of fantasy. Like Coraline, it brings you through to the other side safely. It's a very dark trip, but one well worth taking.

I've already lent the book to one of my friends to read. It's one of my favourite books of this year.

I do have to say though, I still prefer to see London by double-decker red bus!

It's finally here!!! RIP3!!

It's finally here. Carl's RIP 3. I'll let him describe the challenge:
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

There is just something about this time of year, when the ghosts of past Autumns and the Autumn to come chase away the dog days of summer, that entices one to read books that fit into the above categories.

It was a desire share the love of eerie, creepy, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night literature that brought me into the online reading challenge game for the first time back in September of 2006. My goals today, in this its third iteration, are no different than the inaugural R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge:

1. Have fun reading.
2. Share that fun with others.

It is that simple. Read on.

Isn't that lovely? I have been waiting all year for this challenge. I have been gathering books, finding little treasures here and there and saving them up for this, the best challenge of the year: ghost stories for the autumn, horror stories for Hallowe'en, gothic stories for the end of the year, supernatural stories as the end of the year approaches. I adore this time of year, the pumpkins (ok,they're not out yet, but they are coming!), the leaves (and they are changing colours already!) spectacular colours, the smell of smoke, wearing sweaters and drinking hot chocolate and best of all, more time to read, because the garden is put to bed and the nights are closing in......

As most of you who read my blog know, I love horror and the supernatural, so this challenge is perfect for me. I am so happy Carl is hosting it again, and the poster is adorable and spooky and a bit creepy and I want to frame it! I want the doll, I really do. He would sit beside me while I read, and share some of that lovely hot chocolate......even if you don't like horror, there might be a thriller or gothic romance that fits, or a suspense novel. Jane Eyre or Northanger Abbey, for example, fit, for you doing the Classics challenges....

This is my list. I am doing Peril the First, which is to read four books of any length, from an subgenre of scary stories I choose.

The Night Country - Stewart O'Nan (ghost story)
lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar (dark fantasy)
The Harrowing - Alexandra Sokoloff (horror story)
The Terror - Dan Simmons (horror story)
The House of Dr Dee - Peter Ackroyd (horror, gothic?)
The Woman in Black - Susan Hill (ghost story) - DONE
Everything's Eventual - Stephen King (ghost stories)
Tamsin - Peter S Beagle (ghost story)
Northern Frights 2 - ed Don Hutchison (collection of Canadian scary stories)
Wolf Moon - Charles de Lint (dark fantasy)
Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz (horror)
Fool Moon - Jim Butcher (horror)
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen (gothic)
On Stranger Tides - Tim Powers (dark fantasy with zombies! a reread)
Hallowe'en - Ravenwolf (about Hallowe'en, lore, recipes etc, a book I got for Christmas last year and have been waiting all year to read!)
Ghosts, Spirits and Hauntings - Patricia Telesco (a witch explores the supernatural)

I am so excited about this challenge! I know I only have to read 4, but I will want to read so many more on my list, so it will be interesting to see how many I do get read. I'm actually aiming for 8. So many of these books I have wanted to read for a long time. I plan on reading only for this challenge over the next two months, so I can immerse myself in ghost stories and dark fantasy to my heart's content. *sigh* I love this challenge. I love autumn!