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Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Seanan McGuire's narrative style; I love that we get the story in a bunch of different formats--blog posts, excerpts from documentaries, POV from different characters. It is such an effective storytelling style.
I love that this is about mermaids and what they might be like if they were actually real which is horrific and scary and full of freaking teeth! I love the way that McGuire explores the mythology around mermaids and how that might translate into reality. I also love that this story ends rather ambiguously, leaving lots of room for later exploration.
Highly, highly recommended!
View all my reviews
Does anyone know if Rolling in the Deep adds anything to the story? Is it the short story that is the germ of Into the Drowning Deep, or is there more to it? Also, does anyone know if she plans a sequel?
2. Thank you for sending me this,executrix!!
Hidden Louisa May Alcott: 2 Volumes by Louisa May Alcott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
First of all, the two sections of this anthology are prefaced with scholarly essays by one of the most important Alcott scholars who actually discovered (along with a colleague) the texts Alcott had published under aliases. I get the same sort of thrill of scholarship and discovery that I get when reading A.S. Byatt's Possession; how marvelous to figure out an unknown thing, to be the first to put your hands on some document or fact. Thrilling!
Next, the stories in this anthology are what Alcott called her "blood and thunder" stories, and they are melodramatic and racy with Gothic trappings, but they are also surprising in a couple of ways. Two stories portray a pretty realistic picture of drug use (suggesting, of course, that Alcott was familiar with laudanum addiction and with eating hashish). Many of the stories contain familiar gothic tropes like being locked in a madhouse against one's will, inheritance problems, "ghosts," murder, revenge, etc, and while some of them end on a happily ever note that seems contrived in some cases, in at least one story the villainess wins, and in at least one other story, well--let's just say another story ends in such a completely unexpected way that it's best not to spoil it at all.
Anyone who knows Alcott primarily through the Little Women series would be delighted to see another version of her in this anthology.
View all my reviews
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira GrantMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Seanan McGuire's narrative style; I love that we get the story in a bunch of different formats--blog posts, excerpts from documentaries, POV from different characters. It is such an effective storytelling style.
I love that this is about mermaids and what they might be like if they were actually real which is horrific and scary and full of freaking teeth! I love the way that McGuire explores the mythology around mermaids and how that might translate into reality. I also love that this story ends rather ambiguously, leaving lots of room for later exploration.
Highly, highly recommended!
View all my reviews
Does anyone know if Rolling in the Deep adds anything to the story? Is it the short story that is the germ of Into the Drowning Deep, or is there more to it? Also, does anyone know if she plans a sequel?
2. Thank you for sending me this,
executrix!!Hidden Louisa May Alcott: 2 Volumes by Louisa May AlcottMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
First of all, the two sections of this anthology are prefaced with scholarly essays by one of the most important Alcott scholars who actually discovered (along with a colleague) the texts Alcott had published under aliases. I get the same sort of thrill of scholarship and discovery that I get when reading A.S. Byatt's Possession; how marvelous to figure out an unknown thing, to be the first to put your hands on some document or fact. Thrilling!
Next, the stories in this anthology are what Alcott called her "blood and thunder" stories, and they are melodramatic and racy with Gothic trappings, but they are also surprising in a couple of ways. Two stories portray a pretty realistic picture of drug use (suggesting, of course, that Alcott was familiar with laudanum addiction and with eating hashish). Many of the stories contain familiar gothic tropes like being locked in a madhouse against one's will, inheritance problems, "ghosts," murder, revenge, etc, and while some of them end on a happily ever note that seems contrived in some cases, in at least one story the villainess wins, and in at least one other story, well--let's just say another story ends in such a completely unexpected way that it's best not to spoil it at all.
Anyone who knows Alcott primarily through the Little Women series would be delighted to see another version of her in this anthology.
View all my reviews
no subject
Date: 2019-02-16 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-16 01:35 am (UTC)The rest of that first essay and then the second essay are mostly just summary and discussion of tropes + autobiographical details that show up in her works.
But it is interesting. :)