This short story definitely jumps around a little bit. With big chunks of the story diving forwards in time, but I kind of liked it. It covered a whole lot of time in very few pages. I really liked this style, it made me not want to put this down and just dive through the pages. Although, in my experience, Vaz’s writing is a little like this.
Something about how this written has a very fae feeling. Which is something hard to describe, but has a very ethereal tone to it. This fit beautifully within the The Faery Reel collection, and it definitely meant that the time jumps felt even more mysterious and intriguing. I really loved the way that this was written and would love to read this short story again.
Your Garnet Eyes is all about the bargains of faeries, and how they must give and receive in equal parts. I love that almost all traditional stories feature faerie bargains of some form, and Vaz really drives this home in Your Garnet Eyes.
Coyote. Anansi. Brer Rabbit. Trickster characters have long been a staple of folk literature – and are a natural choice for the subject of the acclaimed Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s third “mythic” anthology. Twenty-six authors, including Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles), Charles de Lint (Little (Grrl) Lost), Ellen Klages (The Green Glass Sea), Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters), Patricia A. McKillip (Ombria in Shadow) and Jane Yolen, have crafted stories and poems drawing from cultures and traditions all over the world – each surprising, engrossing, and thought provoking. Terri Windling provides a comprehensive introduction to the trickster myths of the world, and the entire book is highlighted by the remarkable decorations of Charles Vess.
The Coyote Road, like its companions The Green Man (winner of the World Fantasy Award) and The Faery Reel (a World Fantasy Award Finalist), is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary fantastic fiction.
This collection took a long time to read. Yet, I absolutely
adored it. Mostly it took a while to read because there were so many short
stories filling the pages, and whenever I finished one, I often went searching
for more stories by the authors I was discovering. My wishlist has grown by
leaps and bounds since starting this collection.
Like many of the Ellen Datlow collections lining my shelves, the theme and collected authors in this are brilliant. Each and every story is perfectly curated to match into the theme of Tricksters. Often in surprising and confusing ways. After all, the prefect trickster never does what is expected, and many of the stories in this managed to take me by surprise.
I would suggest this collection to anybody who loves short
stories, fantasy, mythology, tricksters… really I would just suggest it to almost
anyone. There are sad stories and happy ones. Insanely complex tales and ones
that are so beautifully simplistic. Definitely one of those collections that
I’m going to read again and again.
Title: The Chamber Music of Animals Author: Katherine Vaz In: The Coyote Road (Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling) Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Medical, Music, Tricksters Dates read: 28th April 2019 Pace: Fast Format: Short story Publisher: Firebird Fantasy Year: 2007 5th sentence, 74th page: She’d consumed nothing but coffee all day; no wonder she ached with heartburn.
Sophie has lost her husband, and now cancer is threatening to take away her only son. Does the power of music have the ability to battle away the awful disease?
I’m really glad that this story didn’t have a sad ending. I was
fully expecting it to, after all, Sofia had already lost her husband, and she was
incredibly close to losing her son to cancer. Although this tale is in a
collection about tricksters, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have trickster
tales that are sad. Rather than their usual witty, entertaining journeys.
Monkeys are often tricksters in mythology. They’re the characters which run amok through the lives of people and change the world around them. Just by creating chaos. And believe me, if you’ve ever watched a troop of monkeys, or apes, you can understand how their presence can incite change and align them with the tricksters of myth and legend. Which means that it was probably about time for a monkey to show up in The Coyote Road.
The parallel running of this story worked really nicely throughout.
There are the battles which Sofia is fighting for her son. The life that her
mother is trying to live with a broken leg, and an incredibly sick grandson. And
finally, the music and internal war that Rangy is fighting to save a well-loved
boy. Even if he has been left in the cupboard for years on end…
From Master Anthologist Ellen Datlow comes an all-original book of weird tales inspired by the strangeness of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
Between the hallucinogenic, weird, imaginative wordplay and the brilliant mathematical puzzles and social satire, Alice has been read, enjoyed, and savored by every generation since its publication. Datlow asked seventeen of the most brilliant and acclaimed writers working today to dream up stories inspired by all the strange events and surreal characters found in Wonderland.
I began my obsession with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in childhood, but kind of forgot about it until the last year – when I finally got around to reading the original story! And then my obsession began to take a bit of a turn for the… well, obsessive… so I bought this collection as soon as I found it. And opened the page within days of receiving it.
This collection takes all of the many aspects of Alice in
Wonderland and turns them around and around until your dizzy. From cute poems,
to horrific ideals about Alis and retellings
of particular aspects of the original. This collection of short stories and
poems has it all. And it is just impossible to put down!
My only piece of advice with this amazing collection is to
maybe not read these tales when you’ve been drinking. I tried a few times and it
just makes you feel incredibly tripped out. And confused. And just not really
sure where reality is situated… kind of like the original.
Title: Moon, and Memory, and Muchness Author: Katherine Vaz In: Mad Hatters and March Hares (Ellen Datlow) Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Family, Horror Dates read: 29th March 2019 Pace: Slow, Medium, Fast Format: Short story Publisher: Tor Year: 2017 5th sentence, 74th page: It’s itself, with its own intensifications.
Alicia was lost to her years ago, but in the world she’s created of Wonderland, her mother might be able to find her replacement. But at what cost?
This was both an incredibly sad and an incredibly creepy short story. Which kind of matches with the whole Alice in Wonderlandtheme. It’s a bit of a creepy story when you really think about some of the things that have happened. It’s definitely nostalgic, and more than a little sad at moments. Especially when Alice is looking for her muchness. A bit like the woman in this story.
I can think of nothing worse than raising and loving a
child, only for her to be taken away from you way too early. Especially in a
quite horrific and dreadful manner. Which meant that I had so much sympathy for
the lead voice throughout this story. The fact that what she eventually decided
to do was somewhat horrible and something I could never conceive of, yet, I
still felt sympathy for her… well, it made this into one powerful story.
There is a moment from the original that sticks with me in
this rendition. One that I want to return to… the treatment of the dormouse by
the mad hatter and march hare. I don’t remember it being this horrific, but
when compared to the attack on a young girl… it becomes something which
certainly inspires a little horror.
Earth and Skye 