Binocular Vision

by Edith Pearlman
Wilmington : Lookout Books/University of North Carolina Wilmington, c2011.

In this collection of thirty-four stories, Edith Pearlman brings into sharp focus the everyday and extraordinary lives of people. Many of them are set just outside of Boston, and many of them have Jewish characters. While many modern short story writers seem to take a depressing tone, Pearlman's are never that simple. Some are sad; many are hopeful. Most were, at the very least, thought-provoking.

But it would be hard to take such a variegated collection and begin to make generalizations without losing the beauty of each individual one. Pearlman has a real gift for language that made reading each of these short stories a pleasure. I found myself wanting to both rush and slow down at the same time. I would hold out the treat of reading a story as a gift to myself: if you finish getting ready for work, you can read one more.

One of my favorite stories was "Jan Term," told in the form of a composition a Josie, a student composed telling about what she did over the last school break, but illuminating so much more about her life. "Elder Jinks" tells the story of two older people who married, but it left me thinking about both the compromises and discoveries you make through marriage. Then there was a series of stories set during and after World War 2 that had some recurring characters, but in different situations. These were just a few of the stories I could happily revisit, and I feel sure that whether a story left me happy, sad, or unsettled, I could reread it and know I gained a richer understanding.

The Best American Short Stories 2011

edited by Geraldine Brooks (book) and Heidi Pitlor (series)
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

This book presents 20 stories originally published in US or Canadian periodicals between January 2010 and January 2011, culled from 120 by author Geraldine Brooks. After a foreword and an introduction, by the series editor and the book editor respectively, in which they both discussed the "sameness" of short stories, I knew I was in for a unique collection.

Like any collection, there were some that I hated and some that I loved. Most I liked, in some form or another. Mostly, I admire the form of the short story and how an author can say so much in so little space where every word counts and not an image is wasted. So while I never rate a collection highly if I rate it at all (because I wouldn't read the whole collection from cover to cover again), I really enjoy the time spent dipping into these collections. (After all, even if I really hated a story, I've discovered an author to stay away from!)

Of the stories that stood out to me, I enjoyed "Property" by Elizabeth McCracken, which was bittersweet but the first story I really connected to, and "Phantoms" by Stephen Millhauser, which was deliciously creepy without being horror. Honorable mention goes to "The Sleep" by Caitlin Horrocks about a town that decides to hibernate, and which just begs for discussion - I asked by English major brother to read it because I wanted to see what he came away with. But my absolute favorite of the collection was "To the Measures Fall" by Richard Powers. Its format is really unique, using second person and questions at the end of each section that are reminiscent of English tests. This could have distracted me from the story itself, except for the premise: you discover a used book that eventually becomes part of your life, even though its meaning and your responses change over time. I could relate so well that it doesn't matter that the "you" in story is quite a bit older than me and has a life ultimately different from mine. That experience is one I can understand.

Steampunk!

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
Somerville, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2011.

In this compilation of steampunk short stories, you will find fourteen original tales by some of the hottest authors in YA and adult fantasy and science fiction. The editors write in the introduction that "The continuing reinterpretation of the steampunk idea made us ask the writers for stories that explored and expanded their own ideas of what steampunk could be" (ix). As a result, these stories push the boundaries of what you might expect from the genre, including everything from a creepy mystery to a "Clockwork Fagin."

This was the perfect collection to dip in and out of during my vacation week, because I could read one story at a time or, since one was so incredibly different from the next, read three straight in a row. I was able to read authors that I already enjoy, such as Cassandra Clare and Ysabeau Wilce, and be introduced to authors that I know want to investigate more, such as Delia Sherman and Dylan Horrocks. I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite, but looking back now the stories "Clockwork Fagin" by Cory Doctorow and "Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks stand out the most in my mind. I highly recommend giving this collection a try.

Something Out There: Stories

by Nadine Gordimer
New York : Viking Press, c1984.

This collection of nine short stories and one novella (the title story) published in 1984 is my introduction to acclaimed author Nadine Gordimer. When I first went to the library to get one of her stories, I didn't know much aside from the fact that she was a South African author. I left the library with a couple of choices, and decided to pick this one up mainly because I was in the mood for reading something short before I went to bed instead of beginning a novel.

So far, inauspicious beginnings and (possibly) strange choice as an introduction to Gordimer's works. The first story was "A City of the Dead, a City of the Living," and I was gripped. She intersperses one of the character's thoughts, almost like a journal, between several paragraphs with a third-person omniscient narrator. It didn't take me long to figure out which characters thoughts i was reading, and this added to the tension. This was probably my favorite story of the collection, and I am truly in awe of Nadine Gordimer's way with words and ability to write a short story. Her stories are sometimes depressing, but always striking, and she never wastes a word. "Letter from His Father" was the most over my head. It is a "reply" to Franz Kafka from his father, Hermann. Because I have never read Kafka's "Letter to My Father," I missed much of the nuance, though I could appreciate some of its cleverness.

The only real disappointment in the collection was the novella, "Something Out There." I'm blaming myself for this, at least in part, because I know so little of the politics and history of South Africa, and I'm almost certain that I would have appreciated the points she was making, had I been more familiar with South Africa in the late 70s and early 80s. Instead, while I sometimes caught some of what she was saying, I never could quite bring the themes of the story into focus. Overall, this was a very positive reading experience, which included a couple of trips to the dictionary ("shebeen" and "analemma") and just a tad of research on apartheid. I loved Gordimer's writing style. In fact, I was thrilled to find that the day I returned this book to the library, they had July's People in their booksale, so now I'm prepared when I'm ready to tackle one of Gordimer's novels.

In the Teeth of the Evidence

by Dorothy Sayers
New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company [c1940]

I admit, I have never read a Lord Peter Wimsey novel. But since I have heard about them so much on LibraryThing lately, when I saw this collection of short stories on the library sale's "fill a bag for a dollar" day, I thought it would be worth a try.

The first two stories involve Wimsey. Having, as I said, not read any of the rest, I couldn't tell you where they fit into the chronology of the novels. Even with this lack of knowledge, I didn't find them hard to follow. Mostly, I enjoyed the humor and am even more curious to see how her mysteries are fleshed out in a longer story. The rest of the short stories in this collection are mostly mysteries; one is a creepy, almost Gothic sort of story. In some ways they remind me of O. Henry stories, having a similar plot arc, but with different characters and circumstances, each with an unexpected revelation or twist. I enjoyed trying to guess where she was going with the stories and was nearly equally delighted when I'd figured it out as when I was surprised. Though it may have been an unconventional introduction to Sayers, In the Teeth of the Evidence made me impatient to try her Lord Peter Wimsey stories.

Fire Watch

This collection of a dozen short stories is from the earlier part of Connie Willis's career. Most of the stories included were published between 1979 and 1984. Even though all are technically science fiction, they show quite a range for a young author, with their variety of points of view and theme.

I knew very little of what I should expect going into this short story collection. I only knew that the title story had some characters related to the time traveling books that I'd already read, and that St. Paul's Cathedral figured prominently. In fact, St. Paul's was why I read this book now: on my recent trip to London, seeing St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey in particular made me want to read as much fiction and nonfiction about London and England as possible. I'd rather expected most of the stories to be interrelated, but that was not at all the case. As in many short story collections, I liked some and hated others. "All My Darling Daughters" disgusted me and I nearly put down the collection for good there. But I'm glad I continued, because the last story, "Blued Moon," was light and funny and left a smile on my face. Most of the other stories were somewhere in between, making this a decent collection and worth a browse for those interested in '80s science fiction.

Christmas at The Mysterious Bookstore

edited by Otto Penzler
New York, NY : Vanguard Press, 2010.

Otto Penzler, real-life proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York, has a unique way of celebrating Christmas. Every year, he asks a well-known crime author to write a short story that he makes into a booklet to give to his customers with their purchases during the season. This book collects seventeen of these stories, from 1993 to 2009, into book form for the first time. Including authors of a wide scope, from Donald Westlake to Mary Higgins Clark, what these stories have in common are three things: a mystery, The Mysterious Bookshop (at least mentioned if not a part of the story itself), and the holiday season as a setting.

What follows are stories as unique as the individual writers themselves, an excellent sampling of the mystery genre's variety. Though of course each reader will enjoy some stories more than others and these authors, for the most part, are novel writers whose stories often don't read like traditional short stories, there are really no complete misses in the bunch. Before reading this collection, I had heard of some of the authors but read none, so I really have no way of knowing how typical these selections are. Still, I liked some enough - my favorites were "Give Till It Hurts" by Donald Westlake, "The Grift of the Magi" by S.J. Rozan and "The Killer Christian" by Andrew Klavan - to look up the authors' full-length novels.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu

by Susanna Clarke
illustrated by Charles Vess
New York: Bloomsbury, 2006

The short story collection by the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is set in the same world as that novel. The "Introduction" by the "Director of Sidhe Studies, University of Aberdeen" gives the tales a pseudo-historical feel: either the tale itself is an alternate history, or illustrative of the legends of that world. The use of footnotes adds to the feeling of history or a literary collection used in "Sidhe Studies." This adds a layer of complexity and cleverness to the collection.

The stories themselves I found of varying interest. Some confused me, many seemed dark. These fairies are governed by ethics much different from humans' and their interactions in the human world generally cause trouble, whether intended or not. Personally, my favorite was "On Lickerish Hill," the story of a girl, Miranda, whose mother promises the man Miranda weds that she can spin five skeins of wool a day. I enjoyed recognizing the tale, though it was told in a style very different from what I would have expected. If you've been thinking of trying Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but were intimidated by the size, try this first to get a shorter introduction to Susanna Clarke's Faerie world.

The Imperfectionists

by Tom Rachman
New York: The Dial Press, 2010.

Though billed as a novel, this is a series of vignettes or short stories that each focus on a different character. These characters have one thing in common: their connection - often employment - with an English-language newspaper in Italy. The stories are told in chronological order, so even as we move between each character's point of view and story, the full picture that we begin to put together is of the newspaper itself. In between each story, we learn more of the back story of how the paper came to be in the first place, and by the end of the book the two stories - the character sketches and the story of the newspaper - have merged.

I'm rather conflicted about this book. I liked the format, which often reminded me of Olive Kitteridge, in which the short stories taken together gave me a mosaic of this one character as seen from many points of view. In The Imperfectionists, each character's story eventually gives you a full picture of the newsroom and the newspaper. Each story is rather artfully done, too, with clever use of language and interesting - though very imperfect - characters. And here my conflict lies. I did not these characters, and I have a very tough time reading about characters that I dislike. By the time I realized that no one was going to be likable, I was too far in to abandon the book. I found the characters and the overall tone fairly depressing, so the more I think about the book, the less I like it. The writing is superb, though, and at moments I cared about the characters despite my dislike, which tips the balance positively overall.

Steampunk Short Stories

Steampunk
edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

This anthology of steampunk writers from over twenty years begins with the essay "The 19th-Century Roots of Steampunk" by Jess Nevins, which gives the reader a lot of background about the genre and its roots in the novels of Jules Verne, dime novels, and authors' political responses to science fiction. The stories included then go on to show just how broad this genre can be, from diabolical inventors to a really creepy character who created rifts in time to a sort of comedy-of-manners in which a wife tries to distract her husband from gardening.

You may not love every story here - in fact, considering the range of stories, I would be surprised if you did - but you will surely come away with an appreciation of the breadth of subjects and styles that steampunk can encompass. My personal favorite was "Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang, an intricate short story involving the power of naming, kabbalistic ideas, and automata. On the other hand, I skimmed rather than read "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale. Though an interesting premise, that the main character from H.G. Wells' Time Machine created rifts in time and becomes insane, the story involved such a large amount of violence that only those with a very strong stomach should read it.

Finally, if you enjoy some of the stories, you will come away with a list of further books to read. I want to look for more by Ted Chiang, as well as James Blaylock and Michael Chabon. Besides the authors included, the final two essays give you even more to look into. Rick Klaw surveys steampunk books, movies, and games in his essay "The Steam-Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey," in which he includes a list of his top-ten steampunk books and movies. The final essay, "The Essential Sequential Steampunk" by Bill Baker gives readers a brief sketch of steampunk stories in comic book format.

If you're interested in learning about the steampunk subgenre, this collection of short stories is an excellent place to start. Though the editors admit in the introduction that the best of steampunk is novel-length, the essays and stories included in this anthology are an excellent source of information, authors, and title suggestions for a newbie like me and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick introduction to the genre.