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51Gowi2XyLLTiny Shoes Dancing is a beautifully-written collection of short stories, most of which are about people struggling to connect emotionally with one another, or even with themselves. Most of the short story collections I’ve read are loosely tied together by a character or a place or simply a genre style. This one is tied together by a feeling: a persistent melancholy that permeates all. Many of the stories involve failed or failing marriages, and others involve still darker themes of emotional separation–including one particularly haunting tale of reincarnation.

Kalman’s writing is gorgeous, and the pacing of the tales is terrific. And although the mood is generally dark, there are flashes of humor here and there, as well as a few stories that include suspenseful moments worthy of a thriller.

For the most part though, it is a collection about the sadness that can be found in the relationships of everyday life. Repeatedly as I was reading it, I thought of a line from the game Knights of the Old Republic II: “It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built.” Kalman is interested in exploring just what those unsaid things are, and examining the tragedies built upon them.

As is probably true of all literary fiction, these stories might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you prefer plots to characterization, some of the tales might not suit you, and if you like happy endings, be warned that happiness is at a premium in these tales. I remember my friend Pat Prescott telling me about a collection of Harlan Ellison stories that cautioned against reading all the stories at once, because the effect would be too depressing. Something similar might be warranted here.

But let me also tell you this: I myself typically don’t like literary fiction, and I prefer happy endings, or at least bittersweet ones. But I devoured this book in just a few reading sessions, mesmerized by Kalman’s prose and her empathetic characterizations. With many of the stories, I just had to keep reading, had to know what happened next, even though it was so far from my usual tastes. On the strength of that alone, I recommend giving this book a try. It might not be for everyone, but even so, it’s well worth reading.

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Imperial PassionsImperial Passions is a sweeping historical novel told from the perspective of Anna Dalassena, who at the beginning of the tale is a 14-year-old orphan girl living with her grandparents. Over the course of the novel, she grows up, marries, becomes a mother, and through it all is witness to many major events during a tumultuous time in the Byzantine Empire–emperors and empresses rise and fall, wars are waged, and all the while daily life goes on in what was then one of the most powerful cities on Earth

A major plot thread is Anna’s hatred for Constantine Ducas, a powerful official in the imperial court who viciously abuses his wife, Anna’s cousin Xene. Ironically, by the end of the book, she finds her family in an uneasy alliance with the man–though he is clearly maneuvering to gain power for himself, just as many of the other palace bureaucrats do.

One of the things I liked most about the book is the way the political machinations cause real effects in the characters’ daily lives. Another plot thread is how the government levies taxes on its citizens to build extravagant churches and palaces, while failing to pay soldiers on the empire’s edge. It’s one thing to read that someone is an officious bureaucrat–it’s another when you read that their corrupt tax collection scheme is robbing the main character. (The Econ major in me also liked seeing an early example of Ricardian equivalence.)

The large cast of characters is composed largely of actual historical figures, though in a few cases Stephenson takes understandable liberties, given the relative lack of historical information. Some of the most memorable characters are Anna’s uncle Costas, who teaches her about strategy through their frequent chess games, and the bureaucrat Psellus, a “Vicar of Bray“-like character who manages to retain his high office by constantly courting the favor of the various rulers.

Imperial Passions is a truly ambitious work, and Stephenson clearly has done extensive research. Almost every aspect of Byzantine life is covered–food, clothing, travel, religion, marriage and almost anything else you can think of is discussed in some fashion. As a result, the story is rather slow to unfold. If you like a rapid-fire plot with lots of sudden twists and turns, it might not be your cup of tea. And there are times when the otherwise commendable commitment to authenticity hurts the flow of the tale–for example, since many of the characters are historical figures, there are a lot of duplicate names. I wish I had a solidus for every “Marie” and “Constantine” who crops up.

Also, because there are few historical novels about Byzantium, (compare with how many there are about, say, Tudor England) some readers may be intimidated by the unfamiliar setting and the forbidding Byzantine terminology, although there is a helpful glossary in the back. But it’s well worth sticking with it, even–maybe especially–for readers unfamiliar with the setting, because you will end up learning quite a lot about a fascinating and unjustly neglected period in history.

[Imperial Passions is available here. Also be sure to check out the author’s website for lots more information on the Byzantines.]

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Ocean EchoesI didn’t know what to expect from this book. Glancing at the categories and the description, it didn’t match any genre I was familiar with. I figured it would be a romance set on a scientific voyage. And it kind of is that, but there’s way more to it.

The book follows marine biologist Ellen Upton, an expert on jellyfish whose grant money is rapidly dwindling. In desperate need of a breakthrough to save her career, Ellen ventures out on a research ship into the Pacific, hoping to find something that will earn her more funding.

The majority of the novel is told from Ellen’s perspective, and in many ways, her plunge into the unknown depths of the ocean mirrors her journey into her own equally complex and mysterious psyche. I usually don’t like using such lit-crit terms, but that truly is what happens here, and what’s more, it works. It never feels like an overplayed metaphor, but rather an organic marriage of character and plot development.

Ellen has great difficulty feeling close to others, having gone through a painful break-up when her fiancé stole her research ideas for his own. Unwilling to trust others easily again, she loses herself in her work, much to the disappointment of Ryan, her loyal research assistant.

On the cruise, she meets other scientists and students, including one researcher whose skepticism of man-made climate change sparks a friendly rivalry. She and the other scientists also visit a small island populated with a tribe of welcoming natives, and a family whose patriarch has gone missing at sea. Ellen and Ryan later find him on another island that formerly housed a military installation.

The book is filled with strange vignettes that make Ellen’s experience feel more like a surreal journey into a mystical realm than a scientific expedition. From her encounter with a waiter who speaks of ghosts following her, to the magical rituals performed by the islanders, to the antics of one of the students on the expedition who has a penchant for dressing up as a gorilla, the book gradually builds a feeling of melancholy mystery woven from bizarre, dream-like incidents.

When Ellen finally makes the major discovery she has longed for, it is not a triumph, but rather a frightening experience—one that disturbs her so much she questions her own sanity. As did I, I’ll admit. I wondered if Ellen might be transforming into an “unreliable narrator” of sorts, though the book is written in the third-person.

Hurst’s prose throughout is haunting and hypnotic.  The tale unfolds at a slow pace, but the writing is filled with evocative descriptions and intriguing turns of phrase. At times, it reminded me of Steinbeck in the way it dwells upon seemingly minor things without ever becoming dull or tedious. Little details, like the apparent changing expressions of a rock face the islanders believe represents the moods of the sea, stick in the memory to create a beautifully odd atmosphere. (It reminded me of Mal, the demonic face in the trees in Patrick Prescott’s Human Sacrifices.)

Maybe it’s just because I saw the film adaptation so recently, but the book also put me in mind of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. Like VanderMeer’s nameless biologist, Ellen’s seemingly cold reserve and preference for biology over human interaction mask a wounded soul with deep emotional scars. And also like Annihilation, Ocean Echoes depicts nature as simultaneously dangerous, mysterious, and eerily beautiful; all while weaving an environmentalist warning of humanity’s potential to unwittingly cause unimaginable harm to our own planet.

Does the book have flaws? A few, yes. Some of the scientific exposition sounds a bit awkward as dialogue, and I swear that a couple times some background information about jellyfish was repeated almost verbatim. Also, the above-noted slow pace of the book may not be to every reader’s taste. If you have a strong preference for fast-paced action, it might not work for you, at least early on.

But even then, I still encourage you to give Ocean Echoes a try. It’s a weird, haunting, hypnotic mystery of a book, a love-letter to the ocean, written with respect for its dangers and fear for its fragility. When it rambles, it rambles in the way the best novels do—with love and understanding of its theme that commands the reader’s attention.

It’s very bold to write and publish a book that doesn’t easily fit into any pre-defined genre, and that goes double for an indie author. And yet some of the greatest works of fiction ever created defy categorization. So I admire Hurst tremendously for going through with it and taking the risk to write this mesmerizingly weird and thought-provoking tale. It may not always be what you expect—but then, what better reason could there be to read it?

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516XMGMHmwL._AC_US218_The Prize is a fast-paced medical thriller with a compelling plot: Dr. Pam Weller has made a Nobel-worthy breakthrough in Alzheimer’s disease research, finding a drug with the potential to cure it. But a more senior researcher in the same field, the ambitious Professor Eric Prescott, will go to any lengths to steal her discovery and gain the Nobel Prize for himself.

And when I say any lengths, I absolutely do mean any—even illegal and immoral methods are on the table for Prescott in his quest to satisfy his ambition. The only thing Pam has to help her against his machinations are her own wits and the help of her boyfriend Jake, a former FBI agent.

So much of the book hinges on its plot that I don’t want to give away too much here. What I found most interesting is how it presents the field of medical research. The researchers rarely seem to think about the implications of curing Alzheimer’s in terms of what it means for humanity at large. For them—both Weller and Prescott—it is a personal challenge with personal rewards. The difference is that Weller is fundamentally an honest person, whereas Prescott is not.

The author is a medical researcher himself, and his experience clearly shows: issues that might seem trivial to the layman, like questions of which author is listed first on a research paper and the details of tenure review processes, take on extreme importance for many of the characters. He captures the nitty-gritty details of research and its associated bureaucratic logistics very well.

My only criticisms of the book are these: first, some chapters are written from the villain’s point of view as he executes his plan, which takes away the suspense. When we already know what he has done, it makes it less exciting when the good characters uncover it. (On the other hand, it was interesting to explore his motivations and see the twinges of guilt he feels as he commits his crimes.)

Second, some of the dialogue was a little awkward and contained lots of exposition. I sympathize with this—it’s very hard to write dialogue that both sounds natural and conveys the information the readers needs to have. This is especially true for a story set in a highly-specialized field like medical research, where there is lots of jargon the characters would presumably know, but that the reader may not.

But these issues didn’t seriously detract from my enjoyment of the book. The Prize is fast-paced and easy to read. If you like medical thrillers, or really thrillers in general, I recommend giving it a try. It will make you look at every press release and news report you hear about “research breakthroughs” in a new light.

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The Bone Curse
This is such an awesome cover.

<SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!>

I read Carrie Rubin’s first two books last year and enjoyed them tremendously, so I was very eager to read her latest effort, The Bone Curse. It tells the story of Benjamin Oris, a young medical student who injures his hand on an ancient bone in the Paris catacombs. Soon after, his loved ones begin to succumb to a mysterious illness. Oris, as one would expect of a med student, is a rational and logical sort of person, dismissive of supernatural explanations for the affliction.

But gradually, as more bizarre events begin to occur all around him, Oris discovers that he is descended from a cruel plantation owner who raped the daughter of a powerful Vodou mambo (female High Priest). To avenge her daughter, the mambo placed a curse upon the plantation owner’s bloodline.

Oris stubbornly continues, in spite of his friend Laurette’s urging, to maintain his faith in medical science and reject supernatural explanations, but as more and more of his loved ones begin to fall ill—and as events in his personal and professional life begin to spiral increasingly out of control–he finally has to admit the possibility that there is something beyond a normal illness at work. This leads him into a desperate effort to end the curse through extreme measures, and brings him into conflict with an ancient Vodou conspiracy.

I’ve never read anyone who can write a page-turner like Rubin can, and Bone Curse is similar to her previous books in that it quickly becomes impossible to put down. The last line of one chapter late in the book was an absolute gut-punch, and I just had to keep going to find out what happened. She has a real talent for writing lengthy but well-paced action scenes that hold the reader’s attention. (I’m probably unusual in this regard, but I often start to skim when I read fights or chase sequences in thrillers—but never in Rubin’s books.)

While Bone Curse, like her other books, has many medical elements—including a possible alternate scientific explanation for the mysterious illness afflicting Oris and those he cares about—the book struck me as primarily a supernatural thriller, and it’s clear the author did her research on Haitian Vodou. Many of the eerie rituals are described in some detail, and she does a great job of differentiating between true spiritual practices and the “Hollywood” caricature that the word conjures up for most people.

All in all, The Bone Curse is a gripping and fast-paced thriller. And as it is the first in a series, I must say I’ve been looking forward to reading the next installment ever since I finished it.

[The Bone Curse releases on March 27, 2018. This review is based on an ARC of this book I received from the publisher through NetGalley.]

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51GOZPH3rhL._SY346_I stumbled across the author’s blog by chance while at KingMidget’s Ramblings. I was excited to see that she, like me, was a fan of Weird and Lovecraftian fiction, and I read her spot-on analysis of the short story The Repairer of Reputations, which I love. And so I decided to check out The Friendship of Mortals, the first entry in her series featuring Lovecraft’s corpse-reanimating doctor, Herbert West.

The plot broadly follows that of Lovecraft’s original episodic short story until the end, but with numerous edits, alterations and additions. It is a “reimagining” (or “reboot” in modern lingo) rather than a mere retelling. For one thing, it’s far longer. Lovecraft’s original seems like a mere outline in comparison.

Very often, when people say their work is “Lovecraftian” what they mean is that it has some names or artifacts from Lovecraft’s mythos, or perhaps that their tale concerns large alien monsters resembling sea creatures. Very few writers imitate Lovecraft’s tone, which is detached and serious. Usually these wannabe Lovecraft stories are written in the somewhat flippant manner of a Stephen King narrator, with a few references to “Cthulhu” and “Abdul Al-Hazred” thrown in.

Within a few pages of Friendship of Mortals, I was blown away by how well Driscoll managed to imitate HPL’s style. The tone, the pacing, the careful descriptions of everything from people to books to the architecture in Lovecraft’s fictional town of Arkham – all of it was there, just as in the canonical stories of Lovecraft himself. While Friendship of Mortals may take its general plot and characters from one of Lovecraft’s shorter (and generally less well-regarded) tales, its style and pace resemble his longer and more developed works, particularly The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

This would be impressive enough on its own, but Driscoll manages another feat: she explores the psychology and backstory of not only West, but the narrator (unnamed in Lovecraft’s original, but here named Charles Milburn) and other characters of her own creation. And though the human element was something that Lovecraft, for good or ill, deliberately minimized in his stories, Driscoll examines it, and does it well, without ever becoming unfaithful to his style.

Each of the major characters—West, Milburn and Alma Halsey, Milburn’s lover– are given detailed backstories and for the most part behave in believable and consistent ways. The romance between Milburn and Halsey was particularly impressive, because Lovecraft never wrote romance. In general, one of the major red-flags that a would-be Lovecraft imitator is about to become decidedly un-Lovecraftian is the introduction of sex or romance.

But Driscoll somehow pulls it off. As I was reading the love episodes between Halsey and Milburn, I thought to myself “If Lovecraft had written romance, it would have been like this.” That might sound like a joke, given Lovecraft’s antipathy toward all emotions except fear, but I mean it as a sincere compliment: Milburn and Halsey’s affair, while being relatively explicit, still seems in keeping with the period setting, both in terms of how it is described and what the lovers actually do.

Driscoll reinvents the vignettes of Lovecraft’s serial, changing or removing certain details here and there, fleshing out the views of the sentimental and romantic Milburn and the rational, calculating Doctor West, and then bringing them, over the course of West’s increasingly disturbing experiments, into conflict. Minor characters are just as vividly-drawn as the major players, from one of West’s numerology-obsessed professors to his overbearing businessman father.

Driscoll plays down the horror and violence of the original, but the relatively little space given to the monstrous results of West’s experiments renders them more powerful as a result. It’s dark and disturbing stuff, but again, true to the spirit of the source material.

I have a few quibbles: the book is lengthy and slow-paced, which readers expecting a thriller may find forbidding. But I doubt Lovecraft fans will be put off by this, as HPL could take his time with a story as well, and part of his style is its slow, gradual pace. A feature, not a bug, in other words.

In the last quarter of the book, the psychological character-development aspect takes center stage over the plot and horror elements, which some readers may find disappointing. Milburn’s philosophical musings, while quite interesting, begin to overtake all the other components at this stage.

One other note: there is one scene in which a character uses a racial slur—it’s perfectly logical for the time and circumstances, but nevertheless it is shocking enough to see on the page that I think I ought to warn readers about it. But again, anyone who has read HPL’s own works will have seen far worse, alas.

But these are all ultimately minor points, which don’t detract much from the book’s many virtues. The Friendship of Mortals is the first in a series, and I’m eager to read the next installment. It’s certainly a must-read for Lovecraft fans, and I think it works quite well even for readers to whom things like the “Necronomicon” or “Cthulhu” are meaningless, provided they like a good psychological drama with tinges of the supernatural.

I can’t stress enough the magnitude of what Driscoll accomplished here—she took one of H.P. Lovecraft’s lesser short stories and made it into his greatest novel. I say “his” just because she imitates him so well that at times, I swear I could forget the author’s identity, and believe that HPL really had returned to flesh out his tale of the amoral re-animator and his increasingly reluctant assistant. Like Dr. West, Driscoll has made her subject live again.

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51-tF08D1ULPat Prescott is a long-time reader, commenter, and great friend of the blog. (My very first follower, actually—dating back to my pre-Wordpress days.) So, I feel a little sheepish that it took me this long to read his novel, Human Sacrifices.

It’s an extremely ambitious book—a blend of various genres, with elements of horror, of romance and of satire. The story follows Jan, a young schoolteacher who suffers through a brief marriage to an abusive husband, and tries to find peace in helping her students escape the perils of local gangs. She ultimately remarries to a thoughtful preacher, Paul, who has a tragic history of his own.

The horror parts of the story come from the allegorical demonic face that Jan sees in the trees outside her room early in the book—a face she refers to as “Mal”, a God of Death, and which comes to symbolize the evil in the world—whether it be the gangs, or Brother Bobby (a flamboyant fundamentalist preacher who holds considerable influence over Jan’s first husband), or the tedious nature of school bureaucracy that prevents Jan from teaching her students.

As you might imagine, the horror writer in me loved this idea, and thought the scenes where Jan addresses Mal were among the most effective in the story. These are deemed “hallucinations” by the other characters in the story, but for Jan, it ultimately signifies all the adversity she has to overcome.

Paul and Jan face plenty of adversity over the course of the book, whether from school administrators or religious fanatics, but also have plenty of good times and interesting discussions about relationships, sex, and religion.

Through it all, Prescott skewers many targets, from the everyday annoyances of the educational system to deeply sensitive religious topics. Jan’s second husband Paul holds forth at length on some of the most controversial issues—abortion, religious monuments on government property, gay rights, etc.—and on each of them delivers well-reasoned arguments against the worldview of the zealous Fundamentalists, all based on evidence found in the Bible itself.

Being not terribly well-read on the topic of religion, I found much of the terminology initially unfamiliar, but ultimately very interesting. For example, I learned about “millennialism”--a belief held by some Christians regarding Christ returning and ruling for a thousand years before the Final Judgment.

I admire Prescott’s courage for taking on these topics, and the viewpoint of a liberal protestant which he portrays was quite an interesting one to read.

Now, putting on my critic hat, I did have a few problems with the story, particularly in the middle section, where I felt things dragged a bit as the day-to-day facts of Jan’s relationship with Paul were explored. That could just be my tastes, though; as I’m not generally one for romance in novels. And while Paul quotes from plenty of male experts on sex and gender relations, I think it would have been good to include a bit more of women’s views on it. The female characters, in my opinion, all seemed a little too sex-crazed. There’s nothing wrong with sex-crazed characters mind, but I prefer to have some who are not very interested in sex at all, just to balance things out.

Also, I felt the book wasn’t divided into enough chapters. Cutting into smaller chunks might make things more manageable, and might even suggest a way to address the “flow” issue I mentioned above. As it was, they seemed a little too packed, and also a bit too sequential—plot twists and minor dramas arise, play out, and are resolved in a fairly linear fashion. It might work better if these plot threads were mixed up a little, so that different ones came to the forefront at different parts of the book. For example, the last chapter is largely Jan interviewing another character and learning her life story. I would have broken this interview up over the course of several chapters, so that we have more time to mull parts of it over, and to put the final part toward the end, but also coincide with other dramatic developments. (Of course, this is something that is very hard to do, and something I doubt if I myself could do—again, I respect the level of daring it takes to even attempt this.)

Finally—and this is an issue I can relate to, having struggled with it myself—there were some typos, missing commas, and run-on sentences, particularly in the first part of the book. These are just editing glitches, and probably inevitable. I heard about similar issues from readers of my most recent book. It seems like no matter how many times you reread something, errors still get through. The great thing about eBooks is that you can correct them.

Human Sacrifices is a promising effort which, with some revision, I think could become a very good novel indeed. I hope none of my criticisms seem too harsh, because I really think there is a lot of good material to work with here. Patrick has done me a great favor by critiquing my stories honestly, and his comments made me a better writer, so I think the least I can do is try my best to return the favor. I know firsthand that it’s tough to work on something for a long time and then hear people asking for changes and modifications—but I also know I was very grateful for it afterward.

Because in spite of the flaws I mention above, I give the author a lot of credit for trying to pull off something so ambitious. It’s not easy to address all of these different facets of life in a book, and probably doing so is bound to occasionally be messy—rather like life itself.

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One Night in BridgeportOne Night in Bridgeport is a legal thriller that follows Jack McGee, a law student who is sent to Bridgeport, California to deliver some papers concerning the purchase of some land by a large corporation. While there, he decides to have a one-night stand with a local woman, Lea Rogers. (Who, though McGee doesn’t realize it at the time, is the daughter of the property owner.)

The next morning, McGee wakes up feeling overwhelmed with guilt and regret over cheating on his fianceé and leaves without speaking to the still-sleeping Rogers. She wakes up in time to see McGee’s car pulling out of the parking lot, and immediately feels angered and hurt by his caddish behavior.

Later, she discovers that McGee is handling the purchase of her mother’s property, and her anger only increases further. In a conversation with her friend and local lawyer, Butkus Sweet, she mentions sleeping with McGee and Sweet decides that it must have been rape. After he pressures her to do so, Rogers presses charges against McGee.

From this point, things go from bad to worse for McGee, beginning with his initial decision to tell the investigators he has never met Rogers, and continuing through his trial, where many other questionable aspects of his past come to light.

The book has an almost Rashomon-like quality to it, in that we see things from different characters’ points-of-view. In addition to McGee, Paxson also shows the perspectives of Rogers, Sweet, and the Judge. (Personally, I found the Judge and McGee’s determined-but-overworked defense attorney, Tammy,  to be the most sympathetic characters in the story.)

The plot is well-paced, and the final twist that resolves the story is both set up well enough that it doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere, but hidden well enough that you don’t see it coming. I also enjoyed the descriptions of McGee’s walks in the snow. At one point, Paxson alludes to the eerie, muffled silence that accompanies a new snowfall–I loved that, because to me it’s one of the most interesting things about snow, and not enough writers make mention of it.

My only real problem with the book was how unlikable McGee is, but I suspect that this is a pretty realistic depiction of this kind of case. Some readers might be alienated by his personality, but if you’re the type who needs someone to root for to feel engaged with a story, be patient–in the second half of the book, the Judge emerges as a very well-written, sympathetic and interesting character.

It’s the sort of book that I think can be perceived very differently by different readers, so before you read my last bit of analysis, I recommend you read it yourself and make up your own mind. I’m not only going to spoil some plot points below, but also say some subjective stuff that could color your perception of the characters. So, now’s your chance to bail if you don’t want spoilers.

Ready?

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51lvbVGJfzLThe Seneca Scourge is a medical thriller with science-fiction elements.  It follows Dr. Sydney McKnight as she finds herself in the midst of a seemingly incurable influenza pandemic. Aiding the staff at her hospital is the mysterious Dr. Casper Jones. As the pandemic spreads, Dr. McKnight notices Dr. Jones behaving oddly.

As she investigates in between treating the ever-growing patient population, Dr. McKnight gradually uncovers the shocking truth about Dr. Jones.

That’s the spoiler-free synopsis. If you don’t want to know the plot twist, don’t read after the asterisks below. My spoiler-free review is that it is a very well-paced thriller that successfully combines fairly plausible depictions of medicine and viruses in the first half with science-fiction elements in the second half. If you like either medical thrillers or science-fiction (and especially if you like both) I recommend it highly.

Now, if you want to know more detail, with spoilers, read on.

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