Red by Paul Kane
Skullvines, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9799673-5-1
Available: New
Red is a fairly short, straightforward retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” that breaks both the monster and the fairy tale form back down to their horrific beginnings. Kane’s monstrous wolf is a creature out of our nightmares, all appetite, both sexual and digestive. He’s a true shapeshifter, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who takes on the forms of people around him in order to get closer to his victims. Also true to the first fairy tales, this isn’t a light-hearted tale with magical creatures that is tied up in a nice happy bow. It’s a brutal tale of stalking and hunger. The only down side is that it doesn’t deviate from the traditional story much, making it a simplistic and quickly read tale. Recommended for private collections due to the sexual content and cost vs. length factors.
Contains: Violence, gore, sex
Prompted by this StoryTellers Unplugged article the issue of gender and genre is rearing its head again. There was a long, nice discussion of this on Brian Keene’s board, ut at other horror genre hang outs there doesn’t seem to be much discussion, just a routine dismissal.
Bev Vincent’s experiences are on one hand ridiculous, it seems that the editor in question was looking for reasons to dismiss his work, and since there is nothing to be won in a battle where the opposition is close minded and beligerant for the sake of simply opposing you, his solution to the problem was the only right one.
The idea that women can’t write horror, and that horror is a male genre, is ridiculous. Any time you reject someone from your target audience you fail. It’s not a writer’s job to say “This story is for men”. It’s the audience’s job to decide what they like and what they want to read.
This idea feeds directly into the depressing, sexist role of females in horror. Women, by and large, in horror are there to be token damsels in distress in order make the situation more serious. Or they are there to be raped and murdered. Occasionally they get to be villains, but when they are they’re just as flat and bland as male villains.
I think that the failure of horror to cater to a female audience has directly influenced the rise of urban fantasy, and led to that genre progressively leading down darker and darker paths. I think books like Rachel Vincent’s werecats series, Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse and Harper Connelly books, and Ann Aguirre’s Blue Diablo prove that women love the dark stuff too, and could easily grow a love of horror.
Defining horror as male is also insulting to males. How many writers out there have been told to dumb down their work, or have been constricted with the idea that this, and ONLY this is horror? That Horror is only the plucky group of people slowly being picked off by the bad guy/monster.
When I started Rot it was with two things in mind. 1) How do I write a zombie story that isn’t just a plucky group os survivors trying to get to safety and being eaten one by one? and 2) How do I write a convincing male lead who is also openly emotionally? How do I do the male lead and zombies differently, but convincingly?
Because I don’t think that writing the same old tale fosters intelligence and creativity. Not in Horror, not in urban fantasy, and not in romance. There is a satisfaction in reading a tale with familiar elements, but there’s a danger in it too. It’s called complacency, and that in turn leads exactly to where we are, in a genre so static that even though the idea of only males being able to write it may be dismissed, but it’s not fought against. It’s not out right challenge.
So, my dear horror people, I invite you to buy a copy of Rot (when it goes on sale), which is the product primarily of two women. Think of it as my response to the challenge “Women can’t write horror”. I refuse to simply dismiss the idea, I prefer to prove it entirely wrong.
And if you think I’m alone, why not try out these other female horror/dark fiction writers.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Nancy A. Collins
Kathe Koja
Lucy Snyder
Charlaine Harris
Polly Frost
Fran Friel
Cherie Priest
Jennifer Pelland
Shirley Jackson
Mary Shelley
Sarah Langan
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The previous book in the series, Grave Peril, was the kind of book a fan reads just to find out what’s happening next with the characters, so it was with some caution that I picked up my copy of Summer Knight. I was, honestly, afraid that the momentum and pure fun Butcher whipped up in the first two Harry Dresden books was destined to only make for a slow, disappointing slide.
And I was very wrong, thankfully.
In Summer Knight Butcher hits that perfect stride between adventure, mystery, a touch of romance and plenty of humor that was off in Grave Peril. It opens with Dresden, nearly mad and driven to his own destruction over the tragedy that befell his girlfriend Susan in the last book, investigating a literal rain of toads at a Chicago park. While there Dresden barely escapes a hit, aided by a werewolf buddy, and returns home to meet a would-be client. Only the client turns out to be none other than the Winter Queen of the Fairies, who has bought his debt to his fairie godmother and in return wants three favors from him.
The first, which he is told he has full permission to decline, is to seek out the true killer of the knight of the Summer court, clearing the Winter Queen’s name. But while still considering whether he’ll take the task or not Dresden meets with the White Council, part of which is trying to blame him for starting the war between wizards and the Red Court of vampires. The Winter Queen, the Council finds, is willing to give the wizards aid in their fight against the vampires, if Dresden completes a task for them. Conveniently enough the White Council, less friendly than Harry would like to admit to, demands that he fulfill the Winter Queen’s task as he never did have a proper quest to become a full wizard in the first place. The quest will kill two birds with one stone, if it doesn’t kill Harry first.
Only the quest isn’t as simple as find the killer, something neither the White Council nor the Winter Queen (or even the Summer Queen) realize is going on, and Harry, the only one who can find the truth, is facing a full on Fairie War as well as a magical imbalance of the seasons that could rip the mortal world apart.
As always Dresden is in over his head, but is stubborn, sarcastic and determined to do what is right by the people around him, the people who depend on him one way or the other.
Summer Knight comes together with smoothness and wholeness that Grave Peril lacked. The stakes are just as high, the losses potentially just as bad, but the parts all fit together in a way that makes this addition to the Dresden Files an incredibly satisfying read.
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This book, decorated with a simple dark cover featuring what can only be described as a clockwork angel (piqued your interest yet?), gets two reviews because it’s nearly two books in one.
As a fiction book Heaven’s Bones is a historical steampunk fantasy with prose that betrays its author’s poetic prowess. It paints a beautiful picture, with a precision that brings both the fantasy aspects and the historical aspects to life. In some books the world building is explicitly detailed, in this one while the setting is rich and full, it’s the characters which are explicitly detailed. In fact, so much character building is done that it leads to the book’s only flaw, that being a front-heavy feel with a slow progression of the over arching plot. The Angels, from the cover and the blurb, which likely sell the book to readers, don’t even materialize until over a hundred pages in and all the character’s relationships and associations aren’t fully revealed until after the 200 page mark.
It’s easy to fall for the pretty prose, but become frustrated with the scattered feel of it.
But this isn’t just a fiction book. Heaven’s Bones is actually a Ravenloft title. The aspects of the popular role play setting are integrated with just as much care and skill as the Victorian era, steampunk, and Civil War era time lines. There is no blatant connection (in fact I found myself second guessing whether it was meant to be a tie in at all) which, as a reader who is first being introduced to Ravenloft, allows for more eagerness to try the book, and an easier immersion into some of the concepts. The only familiar feature I spotted was The Mists, so delicately written that they became a character all their own, which of course is the main tip off that the reader (or the player, in the case of the game) might be venturing into Ravenloft.
This also shifts the previous complaint, making seemingly ineffective storytelling become catering to readers who love characters and concepts over solid things, like plots. Seeing as readers of RPG fiction love to read about the character but like open ended possibilities (need I mention the Drizzt Do’Urden saga?) this makes Heaven’s Bones’ seemingly slow opening pace just as deliberate of a plot element as everything else previously mentioned.
All in all, Heaven’s Bones is beautifully written, does indeed have steampunk Victorian era Angels, as well as psychics, cursed twins and someone suspiciously similar to Jack the Ripper. It has major crossover appeal but not only will it have gamer readers feeling clever for recognizing the “in-joke” Ravenloft elements, it will have non-gamer readers much more willing to take the plunge since the book doesn’t make them feel like they’re missing twenty years of back titles needed to understand what’s going on in this book.
And did I mention the prose was pretty?
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Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com’s Werewolf Month.
Paperback: 0451458923, $6.99
Paperback: 9780786951116, $6.99