"Unbelief" by Michael Marshall Smith

This is a short one but a good one.

Two men meet in a park. Faith is discussed. It's Christmas Eve.

In a way this story reminds me of "Hills Like White Elephants," by Hemingway. Two nondescript people sitting across from each other at a table. This one goes further, though. Much further in exploring one character over the other. Here, we have a first-person narrator, who we follow past the table scene into his home on Christmas Day, into his life, to see his family, and how his choices have affected his relationship with them.

One of the best things about this story is the mystery. A character says, "Disbelief is easy.... It's faith that takes courage, and character." Clearly both characters have faith in something. Different things, really. But they both end up at the same table. The narrator and dialogue allude to the characters' pasts, but the audience does not know - cannot know - what has come before. All that is evident are the dissimilarities between the two characters. Smith has taken two familiar archetypes and muddled them up, confusing, and blurring their once distinct moral boundaries. All that's left is to question what is right.

"The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" by Neil Gaiman

I actually had no idea that Gaiman contributed to this book, but I wasn't surprised.

This story, like every one of his that I have read, was wonderful. Gaiman manages to capture an entire world in a single sentence.  The details and language conjure fully-imagined characters and settings. And, as every good writer does, he makes it seem so easy. For example, "First, there was the valley on the mainland, the whitewashed house in the gentle meadow with the burn splashing through it, a house that sat like a square of white sky against the green of the grass and the heather just beginning to purple." Unlike Harris's story "Wildfire in Manhattan," Gaiman's never seems forced. It's lyrical, it's full-grown, it's meticulous, but it also feels spontaneous and creative.

What's more is that Gaiman has the ability to always keep us guessing. Knowing his writing as I do, I've come to expect the twists and turns, but here, as elsewhere, he manages to foreshadow without hinting. He leaves clues, but they answer different questions than suspected. Perhaps its his way of playing with his audience, but I really think that it's just his way of telling a good story.

As I go back and look through the story again, I'm finding more and more details that tie the whole together. Gaiman is truly a master of his craft. Wherever you are, whatever you love to read. Find his work, and pick it up. It stays with you in the way that only good art does.

"Wildfire in Manhattan" by Joanne Harris

This short felt a lot like a chapter from a yet to be finished novel. It's a whole world (nothing wrong with that), and it's all about gods (or aspects of gods) roaming around New York City, trying to avoid these wraith-like aspects of Chaos who seem to be bent on the destruction of every other god/aspect in town.

Again we have a pair of twins here - one is the aspect of Wildfire, and the other is the aspect of Hearth Fire. Wildfire, the main character, is portrayed as a gregarious wise-ass, which is unfortunate because it adds to the intense familiarity of the story.

Gods wandering the world of man; humorous trickster-like character. If any of this sounds familiar, as in Neil Gaiman familiar...as in American Gods familiar, then you're not alone. It is, in fact, a lot like American Gods. Thor even makes an appearance.

I enjoyed this tidbit, but had a hard time getting past the similarities to Gaiman's novel. Especially when Gaiman wrote in his introduction to this volume that he was so often disappointed in the ruts that fantasy writers often travel in. And, he suggested, this collection would be something different. Well, strike one on that front.

Entertaining? Yes. Surprisingly original? Not so much.

"Fossil-Figures" by Joyce Carol Oates

If all the stories in this collection are as good as the first two, this exercise will be well worth it.

I don't think I've read any fiction by Oates before. But, of course, she's one of those authors whose name gets tossed about when discussing greats of the last twenty years or so. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to see her name listed on the cover as a contributor to this collection.

"Fossil-Figures" follows two brothers, twins actually, whose lives lead them further and further apart until, unexpectedly, they don't anymore.

Simply put, it's a kind of modern-day fairy tale. Good and evil, families, politics, corruption, all sewn up into a neat, little package — like a fairy tale.

What's especially appealing about this story are the repetitious thoughts that link the twins, as the story follows their lives. Also the theme which runs throughout the story, "Our lives are Mobius strips, misery and wonder simultaneously. Our destinies are infinite, and infinitely recurring."

The wonder is truly that Oates was able, in just a few short pages, to weave these two characters into archetypes of misery and wonder, and left me feeling both.

"Blood" by Roddy Doyle

I like to read things in order. Like, for example, when the backs of the Sandman trade paperbacks said that I could, if I desired, read any of the trades in any order, except for the last few, which, the editors kindly suggested, should be read in order.

I didn't buy it.

I read it from the beginning, and that was fine by me.

Likewise, I'm beginning my review of the stories in Stories from the beginning, which is Roddy Doyle's story "Blood."

I wasn't sure what to expect, I've only encountered Doyle once in my literary ramblings, and that was in the New Yorker a few months ago. But the title was promising, and usually the editors of a collection like this one are gonna bring the wood for the lead off position.

They did.

This is a quick, succulent (heh;) read, and has, as one might suspect, plenty to do with blood.

Fear not faithful readers, for this is not yet another in the endless line of vampire tales now festooning the literary landscape in their gory (and sometimes sparkly?) ways.

No, this is something different. (And, as I've now realized - like right this second realized - it's gonna be kinda tough to review short stories like this. I cannot reveal the surprise at the end in good conscience. Otherwise, what would be the point? I'd write and write, and end up rewriting the whole story. And then I'd be accused of plagiarism...it's just not a road I want to travel folks.)

But, as I was saying...this is something different. The main character lives in the Irish town, near Bram Stoker's home, and he has - despite my caveat above that this is decidedly not a vampire story - developed a taste, nay a thirst!, for blood. The rest involves his attempts to procure blood in fresher forms while maintaining the charade that he is still, in fact, a normal guy.

Overall, a fast and fun way to open a collection edited by two of the masters of fantasy fiction today.

What's the what

This will be my second attempt at a blog. My last one was, perhaps, too ambitious, or perhaps my ambition for it was greater than my desire to do it.

Regardless, I'm back, and so it begins.

Here I'll be posting a review every day for a new short story. I'll be starting off by reviewing the stories in Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio's new collection called, simply, Stories.

I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

-Jim