Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories

I can't tell you how excited I was to learn about this book during TLA. I loved loved loved Kelly Link's stories in Pretty Monsters. Loved them. Loved them. Loved them.

I'm happy to say that I enjoyed this anthology very much as well. There were some really highfalutin authors that participated in this book, Libba Bray, MT Anderson, Garth Nix, Kelly Link (whoo!) amongst others. As with any story collection some were stronger than others, but I thought this was a strong group of stories with the steampunk theme tying them together regardless of how differently each author interpreted it. And believe me, they were all very different.

My absolute favorite was by Libba Bray, a story entitled The Last Ride of the Glory Girls, and the second in the collection. It was a steampunk western and it was absolutely lovely. I loved the dialect and language, I loved the characters, especially Addie our plainspoken heroine. Simply put, it was 36 pages of excellent storytelling.

Short stories are really ideal vacation reading. I read this in Galveston and it was somehow fitting. All those old Victorian houses were a perfect setting for me to sink my teeth into a steampunk book. In fact, I recommend someone write something to that effect and set it there. What a perfect place for a novel. A rundown seaside town that is full of gorgeous old buildings and history. Someone definitely needs to write something set in Galveston beside hurricane books anyway. And lest anyone wonder, I'm a big fan of Galveston.

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Book Source = ARC provided by publisher
(thank you Candlewick! You Rock)

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

From the moment I opened the book, I knew this was going to be an unusual experience. The end papers are filled with a strange and interesting mish-mash of doodles, we next get a painting of a woman rowing a boat down a street with a cloud raining on her flower-pots, and then we get to the table of contents, which plainly put, is spectacular. Tan has designed it to look like an envelope, with the publisher in the ‘from’ area and his dedication in the ‘to’ area and the chapters each represented as a separate stamp – the page number is shown as the stamp cost. It is lovely and I love the symbolism that this book (and each individual chapter) will take you somewhere new.

The stories range in length from a page to several, from feeling like an anecdote to feeling like a fairytale, from having the art being an integral part of the storytelling to having a text that could stand independently from the art.

After having read this book twice I am still not sure what to make of all of it – other than I know I loved it and I know it was something extremely special. What exactly do these stories mean (I loved the Horn Book review where the reviewer said, “Tan follows his wordless epic The Arrival with a collection of -- stories? fables? dreams?”) because that is exactly what the reader is asking during the experience – what exactly is this???

I can only say that after two reads I sort of felt like Tan took the sterile and conformist setting of suburbia (little boxes made of ticky tacky anyone?) and infused it with a mythology, a history, a fairytale feeling of magic that one has in childhood regardless of where they are raised.

I have several favorite stories. I loved the one of Eric a foreign exchange student that is foreign in more ways that one…as in he’s an alien being. I enjoyed how the pictures were integral to the story – Eric, being a visitor, naturally has many questions about the function of things – but Tan chooses to draw these questions instead of verbalize them. It is very effective. I enjoyed Distant Rain, a story in which the format used (collage) captures the essence of the story. It is a story that describes how random scraps of words from discarded poems growing into a giant ball until it bursts forth upon the town spewing poetry on everything. I was seriously freaked out by Stick Figures, which I found eerie, weird, and downright disturbing.

If you would like to know more background on each story, I strongly suggest you visit Shaun Tan’s own website. There he goes over each story and explains his art techniques and also give a bit of an explanation of each story, how it originated, what may have influenced him, and sometimes when we’re lucky a bit of what the story is actually about.

I really want to see this title on the real Printz list.

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Book Source: Library Copy

No Such Thing as The Real World: Stories About Growing up and Getting a Life by various

A short story collection with some big names and stories with big things going on in them. There were three stories that really struck me and I am going to talk about those individually. Don’t read this if you don’t want ***spoilers***.

Complication by An Na

I had to read this one twice. On my first read through I wondered about Fay, the girl who goes to clubs and ends up somehow picking up her dead boyfriend’s brother, which is kind of convenient since she has plans to blackmail him. I did wonder, “what kind of club is she going too?” And I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that even after my second read I still didn’t know. I’m going to say it’s probably a sign of my vastly boring and sheltered life that I couldn’t figure it.

“She may be young, but she has lived long enough to know, shackles come in many forms.”

That line really tied the story together for me. Except that in her plans to blackmail him she opened herself up to much more serious shackles. You know…like jail? That aside, there was an emotional intensity to this story that really appealed to me.

The Projection: A Two-Part Invention by M.T. Anderson

Color me impressed. I loved this story, it was my stand out favorite of the bunch. I loved that it jumped around and made you guess and by the end there still isn’t a clear answer as to what is going on. Is it just two drama students (one who may be a stalker and completely unhinged) improvising? Or is it a futuristic tale where a husband created projections of himself before his death and the wife is able to speak with a pre-programmed hologram? Which is it??? Fun, fun, fun. I loved the banter and I loved the unresolved storyline.

Survival by K.L. Going

Another extremely strong story. Rachel tells us about how she can never quite measure up to her sister. Her sister is the golden child, the beloved twirler, the beautiful, the perfect…the complete sociopath. This is actually never mentioned, but I think it is true. Rachel always wanted to be like her sister, but when it gets to be too much she tries to break out on her own. She joins track – her sister joins track. She likes a boy – her sister gets the boy. Maybe she’s just a terrible older sister, but in my opinion SOCIOPATH!!!

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

Pretty Monsters is a short story collection of nine stories. Nine of the most profoundly strange and incredibly dense stories I have ever read. I have a feeling that once you’ve read a Kelly Link story you might be ruined on short stories forever. And that isn’t meant negatively. Oh no, quite the opposite. Once you’ve had the pleasure of reading her, no other story will ever ignite your imagination the same way. I was surprised more than once after I opened this collection. Not only were the stories longer than I expected, but once reading I was staggered at the amount of detail, development, and unexpected plot twists that they contained. Quite honestly, you have no idea what to expect from paragraph to paragraph or from story to story. Her stories are fresh, varied, witty, startling, well-plotted and everything a solid literary work should be.

Each story begins with a quote taken from the story itself. The Wrong Grave is introduced with, “Anyone might accidentally dig up the wrong grave.” Or, “The devils were full of little spiky bones. Zilla ate two,” which introduces The Constable of Abal. Or from the story Monster, “after a while, everyone had become a zombie. So they went for a swim.” Now tell me that those sentences didn’t pique your curiosity? Impossible! Of course they did.

It should be noted that the quotes are accompanied by lovely illustrations created by Shaun tan (although apparently he did not design the beautiful cover – that was Will Staele).

From a story about a boy who digs up his dead girlfriend to retrieve his poetry, to a group of summer campers on an ill-fated campout, to a old woman who carries her entire village around in her handbag (this story is actually available online), to a surfer who converses with aliens, one can never sure where Kelly Link will take them next. But once you begin, you’ll be sure to stick around for the entire ride.

I am sort of curious as to why this is being published as YA besides the fact that most of the stories feature teenagers. Several stories were previously published in publications for adults. Although I do think there are teens for whom this collection will have immeasurable appeal (think your smart quirky kids), they sort of seem like they would appeal more to adults. That is, of course, just a feeling I get. I’d be very interested to hear who people think would appreciate these stories the most.

This title will be published in October.

Read her collection Stranger Things Happen online!