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A collection to make sci-fi fans purr
REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT Ray Bradbury's latest collection of 22 stories, The Cat's Pajamas is just that. This new volume, for which Bradbury himself did the cover illustration, includes many uncollected stories from his long writing career as well as a number of recent entries. Just two of the stories were published before; the rest were found in Bradbury's basement files by his biographer.
The stories only become a mite awkward when Bradbury attempts to add a bit too much of his own politics—as in "Chrysalis," where his earnestness overwhelms an interesting if slight idea. However, The Cat's Pajamas has more than enough goodies to make longtime fans happy and still work as a strong introduction for new readers. In one of those strange coincidences that regularly bedevil the publishing world, another new collection of science fiction stories is also titled The Cat's Pajamas, this one by World Fantasy and Nebula award winner James Morrow. Although Morrow's writing is a little darker and a little weirder than Bradbury's, readers are advised to check out both sets of The Cat's Pajamas.
By Ray Bradbury Morrow, $24.95 256 pages, ISBN 006058565X
By James Morrow Tachyon, $24.95 262 pages, ISBN 1892391155
Thursday's Danish adventure
Thursday also rescues President-for-Life George Formby (a real-life ukulele-playing film star), gets involved in neanderthal rights (neanderthals were genetically engineered into existence in the 1930s), attempts to smuggle a convoy of trucks filled with banned books (all Danish) across the armed border to Wales, and all the while struggles to find reliable child care for her son, Friday. Fforde juggles his way through space and time (Thursday's dead father and "eradicated" husband both make crucial appearances) and manages to retain the madcap energy of Thursday's earlier adventures. Despite some recapping of previous events, there is so much going on that readers new to the series might best begin with the first book, The Eyre Affair.
By Jasper Fforde Viking, $24.95 320 pages, ISBN 0670033596
Love and madness
Hand explores the links between art and artists, the search for artistic inspiration and the urge to create, and touches on the popular theory of the connection between artistic temperaments and madness. In Mortal Love, she has given her readers a lushly written treat that is also that rarest of things, a thought-provoking literary page-turner that will please historical fiction fans as much as fantasy readers.
By Elizabeth Hand Morrow, $24.95 384 pages, ISBN 0061051705
Gavin J. Grant writes from Northampton, Massachusetts.
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No matter the decade, Bradbury's voice rings true. If the stories weren't marked with the year they were written, there would be only one or two in which the reader could definitely pinpoint the date, so timeless is Bradbury's writing. One of the stand-out and genuinely chilling stories here is "The Island," which explores what happens when someone breaks into the house of a security-obsessed family. Most of the stories are more in line with Bradbury's familiar style: a little nostalgic, with a touch of humor, and occasionally a little satire, as when a group of senators drinks too much at an Indian casino and manages to lose the whole United States.
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In Something Rotten, the fourth book in Jasper Fforde's popular series about literary detective Thursday Next, a fictional character tries to take over England, the morally challenged Goliath Corporation attempts to become a religion, and Thursday has to look after a certain indecisive Danish prince. All of these events are in some way or other related to the "revealments" of St. Zvlkx, an incredibly accurate 13th-century prophet whose seventh and last revealment states that a croquet game featuring Thursday's local team, the Swindon Mallets, will determine humanity's fate.
Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love is the story of a dangerous and beautiful muse and the men she alternately inspires and damages. Hand, whose previous books include Black Light and the Tiptree winner Waking the Moon, tells her captivating story in three linked narratives: first, there is 19th-century American painter Radborne Comstock's encounter with a mysterious woman; next comes Radborne's grandson, Valentine, who is driven mad after seeing Radborne's paintings; and finally we meet Daniel Rowland, an American writer who takes a sabbatical in present-day London. Rowland is somewhat lost in life and is looking for something that will engage him and move his magazine-writing career up to the next level. He has decided to write a book about the ongoing relevance of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. It is Rowland whose explorations link the three men's stories and give him an idea of who—or what—has been leading them all down the path to love and madness.