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Emshwiller is always daring in her storytelling. From the plot to the writing style, she is one of the most interesting writers in tone I've ever read. The Mount: A Novel is so fantastically weird and off-the-wall, and yet so familiar in underlying themes, that it became one of my favorite "read once and share with others" books.That said, this collection of stories appears to be, for most of the stories, stuff that's far out even for this author. I'm not looking for nursery rhymes, but the "sto...
I liked this book—certain stories resonated with a poetic quality I enjoy. But I think I picked the wrong collection of hers to begin with. Some of the themes seemed a little overdone here with narrators who seemed a little too needy or subservient for my taste. There were few stories that carried the right balance for me between being plot-driven and character driven and I wanted to feel more joy traveling through the narratives to balance them. That said, I liked this collection. I just didn’t...
Though Emshwiller calls herself a sci-fi writer, many people would classify these stories as magic realism: surreal things happen in an all-too-real background. The first few were interesting, but then the plots got repetitively annoying: woman will do anything to "get" a man, usually changing something essential about herself. Man is willing to betray his group to be with woman. But never both at the same time. These stories are peppered with so many awkward turns of phrase and typos that I was...
DNF
She and her husband circulated in the avant garde of L.A., 1960s...she's been acclaimed enough that I figure these stories are not an accurate sample of her abilities. The theme of too-proud males subjugating women and warring to no one's benefit is right on, but got repetitive.
The stories in this collection defy easy classification. Most produce a sense of the unreal, but only a few have an overtly fantastical element. Many are unsettling, some to the point that they become horror. All are fascinating and original, and I'm so glad to finally be acquainted with the late Emshwiller's work.War is a major theme in the collection, and the characters in the war stories are all fighting perpetual conflicts with little understanding of what separates the two sides. In "Boys",...
