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Text of the page (random words):
y important to get lean and mean p 436 and strange weather is exactly that it s not long and damn it it s nasty a striking selection of novellas ranging from the playfully apocalyptic to the wickedly political strange weather starts with an actual flash in snapshot the unsettling story of a boy who crosses paths with a man in possession of a magical camera this old polaroid captures more than just those kodak moments of course it captures the very memories of those moments in sum leaving its subjects with holes in their souls michael figlione is just a kid when snapshot begins so when he sees his old babysitter shelly beukes walking around the street they share barefoot and swearing he assumes she s simply senile as a decent human being he does the decent thing and takes her home to her husband who gives michael ten bucks for his trouble it s only when he goes to the local truck stop to spend his earnings and sees a creepy guy pointing a camera like a pistol that shelly s seemingly insane story about a man who s been stealing her essential self picture by painful picture starts to make sense gripped by this suspicion michael stands guard over a sleeping shelly later that same day determined to catch the so called polaroid man in the act and he does ultimately but the story doesn t end there though i rather wish it had economical in its narrative and affecting in its stranger things esque setting the first half of snapshot is stunningly done sadly the second section struck me as superfluous slow and unfocused except insofar as it speaks to the themes at the centre of strange weather there is to be sure some seriously weird weather in this collection between the storm that rages on as michael confronts shelly s tormentor in snapshot the cyclonic blaze that looks likely to raze the town where the next tale takes place the custardy cumulus the lovelorn protagonist of aloft lands on and the razor sharp rain that gives strange weather s final fiction its name the pathetic fallacy is in full effect in all four stories but in terms of connective tissue another markedly more meaningful motif pervades these pieces the struggle to let go of what we ve lost what shelly has lost is obvious what michael loses less so george kellaway the accidental hero at the heart of loaded a straight story suggestive of the sandy hook elementary school shooting in december of 2012 has lost his family the restraining order his wife has taken out against him means he s also had to sacrifice his right to bear arms but he still has a gun by gum a gun he s horribly happy to use when a woman who s been abused by her boss opens fire in the middle of the mall where kellaway works bodies promptly drop including those of a muslim woman and the bundled up baby kellaway mistook for a bomb not to mention the only other witness to the incident that guy gets one in the head as well because otherwise kellaway would be in a whole bunch of trouble as is he has a good story to tell the first proper responders a tale as tall as time that leads people to believe he saved the day instead of devastating it celebrated as a hero by the media savvy mayor kellaway is soon sitting for interviews and starting to hope that not only will he get away with multiple murder perhaps he ll even get his family back but as the irregularities in his account start to surface things take a terrible turn kellaway felt like a bullet in a gun himself felt charged and ready to go off to fly towards some final forceful impact loaded with the potential to blow a hole in what everyone thought they knew about him p 161 he does just that in a conclusion so unbearably brutal that it chills me still it s a shock to the system when strange weather s darkest story segues into its slightest and lightest aloft which follows a fellow on his first skydive he isn t your everyday daredevil however aubrey has always been scared of heights it was a good question why a man with a dread of heights a man who avoided flying whenever he could would agree to jump from an airplane the answer of course was maddeningly simple harriet p 254 harriet is the girl aubrey wanted as he d never wanted anyone else p 300 and as the dismaying details of the pair s relationship to date are doled out readers will realise that aloft is their story their story just so happens to wrapped around a particularly peculiar premise you see aubrey doesn t make landfall with the love of his unlucky life instead his dive terminates early when he loses his parachute on a semi solid cloud that looks and feels like it s made of acre after acre of mashed potato p 301 stranded on this desert island of sorts he must to come to terms with his feelings for harriet and her feelings for him if he s to have any hope of touching terra firma again that aloft is the most whimsical of strange weather s four stories is fitting considering it was written in the back of a notebook containing the finale of the fireman basically because hill hated to see so much paper go to waste but as the author himself explains it was rain the collection s closer that arose from a desire to spoof myself and my own sprawling end of the world novel p 436 rain really is rather a lot of fun particularly as it pertains to the white house s comments on the catastrophic change in climate that results in a hail of nails the operating theory lacking any other credible explanation was terrorism the president had disappeared to a secure location but had responded with the full force of his twitter account he posted our enemies don t know what they started payback is a bitch denver colorado america the vice president had promised to pray as hard as he could for the survivors and the dead he pledged to stay on his knees all day and all night long it was reassuring to know that our national leaders were using all the resources at their disposal to help the desperate social media and jesus p 348 it s a testament to hill s not insignificant abilities that even here in the midst of this rather ridiculous apocalypse there remains resonance its protagonist one honeysuckle speck is haunted by the loss of her sweetheart who was one of the first to fall victim to the disastrous downpour unable to accept yolanda s death she determines to deliver the news to her other half s father which means navigating a stretch of highway that showcases the slippery grip civilisation has on society turns out all it takes to cause a collapse is snap some strange weather i found the conclusion of rain is a touch too tidy similarly snapshot suffers from this occasional proclivity of hill s this inclination to offer answers to unasked questions it s telling that aloft and loaded are strange weather s strongest stories their ambiguous endings allow them to live past their last pages that one is wacky and wonderful while the other s twisted tragedy proves all too easy to believe evidences the tremendous diversity of this collection if nos4a2 and the fireman were hill s salem s lot and the stand then this dear readers is his different seasons a demonstration of his range and readiness to tell the hell out of any tale be it supernatural or straight silly or completely serious strange weather by joe hill uk publication november 2017 gollancz us publication october 2017 william morrow buy this book from amazon co uk amazon com the book depository or get the kindle edition recommended and related reading posted by unknown at 14 00 68 comments labels apocalyptic fiction book review fantasy horror joe hill novellas politics racism strange weather monday 13 november 2017 book review the power by naomi alderman all over the world women are discovering they have the power with a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain even death suddenly every man on the planet finds they ve lost control the day of the girls has arrived but where will it end in the periphery of the power a series of seemingly meaningless scenes shine an ultra bright light on the core concerns of naomi alderman s astonishing new novel these blink and you might miss em moments lay bare the working relationship between a pair of daytime television presenters whose respective roles reflect the devastating developments depicted in greater detail in the rest of the text tom and kristen are ineffably familiar figures at first as is their dynamic as a duo the former is a moderately handsome middle aged man who wears expensive suits and steers the show s serious segments the latter is an improbably beautiful young woman dressed not to impress so much as to suggest whose most significant responsibility is to introduce the weather on the ones in short tom is the host with the most and kristen is his sexy sidekick but when man s dominion over the wider world wanes the parts our presenters have played to date are recast unwilling to accept this essential reversal tom has a live on the telly tantrum he s promptly replaced by matt a great guy apparently who s a good ten years younger than kristen matt laughs attractively and silently suffers a gentle hand on his knee while kristen now in less clingy clothes and finally wearing the glasses she s needed all these years if only to give her gravitas downright dominates their conversations the power isn t about any of these people particularly but their changing situation effectively illustrates the revolution that results from the discovery of an organ of electricity in women to start with there were confident faces on the tv spokespeople from the cdc saying it was a virus not very severe most of the people recovered fine and it just looked like young girls were electrocuting people with their hands we all know that s impossible right that s crazy the news anchors laughed so hard they cracked their makeup crazy as the idea may be it seems to be real the first few viral videos of the eponymous power in practice are followed by hundreds and then thousands and then hundreds of thousands of others that aren t so easily explained away the aforementioned organ of electricity a strip of striated muscle named the skein for its twisted strands isn t even exceptional it appears every girl in the world has it or will have it and it can be woken in every older woman a multinational group of scientists is certain now that the power is caused by an environmental build up of nerve agent that was released during the second world war it s changed the human genome all girls born from now on with have the power all of them and they ll keep it throughout life just like the older women do if it s woken up in them it s too late now to try to cure it we need new ideas mayor margot cleary one of the power s four principle perspectives thinks she might have them she starts a private military corporation ostensibly to train women in the ways of using their skeins sensitively but if she so happens to end up with an army afterwards then so much the better an army might be hella handy in the coming months especially if the men who see the power as a problem do what some of them are threatening to and declare war on women read more posted by unknown at 14 00 28 comments labels book review faith future histories gender naomi alderman revolutions sf the end of the world again the power monday 23 october 2017 book review the glass town game by catherynne m valente inside a small yorkshire parsonage charlotte branwell emily and anne brontë have invented a game called glass town where their toy soldiers fight napoleon and no one dies this make believe land helps the four escape from a harsh reality charlotte and emily are being sent away to a dangerous boarding school a school they might not return from but on this beastliest day the day anne and branwell walk their sisters to the train station something incredible happens the train whisks them all away to a real glass town and the children trade the moors for a wonderland all their own this is their glass town exactly like they envisioned it almost they certainly never gave napoleon a fire breathing porcelain rooster instead of a horse and their soldiers can die wars are fought over the potion that raises the dead a potion anne would very much like to bring back to england but when anne and branwell are kidnapped charlotte and emily must find a way to save their siblings can two english girls stand against napoleon s armies especially now that he has a new weapon from the real world and if he escapes glass town will england ever be safe again having brought the girl who circumnavigated fairyland in a ship of her own making all the way home with the fabulous final volume of said series last year catherynne m valente is back with another magical middle grade fantasy primed to delight younger and older readers alike the glass town game takes its name from what is initially a bit of whimsy a make believe battle between twelve toy soldiers and whatever creeping evil its creative wee heroes conceive charlotte branwell emily and anne are all itty bitty brontës but together if you please you can call them the bees and when the bees wish to escape the weight of the world a world in which they ve already lost their beloved mother and two of their sisters who got sick at school they take to the room at the top of the stairs of their upstanding father s parsonage it was hardly more than a drafty white closet nestled like a secret between papa s room and aunt elizabeth s but the four children ruled over it as their sovereign kingdom they decreed once and for all that no person taller than a hat stand could disturb their territory on penalty of not being spoken to for a week p 6 at play the bees are at least at peace but when the glass town game begins the beastliest day the day when charlotte and emily are to be sent away is almost upon them though school had already devoured two of them papa was determined that his daughters should be educated so that they could go into service he said so that they could become governesses and produce an income of their own p 18 this was not so deplorable a goal in the early nineteenth century of the brontës upbringing but none of the bees excepting perhaps branwell the lone boy of the bunch have anything nice to say about the beastliest day indeed they dread it not because it may be the death of them as it was for maria and lizzie their much missed big sisters but because it shall surely signal the last gasp of glass town as it happens however there s one last adventure for the girls and the bully of a boy they sometimes feel they ve been burdened with to have in the realm they created in the room at the top of the stairs and it promises to be an adventure like none other an adventure that beggars belief even read more posted by unknown at 14 00 17 comments labels alt history book review catherynne m valente fantasy full english fiction the glass town game ya thursday 19 october 2017 book review release by patrick ness adam thorn doesn t know it yet but today will change ...