Sep 30 2019

An Interview with Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, editors of Wonderland: An Anthology

Q: Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Wonderland evolve?

Marie: Our editor at Titan, Cat Camacho, had quite a large part to play with this one. We were pitching various projects, one of which was an anthology of dark fairy tales – Cursed, due out in March next year – and Cat said they’d like to see an anthology of stories based around the world of Alice. Not surprisingly, we leapt at the chance to edit that one – it’s been a lot of fun. Once we had the go-ahead, we started contacting authors we thought would love the idea as much as we did, and we went from there – we’ve been very lucky to have some wonderful authors on board, and they’ve all written stories we love.

Q. Did you curate this anthology with any particular audience in mind? Are there any particular audiences you hope will connect with this book?

Paul: I think first and foremost we had Alice fans in mind when we set out to put this book together, but also wanted the anthology to be accessible to people who weren’t that familiar with the tales. Both of us are into the darker side of fiction as well, so that probably played a part when approaching authors and talking to them about our intentions. But really we wanted to keep it as open as possible and hope that in the range of tales we got back there would be something for absolutely every reader. Judging from the response to the book we’ve had so far, we seem to have achieved that for the most part. One reviewer even commented recently ‘There’s something for everyone’, so job done, I hope.

Marie: As Paul says, the first and most obvious audience is readers who loved Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass – but more than that, we wanted an anthology of stories that would hopefully draw new readers into that world; if they like Wonderland, we hope they’ll seek out the originals – and some of the other Alice-inspired fiction that’s out there. We’re both known for loving – and writing and editing – darker fiction, so I think that’s possibly informed our sensibilities on this project as well as filtering through to the authors. We have what we wanted, though, a very broad range of stories so that anyone picking the book up should, we hope, find something in there to love.

Q. Wonderland covers such a broad spectrum of speculative fiction, with excellent works from really talented authors. Were there any authors you were sad not to have been able to include in this collection?

Paul: There are always going to be writers you wish you had space to include, or that they had time to contribute something to the line-up. Two that spring to mind are Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry, who for different reasons couldn’t be involved – but we did manage to get them into our next one for Titan which comes out in March next year, Cursed. But, as you say, the list of hugely talented authors in Wonderland is so terrific that we have no complaints whatsoever. They’ve made it the book it is, which we think is very special indeed and hope that readers agree.

Marie: That’s always the case – no matter how big an anthology is, there’s always someone you’d love to have included but either there’s no more room, or they haven’t got time, or don’t feel they’re right for a particular project… as Paul’s mentioned already, we did ask Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry to take part but they couldn’t this time around – they will be in Cursed, though, and we couldn’t be happier.

Q. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but if you could only pick one work to recommend from
Wonderland, which would it be?

Paul: They’re all so fantastic that it would be hard to single any out. What’s so lovely is that the range of different topics, the styles and tones, are so different that no two stories are alike – which also means you can’t really compare them to each other either. All I’ll say is that they’re of such a high quality that it

makes me proud to have been able to read, work on, and include them in this anthology. Marie: I can’t do that, sorry – we’re very happy with all the stories we received, and they’re all very different from each other, I wouldn’t like to single one out over the others.

Q. Apart from Wonderland itself, what has been your favorite work in the setting, whether it be in print or other media?

Paul: You mean in the Wonderland universe, and apart from the original tales – which had quite a big impact on both of us growing up? The Disney adaptation is the one that comes to mind straight away, which I saw before reading the original books. Even at a really young age, that appealed to my love of the surreal and the bizarre. But I’ve also mentioned this one before in interviews, there was a great adaptation from 1999 starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley, Robbie Coltrane and Gene Wilder to name but a few, with Tina Majorino as Alice. That one stands out for me amongst the live action versions.

Marie: I think my favourite was set by the first thing that introduced me to Alice, and that was the Disney movie – I read and loved the books after that, but the Disney remains my first love when it comes to Alice.

Q. What were the first books you read that made you think, “I have got to create something like this someday!”

Paul Kane

Paul Kane

Paul: In general? My grandad used to read me a story by Enid Blyton when I was little called ‘The House in the Fog’, where this boy gets lost in a strange mist and finds a weird house. He takes shelter inside and lots of fantastical things happen to him, but when he returns after the fog has gone the house isn’t there. I used to get him to read that to me time and time again; that really sparked my imagination. When I was old enough to read, I devoured anything that was SF, Fantasy, Horror or Crime, but the books that really made me want to be a writer were Clive Barker’s Books of Blood – and of course his subsequent novels after that. Anyone who knows me, knows about my lifelong love of his work. It just blew me away, from the ideas to the style of
writing. I’m lucky enough to have worked in Clive’s universes myself and count him as a friend all these years later.

Marie: I grew up on Enid Blyton, then when I was around seven I started on Agatha Christie and loved those – then when I was nine I found an anthology called Thin Air in the school library, and took it out every week for two years until they gave it to me; so I guess it was that. It was a huge anthology of classic horror stories, like W.W. Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, Charlotte Gilmore Perkins’ ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, M.R. James’ ‘The Ash Tree’… loads of them. Then a little later I discovered Stephen King and was lost forever.

Q. You’re both accomplished authors. What made you decide to go the compendium-editing route, and how was that transition for you?

Paul: I’ve been editing almost as long as I’ve been writing professionally, going back to the ’90s. I was editing back then for the small presses, and when I got to know Marie she asked if I’d like to come on board at the British Fantasy Society as Special Publications Editor, putting out books featuring the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Rob Holdstock, Kim Newman and Muriel Gray. That was a fantastic training ground for me, and a few years later we began editing anthologies together mass market beginning with Hellbound Hearts for Simon & Schuster – stories based around the Hellraiser mythos – and continuing on with books like A Carnivale of Horror (PS), The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Constable & Robinson/Running Press) and the current books for Titan like Exit Wounds and Wonderland. So really it wasn’t a case of transition, because I’ve been doing it for so long anyway. I used to teach creative writing as well, so I think that helps – it’s a similar process to marking fiction, editing it. But of course you’re always editing your own work too, or should be. It’s all connected. I love that feeling of being the first person to read something new from a favourite writer. It really gives me a buzz.

Marie: I first got brought into the British Fantasy Society by Gary Couzens, who asked me if I’d like to edit their newsletter, Prism. From there I moved on to editing their fiction magazine, Dark Horizons, and eventually co-edited an anthology for the BFS with Paul – BFS: A Celebration. I’ve always loved reading short fiction, and editing magazines eased me into the idea of editing anthologies – I’ve done quite a few with Paul now, plus two of my own – The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women and Phantoms – and I’ve also recently co-edited one for charity with New Zealand author and editor Lee Murray – Trickster’s Treats #7, for Things in the Well. I love that feeling when you get an idea for a project, and start thinking how to put it together, who’d be great to write a story for it… and it’s a wonderful feeling to see the finished project.

Q. Do you find yourselves gravitating towards certain editing tasks such that each of you ends up having a particular role in bringing a book to fruition, or do you both cover a little bit of everything?

Paul: We both cover a bit of everything. When a story comes in, we’ll format it and then both of us will go through it. Then when everything is in we’ll talk about where to place the stories in the book, before compiling everything and going through it as a whole, and even talking about covers. We’re really lucky in that we work well together, we’re quite in tune. As a married couple you’d certainly hope so!

Marie: We both cover everything; we both go over the stories at every stage of the project, and both decide things like story order, covers, everything really. We work very well together on the editing side of things – we do with most things, really.

Q. What made you choose horror and dark fantasy as your primary means of expression?

Paul: For me personally, I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of fiction – whether it’s reading or writing it. Not sure why that is, maybe it reflects the kind of world we live in – or is a means to have some kind of ‘control’ over the bad things that happen in it, to escape a – sometimes – much darker reality for a while. Speculative fiction has always been very good at commenting on what’s happening around us, so I like that about it. But also the best drama comes from conflict and struggle, and nowhere do you see this more than in horror and dark fantasy. It’s fiction you can really get your teeth into, reading or writing-wise.

Marie: As I said earlier, it hooked me from a very early age – to quote the master, Stephen King, it’s what sticks in the drain. By which I mean – it’s what speaks to me, what holds my interest and sparks my imagination in a way no other fiction form has ever done. I love reading across many genres, my favourites are horror and crime, and those are the two I write in predominantly – at least so far.

Q. What can you tell us about your next project?

Paul: Together, that would be editing Cursed for Titan, but I’m not sure how much we’re allowed to say at this point. It obviously focuses on curses, with different spins on the fairytale and other mythologies, both modern and traditional. Writing-wise for me, I’ve just signed a three-book deal with HQ Digital/HarperCollins to deliver a set of psychological/domestic noir thrillers as PL Kane. The first of those will be out in January 2020, Her Last Secret, and is available to pre-order here po.st/herlastsecret

Marie: Cursed is the next anthology, as Paul’s said, writing-wise I have a collection of psychological horror short stories due out next spring from Black Shuck Books, and there are a few projects that are at varying stages of completion, so hopefully more on those next year.

Q. What are you reading at the moment?

Paul: I’m reading Nothing to Hide by James Oswald, the second in his Constance Fairchild series which came out the other month. I’m a huge fan of James’ work, especially his Inspector McLean books; they blend horror and crime perfectly, and that ticks a lot of my boxes.

Marie: I’m reading The Reddening, Adam L.G. Nevill’s latest supernatural novel, due out next month – I’m a big fan of Adam’s writing, and am thoroughly enjoying this one.

Q. Are there any new books or authors in speculative fiction that have you excited?

Marie O'Regan

Marie O’Regan

Paul: Again, it’s difficult to single some people out over others – there’s a lot to get excited about in the genre at the moment. But for me, personally, I’m looking forward to Ghoster by Jason Arnopp, because I thought his previous novel The Last Days of Jack Sparks was amazing. Very much looking forward to the next novel by Paul Tremblay as well, as The Cabin at the End of the World was one of the best things I’ve ever read – I’m still chewing over some of the stuff in there, which is always a good thing. I think Laura Mauro – who, coincidentally, is in Wonderland – is an author to keep an eye on. She has a new collection out at the moment Sing Your Sadness Deep from Undertow Publications, and I hear she’s going to turn her hand to a novel in the near future so I’m very much looking forward to reading that.

Marie: There are quite a few names to get excited about in speculative fiction at the moment – like Paul, I’m looking forward to Jason Arnopp’s Ghoster and anything by Paul Tremblay. I’m a big fan of Josh Malerman, too, so very much looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next – his work is so varied, and always a pleasure to read. Sarah Lotz is another author whose work I love, then there’s Michelle Paver, Catriona Ward, Laura Purcell… so many wonderful writers.

Q. Tell us why you love Wonderland!

Paul: As a place? Well, it’s just barking mad isn’t it. I absolutely love that! I’ve always been attracted to the surreal and weird – my favourite painters are Magritte and Dali, my favourite comedy show is Python… so you get the drift. Wonderland is the epitome of that in a fantasy setting, with horror elements. It really doesn’t get any better than that as far as I’m concerned.

Marie: Because there are no limits to what you might find there – it’s a place without obvious rules, where the limits of your imagination are the only boundaries you’ll find… it’s a place where, quite simply, anything could happen – and probably will.

~~~

Author Links:

Marie O’Regan

Paul Kane

~~~

Wonderland was published September 17th 2019 and is available via all good book sellers. My review of the book itself may be found here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/30/an-interview-with-marie-oregan-and-paul-kane-editors-of-wonderland-an-anthology/

Sep 28 2019

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

Entirely too much time has passed since I read Francis Spufford’s wonderful first novel (after five mostly non-fictional books, of which it has so far only been my pleasure to read Red Plenty) Golden Hill for me to be able to do it anything approaching justice. Nevertheless, a few words.

Golden Hill

The story is set in late 1746 in New-York, as it was styled then; a place, as Spufford notes in an afterword, that “had a population of about 7,000, while London, then the largest city in Europe, had one of 700,000: genuinely a hundred-fold difference.” (p. 343) To this place that is small by British standards but looms large in the American colonies comes Mr Smith, a man in such a hurry that he will not allow a late afternoon arrival in a November drizzle to persuade him to spend an extra night on board the ship on which he had crossed the Atlantic. Spurning the captain’s invitation to remain, he desired to be rowed ashore and, once there, dashed off as fast as his newly landed legs could carry him to “the counting-house of the firm of Lovell & Company on Golden Hill Street” just before closing time, whereupon, just as “the clock on the wall showed one minute to five, [he] demanded, very civilly, speech that moment with Mr Lovell himself.” (p. 2)

That speech with Mr Lovell sets everything in motion:

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/28/golden-hill-by-francis-spufford/

Sep 27 2019

Slay by Brittney Morris

Before this devolves into a rant on stupid Adobe products, let me first admit that I couldn’t read the entire book, as the first page of each chapter was entirely invisible to me. That said, I did very much enjoy what I did read, and Slay was exactly as good as expected where expected.

Very cool story about a fictional indie MMO? Check. Smart black girl protagonist with a messy love life? Check. Moral dilemmas involving but not limited to racism and the realistic ways these are resolved? Check. Slay is both the name of this novel and of the underground video game created by our heroine, Keira Johnson a.k.a. Emerald, and the development partner she’s never met, ign Cicada. Keira is a 17 year-old honors student who attends Jefferson Academy as one of the few black students there, along with her younger, popular (and arguably more sensible) sister, Steph. Her boyfriend is Malcolm, who Steph calls a hotep because that’s exactly what he is, Keira, Jesus. Keira’s best friend is Harper, a white girl with an annoying younger brother, Wyatt, Steph’s age.

A little over three years earlier, Keira got the idea for a cool card game/MMO that trades on the idea of Black Excellence. She taught herself how to program and went into partnership with someone she met on a message board, Cicada, to host, run and develop the game. Since then, Slay has become an underground phenomenon, a safe online place for black players the world over to game in peace without having to worry about the discrimination and hate speech rampant in so many other MMOs. But then a teenager is shot and killed in a dispute over Slay, bringing the game to mainstream attention. Accused of being racist (meh) and exclusionary (yeah but so?), Slay sparks off a firestorm that only worsens Keira’s guilt over the death to begin with.

As if that weren’t enough to stress over, Keira is waiting for an acceptance letter from Spelman College. Malcolm has already been accepted to Morehouse, and is waxing poetic about the life they’ll lead together in Atlanta. Keira finds herself conflicted and unsure as to why (insert Steph’s voice yelling “YOU KNOW WHY”) but the controversy over Slay pushes all thought of her love life to the back burner, especially when a troll shows up in the game and threatens to tear down everything she’s worked so hard to build.

The Black Panther parallels are obvious: Brittney Morris has stated that that was a direct inspiration and it shows, lovingly without being derivative. Ms Morris has also stated that she didn’t know a thing about coding when she started writing Slay. To this former IT person, that very much shows as well. The idea of only two people running a game as complex and popular and allegedly beautiful and detailed as Slay is probably the most fantastic part of this otherwise quite grounded story. I was also a little eh at the idea that the VR gear necessary to play didn’t automatically make this game the purview of the relatively well-off, which leads to another issue I had: how very American it all is. Ms Morris tries her best to include elements of African heritage from all over the world, and while some parts succeed, others feel more worthy of a “well, you tried.” One of the coolest things about the Black Panther movie is that America is neither the default nor the gold standard: I understand how hard that would be to translate to an American-based YA novel tho. That said, the most affecting parts of the book were when we got to look at the home life of Q.Diamond, and when Keira fiiiiinally saw through Malcolm’s bullshit. This is an excellent book that addresses a lot of real issues, and I’m super glad I got to read it.

What I’m not super glad about was the publisher’s decision to distribute advance copies using Adobe Digital Editions. I get it, Amazon is evil, but at least their mobis are easily readable and portable across platforms. ADE’s acsm standards are hot garbage. First off, ADE is incredibly user-hostile, to the point that I had to download a separate eReader on my phone in order to open the acsm link at all. Then I discovered that the first page of every chapter is missing, due to ADE being unable to handle drop cap illustrations. Unbe-fucking-lievably, I was told to open the acsm on my PC to be read with Acrobat, to which I should not need two different programs on two different devices in order to access the same fucking text, Adobe! Please, publishers, for the love of God, stop handing these people money until they come up with a product that actually enhances the reading experience. Mobis expire too, if you’re that concerned about timing out reading permissions. Adobe sucks. Please stop torturing your readers by forcing us to use their terrible products.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/27/slay-by-brittney-morris/

Sep 26 2019

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, pt. 1

“Give it what it’s worth, Doug,” said my Cockney editor one afternoon before deadline when I asked how long a newspaper article should be. Richard Rhodes takes one of the most important stories in human history — the story of the discovery of atomic structure and how that structure could be opened up, releasing vast amounts of energy — and gives it what it’s worth. The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a great work, a magnum opus, 750 pages from Rutherford’s discovery of the atomic nucleus to the horrors of the military use of atomic energy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though he writes about the discovery of the fundamental forces of the universe, Rhodes never forgets or overlooks that people are doing the discovering. He captures their personalities — their backgrounds, their strengths, their sorrows, their philosophies, their styles, their foibles, and their rivalries — and sets them down on the page so that throughout the great work a reader has a clear sense of the humanity of science.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Rhodes opens the book with a chapter on Leo Szilard — “Hungarian theoretical physicist, born of Jewish heritage in Budapest” (p. 13) — one morning in London in September 1933. Within seven pages of introducing Szilard, Rhodes has sketched the milieu he grew up in, with a father who was a civil engineer and prosperous enough for the family to hire governesses who helped the children learn French and German. Upon graduating from school, Szilard won the Eötvös Prize, the Hungarian national prize in mathematics. Rhodes sets the stage for introducing later the amazing generation of Hungarian mathematicians and physicists who were Szilard’s contemporaries by noting that despite the prize, Szilard “felt that his skill in mathematical operations could not compete with that of his colleagues.” (p. 15) A brush with Spanish influenza got him sent home from his unit in the Austro-Hungarian army; he heard later that his regiment had come under severe attack in the waning days of World War I and practically wiped out. Szilard first chose engineering for his course of studies, but after moving to Berlin in the early 1920s and dabbling in chemistry, he found physics more suitable. “As soon as it became clear to Szilard that physics was his real interest, he introduced himself, with characteristic directness, to Albert Einstein.” (p. 16) Working under Max von Laue, Szilard received an obscure problem in relativity as his main task. Making no headway, he gave himself free rein to think over Christmas break. About what?

What he thought, in those three weeks, was how to solve a baffling inconsistency in thermodynamics … There are two thermodynamic theories, both highly successful at predicting heat phenomena. One, the phenomenological, is more abstract and generalized (and therefore more useful); the other, the statistical, is based on an atomic model and corresponds more closely to physical reality. In particular, the statistical theory depicts thermal equilibrium as a state of random motion of atoms. … But the more useful phenomenological theory treated thermal equilibrium as if it were static, a state of no change. That was the inconsistency.
Szilard went for long walks—Berlin would have been cold and gray, the grayness sometimes relieved by days of brilliant sunshine—’and I saw something in the middle of the walk; when I came home I wrote it down; next morning I woke up with a new idea and I went for another walk; this crystallized in my mind and in the evening I wrote it down. … Within three weeks I had produced a manuscript of something which was really quite original. But I didn’t dare to take it to von Laue, because it was not what he had asked me to do.’ (pp. 19–20)

What did Szilard do?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/26/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb-by-richard-rhodes-pt-1/

Sep 24 2019

Firefly – The Big Damn Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel

God, this book is just so freaking gorgeous.

So I have a weekly cooking column over at CriminalElement.com called Cooking The Books, where I find mysteries with recipes and cook from them. Aside from your expected culinary cozies, I’ve also worked from the Red Sparrow series (yes, the basis of of the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence) as well as a promotional cookbook tie-in to Louise Penny’s celebrated Inspector Gamache novels, The Nature Of The Feast. This is the first time I’ve been able to cook for work from an honest-to-God hardcover cookbook, however, and what a gorgeous way to start!

The author of this volume, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, is also the creative force behind The Inn At The Crossroads, a site I’ve admired for years (tho I have yet to try out the recipe for lemon cakes that first brought me there.) When Titan Books offered me a chance to review this cookbook, I leapt at it because also, as you might already know, I’ve long been a fan of the ‘Verse.

And oh, what an utterly rewarding book this is! Aside from being a surprisingly solid cookbook, it’s a love letter to the Firefly fan, digging up recipes even obliquely mentioned in the series and film for our delectation. Bonus: each of the ones I’ve tried so far has been incredibly fuss-free. Ms Monroe-Cassel is not only talented at coming up with recipes based on dialog and the occasional scene alone, but also knows how to write each recipe in a way that is informative and concise, a boon to any cook.

One such is the recipe for Five-Spice Mix, included in the section covering the Basics of cooking in the ‘Verse. In a future as heavily influenced by Earth-That-Was’ Chinese culture as by its Old West, this is an important seasoning used in a bunch of different dishes, including one we’ll try later on in this series of reviews. Oh yes, I’ll be reviewing this book over the course of four weeks, as we explore the different facets of cooking in this setting. So here, a (lightly edited for format) version of Ms Monroe-Cassel’s basic spice recipe:

“““`

Five-Spice Mix

2 tsp Sichuan or black peppercorns
5 star anise seeds
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp fennel seeds

Toast the peppercorns in a hot skillet for 1-2 minutes, until aromatic. Put all ingredients in a spice grinder or coffee grinder and process to a fine powder. Keep fresh in an airtight container stored in a cool, dark place.

“““`

So I decided to use black pepper to spare the tastebuds of my lovely assistant Karin, who does not do well with spiciness and related mouthfeels, tho she’s generally okay with a bit of regular pepper. This worked out fine; less successful was my decision to use a plastic spice grinder that had previously housed sea salt. I wound up having to rectify that mistake with mortar and pestle, tho even then I don’t think I ground the star anise finely enough. The roughness of the end result does however add a dash of the provincial to an otherwise quite sophisticated blend. Karin pointed out that I could probably just have used store-bought but honestly, this tasted so much fresher. I’d highly recommend using a metal bladed grinder tho, for the rest of you trying this at home.

Next week, we’ll talk about the organization of the book, by which I mean I’ll continue to wax poetic over Ms Monroe-Cassel’s talents as a cookbook author, while considering a delicious beverage recipe. Do join me!

“““`

11/13/2019 Click on these links for Parts Two, Three and Four of the series!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/24/firefly-the-big-damn-cookbook-by-chelsea-monroe-cassel/

Sep 21 2019

Schellingstrasse 48 by Walter Kolbenhoff

For all that it is a Millionenstadt, Munich can also be quite a small town. Literary and artistic Munich even more so. Thus it’s not very surprising that in Schellingstrasse 48 (48 Schelling St.), Walter Kolbenhoff’s memoir of the Nazi era, POW internment in America, and early post-war Munich, other authors from the Süddeutsche Zeitung‘s series of 20 books about Munich make appearances. Oskar Maria Graf, whose Der ewige Spiesser followed two books after Wir sind Gefangene came two books before Kolbenhoff’s in the series, was an occasional visitor to Schellingstrasse. Kolbenhoff uses a well-known phrase from Thomas Mann that the Süddeutsche later used as the title for the Mann volume in the series. Alfred Andersch, author of Der Vater eines Mörders was in the same POW camps as Kolbenhoff in Louisiana and Pennsylvania; they were both involved in a POW publication called Der Ruf as well as a successor of the same name published in Munich after the war; later they were both involved in early post-war West Germany’s most important literary movement, Gruppe 47. In short: Munich connected.

Schellingstrasse 48

Kolbenhoff himself was surprised to wind up in Munich. He was a Berliner born and bred. As a young apprentice, he wandered far and wide in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. He felt drawn to southern lands. He returned to Berlin, but the advent of Nazi power forced him into exile, and he landed in Copenhagen. That city welcomed him, and he felt at home there, learning Danish and plying various trades until the war took an interest in him. After his release from American internment, he fully intended to return there. Chance, in the form of a letter from a fellow prisoner to his family in rural Bavaria, took Kolbenhoff to southern Germany. The family turned out to be local gentry, and at a time when meager rations made malnutrition a common experience in German cities, Kolbenhoff found himself living well as a practical adoptee of well-off farmers. In the bitter months of 1946, he was warm and well fed. The war seemed hardly to have touched Bad Aibling.

Nevertheless, errands take him into the big city. Munich is in ruins, former soldiers are everywhere scrounging food and cigarettes, “women in worn-out dresses and coats. The faces were without expression, the eyes cast down and without the slightest emotion. I saw no children. I was seized by an uncanny loneliness and despair. Get out of this city, just get out!” (p. 16, my translations throughout) A few steps later, though, he sees a notice — “All book printers, typesetters, letter-makers, book binders, etc. report to Alfred Andersch, Schellingstrasse 39.” (p. 16) — and resolves to check whether it is his old friend with the unusual name. It is indeed, and Andersch has landed at a newspaper approved and supplied by the US occupation authorities. By the end of the afternoon, Kolbenhoff has a job at the paper, has met the renowned author Erich Kästner, and has a line on one of the rarest goods in Munich: an intact dwelling. “‘What a day,’ [in English in the original] I thought when I stood outside [of the newspaper offices] on Schellingstrasse again.” (p. 22)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/21/schellingstrasse-48-by-walter-kolbenhoff/

Sep 20 2019

Lines Composed a Few Yards from Schlachtensee, With Apologies to W.W.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I read
These pages, rolled from their printing-press
With a rotary hum.—Once again
Do I behold those last and polished drafts
That many a wild scene describe,
Acts the more connected to themes
And th’ arguments of the plays.
The day is come when I again review
Here, under Frumious name, and mark
These plots of novels bound, these biographies
Which in these bindings, with their full-told lives
Are kept on two small shelves, and lose themselves
‘Mid tales and mysteries. Once again I see
These fantasies, this science fiction, splendid works
Of planets near and far, fantastic fables,
Beasts in their secret lairs; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from the wizard’s pipe!
Their affairs unmeddled, in chapters new,
Or of some Reader’s room, where in plush comfort
The Reader sits alone.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/20/lines-composed-a-few-yards-from-schlachtensee-with-apologies-to-w-w/

Sep 17 2019

Wonderland: An Anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

First of all, Titan Books just has the best speculative fiction short story anthologies. Between this and the recent Wastelands 3: The New Apocalypse alone, I feel entirely spoiled with exposure to some of the best minds working in fantastic fiction today. Wonderland collects 20 brand new short works (18 stories, plus two poems from Jane Yolen) inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classics, that run the gamut from luminous to terrifying, with every shade of wonder in between. Whether looking at Wonderland from a historical perspective or diving into its text as presented by Mr Carroll himself or re-setting the proceedings in different times and places, these 20 inventive gems carve out new space in our collective psyches for Wonderland to inhabit.

Personal disclosure time: my first starring role as an actress was in my primary school’s adaptation of Alice In Wonderland. I was cast as the White Rabbit but wound up having that supporting role enlarged — given more lines, given more time on-stage, given more motivations and things to do — to reflect my talent, which happened a lot during my too-brief stage career. It was a bit like how Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter became so much more important in the Tim Burton film than in any other adaptation, tho I likely got better reviews for my performance than he did (seriously, a national paper said I stole every scene I was in. I’m still not sure what they were doing at my school play, but I imagine it was a slow week in the human interest pages.) Anyway, this formative experience goes a long way towards explaining why I’m so fond of this setting and of any adaptations thereof.

That said, it’s perhaps surprising that my favorites of the collection were probably the least traditional, going all out with a sci-fi bent, as M. R. Carey’s There Were No Birds To Fly and Cavan Scott’s Dream Girl did. The period pieces definitely gave them a run for their money, tho. I loved Genevieve Cogman’s The White Queen’s Pawn, as well as Juliet Marillier’s Good Dog, Alice!, both set in a post-Victorian Britain somewhat askew from the one we inhabited. I also adored the more far-flung adaptations, particularly Angela Slatter’s Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em and L. L. McKinney’s What Makes A Monster, the latter so much so that I’ve requested her full-length novel, A Blade So Black (set in the same universe as the short story,) from my local library. The hallmark of a good short story collection, after all, isn’t just to satisfy, but also to whet the readers’ appetite for more of the writers’ works.

Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane have done an amazing job curating this anthology. We at the Frumious have been given the chance to interview them about it, so look out for that in the coming weeks! In the meantime, feel free to hop over to any of the other sites featured on the Wonderland book tour, beautifully illustrated in the graphic at right.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/17/wonderland-an-anthology-edited-by-marie-oregan-and-paul-kane/

Sep 14 2019

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

On the second page of his biography of Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson offers a thumbnail sketch of his subject: “He was, during his eighty-four-year-long life, America’s best scientist, inventor, dimplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical, though not most profound, political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He devised bifocal glasses and clear-burning stoves, charts of the Gulf Stream and theories about the contagious nature of the common cold. He launched various civic improvement schemes, such as a lending library, college, volunteer fire corps, insurance association, and matching grant fund-raiser. He helped invent America’s unique style of homespun humor and philosophical pragmatism. In foreign policy, he created an approach that wove together idealism with balance-of-power realism. And in politics, he proposed seminal plans for uniting the colonies and creating a federal model for a national government.” The rest of the book, just shy of 500 pages, fills in the details of this set of characterizations. Some of Isaacson’s assertions are debatable — that homespun humor or philosophical pragmatism are unique to America, for example — but his characterization of Franklin is accurate, and carries through the narrative of his life.

Benjamin Franklin

But wait, there’s more! as Franklin himself might say. “But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America’s first great publicist, he was, in his life and writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In this process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.” (p. 2) Throughout the book, Isaacson gives examples of how shrewdly Franklin cultivated other people’s perceptions of himself and his work and ideas. “As a young printer in Philadelphia, he carted rolls of paper through the streets to give the appearance of being industrious. As an old diplomat in France, he wore a fur cap to portray the role of backwoods sage. In between, he created an image of himself as a simple yet aspiring tradesman, assiduously honing the virtues—diligence, frugality, honesty—of a good shopkeeper and beneficent member of his community.” (pp. 2–3)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/14/benjamin-franklin-by-walter-isaacson/

Sep 12 2019

How To by Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, asks how to do various things — jump really high, throw things, build a lava moat, and a couple dozen more — and considers approaches that are both sound and absurd. Hilarity ensues. The book begins with an earnest disclaimer, a plea not to take the title as a guide. “Do not try any of this at home. The author of this book is an internet cartoonist, not a health or safety expert. He likes it when things catch fire or explode, which means he does not have your best interests in mind.”

How To

If that did not drive the point home, the first sentence of the introduction reads, “This is a book of bad ideas.” He then undercuts himself by saying that although “smearing mold on an infected wound sounds like a terrible idea,” that is basically what penicillin is. The underlying matter of the book, then, is not just how to tell good ideas from bad, but how exploring even cockamamie ideas can lead to interesting insights and, occasionally, solutions to apparently intractable problems. You might not think that lowering a heavy rover on a tether from a hovering spacecraft is the best way to get the rover to the surface of Mars. In fact, at first glance it would appear either impossible or overly complicated, but that is in fact how Curiosity touched down, for reasons that Munroe explains.

He adds, “This book explores unusual approaches to common tasks, and looks at what would happen to you if you tried them. Figuring out why they would or wouldn’t work can be fun and informative and sometimes leads you to surprising places. Maybe an idea is bad, but figuring out exactly why it’s a bad idea can teach you a lot—and might help you think of a better approach.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/12/how-to-by-randall-munroe/