I’m back from Guatemala! We had a ton of great food, great times with friends and family, and I read a lot. Travel is a weird thing: sometimes I read more than ever on trips and sometimes I hardly read at all this was a pretty good trip for reading.
This also was the first week that I really started digging into the early works of Urban Fantasy in what I’m calling “Historical Investigations”. I read a truly wild book from the 18th century (see more on that below) that has surprising relevance to the genre. I’m really excited to start this project and share my findings.
On Repeat
I obsessively listened to Pinback as a teenager. Spotify, in its infinite, algorithmic wisdom slipped “Good to Sea” into one of my daily mixes about a month ago. It’s like reuniting with an old friend you haven’t talked to in years.
There’s that deep familiarity, the intersection of grooves you’ve warn into each other. But also the uncanniness of encountering your old life in the midst of a new one. I don’t know what to make of that exactly. I do find it supremely amusing that this YouTube video of “Good to Sea” is 15 years old.
Apparently I’m not the only obsessive fan of Pinback either, as I also found this two-hour loop of their song “Loro”. I would have played the hell out of this in high school and college if it had been around then.
Finished This Week
Dead Man’s Hand1 by James J. Butcher
I’m finding it hard to muster up the energy to review this book, even though it’s kind of my job. It is a serviceable UF debut, but nothing truly special — I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t love it.
One thought I had over and over while reading it, especially by the end, is that this book feels like a prequel that would have been written for a long-running UF series. It shows us where the main characters met, how they came to have thus and such peculiarities and mannerisms, what the world looked like before the action started.
It therefore feels quite strange to read this as a first book. Small spoilers, but the two main characters, Grimsby (the dweeby witch) and Mayflower/The Huntsman (the grizzled, veteran, non-magical detective) start out as antagonists and end up as partners in the “Unorthodox” law enforcement agency.
I’ll say this: most UF series, even the well-respected ones (like The Hollows and Kate Daniels) have rough-to-bad first books. Let’s see what James can do with Long Past Dues, coming out this October.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
This was a weird one, like deeply weird. That should probably be expected in the very first novel in a genre written over 250 years ago. Walking into The Castle of Otranto with absolutely no background, no idea of what the story was even about except that it… takes place in a castle… in Otranto…
I was pretty shocked by two things. One, how readable it is by modern standards. And two, how deeply strange the story is.
It starts with a massive helmet falling from the sky and crushing a young boy to death. Instead of grieving for his son or wondering how such a thing could have happened, his father becomes obsessed with the idea of marrying the boy’s fiancée. There are paintings that get up and walk around, skeletons that talk, and a lot of accusations of necromancy.
If you’re looking for a quick take before the longer review: I’d say it’s worth reading the Wikipedia page, but don’t rush to pick this one up unless you’re very down for mid-eighteenth century writing and storytelling.
Check out my debut History of Urban Fantasy Tiktok on The Castle of Otranto and be on the look out for my first Historical Investigation review here in the coming week.
Still Reading
Grievers by adrienne maree brown
This one was a judge-a-book-by-its-cover purchase:
You maybe noticed that this book isn’t called Grievers, eagle-eyed reader. That’s because Barnes and Noble (and most bookstores) have this delightful policy of usually stocking the most recent books in series and not their debuts. I knew I had to find the first book once I read the description:
In the second installment of the Grievers trilogy, adrienne maree brown brings to bear her background as an activist rooted in Detroit. The pandemic of Syndrome H-8 continues to ravage the city of Detroit and everyone in Dune's life. In Maroons, she must learn what community and connection mean in the lonely wake of a fatal virus. Emerging from grief to follow a subtle path of small pleasures through an abandoned urban landscape, she begins finding other unlikely survivors with little in common but the will to live. Together they begin to piece together the puzzle of their survival, and that of the city itself.
I’ve got about 20 pages left, so I think I’m safe to say that this is one of the best books I’ve read this year and I’ve already picked up the sequel, Maroons. I highly recommend it.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
This is the next book after Otranto in THOUF’s Historical Investigation. I’m a little more than halfway through. It’s A Christmas Carol, what more is there to say?
Oh, how about that in my Freshman year of high school, I played Bob Cratchet in a play? I had “period appropriate” hair down to my shoulders and it was not a wig. My two strongest memories of that performance were:
Essentially being a dad to the lower schoolers who got cast as my pretend children who were real trouble all the time, and
My “daughter” Martha saying the line “Here’s our Martha, mother!” when she surprises the family. I was shocked (shocked!) to find that our director had changed that line from the book which was just, “Here’s Martha!” As much as I like Dickens’ writing, I prefer our line.
A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
I was inspired to pick this one up based on reading Harrow’s beautiful short story “Mr. Death” (you can read my thoughts about that in a recent short story recap). I’m digging this one so far and have already picked up the sequel, A Mirror Mended.
It’s a short novella that is a multiverse story about Sleeping Beauty that starts out in our world and moves into a fairy tale dimension.
This novella will give me a nice example of a “portal fantasy” — a fantasy where we do start in the real world but where the fantasy elements take place in a “secondary world” that can be reached through a portal. Sometimes a wardrobe.
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
I’m unfortunately not going to finish this one before Alise’s Diversify Your Reading Bookclub meeting today because it didn’t fit in my luggage on my trip to Guatemala. I still think it’s very good so far and hopefully I can polish this off early this coming week. And check out the Bookclub if you haven’t yet.
By the way, I put that two hour loop of “Loro” on when I starting writing this and it’s still playing. Thanks Pinback and thanks Connor Morrissette for making the loop.
See me next week,
Ck
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