Mythspring is an anthology of short speculative fiction based on and inspired by Canadian legends and music. The stories were all quite unique in both topic and style. I enjoyed most of the Anthology and found it quite inspiring, with only two stories that didn't really work for me out of the 16. What I liked the most about it was that it shows Canada in a unique light, it allowed me to journey through a Canada different from the one I am used to while still being familiar enough for me to identify with in several instances.
I'm going to talk about some of the stories briefly, but there will be some mild SPOILERS, you have been warned:
"All the Cool Monsters at Once" by James Alan Gardner was a lengthy tale that stretched believability beyond its limit. I felt that there were way too many monsters at once for the story to be even remotely plausible and while I enjoyed some of the descriptions of how provinces got jealous of each other and how the Tourism industry took advantage of the sudden appearance of all these monsters, this wasn't enough to make the story work for me. It was, for me, one of the least appealing in this anthology, but I still finished the entire thing.
"Under Summons" by Tanya Huff was one of the tales I enjoyed the most. Something about the voice and the cool cat and the simplicity of the tale was awesome. I loved the premise of the summoning and the way the magic worked. There were also some pretty exciting moments in the tale when the monster showed up. One of the thoughts running through my head when I was reading this was that it was a good candidate for a Hayao Miyazaki tale. The female lead, the cool monsters, the way the monsters and superpowers fit in with the rest of the world just reminded of my favorite Miyazaki works. This was the tale that really got me into this anthology and made me want to keep reading.
"Walking with Wolves" by Allison Baird was another one that I liked. I could see the ending coming very early on, but that did not prevent me from enjoying this tale. It said a lot of things about the time period and people's way of life almost without meaning to - just as a matter of course, and the characterization was pretty good too.
"Family Trees" by Fiona Patton was the second of the two tales that I did not enjoy. The speculative element took way too long to show up and when it did we didn't get to see the full potential of all the supposedly awesome powers the people were supposed to have. Far too much time was spent on the character's dog, what it wanted, what words it understood, where it was, and who was currently in charge of it. Way too much information. Plenty of time was also spent on some spunky six year old that felt fake. Finally, the ending of the story felt too much like the author was trying to tell me: "this is an emotional ending about family and how much it means to people, so you are supposed to get tearful and think this story is awesome." Not so much. I really wasn't give a reason to care.
"Over the Darkened Landscape" by Derryl Murphy was the one story in this anthology that I didn't manage to finish. It's not entirely the story's fault. It starts off being told from the point of view of a dog (I think) - a pet anyway. So the story started off with me being slightly confused as to what was happening until I figured this out. Then, there are two male characters with annoying similar names, so I had to think too hard to figure out who was who and why I should bother. Finally, to top all of this off, two really annoying people came and sat behind me on the bus when I was a couple of pages into this story and their extremely loud and annoying talking - the most annoying I have experienced in all my years of bus riding - made it downright impossible for me to figure out what I was reading. When they finally got off the bus I found that I really didn't feel like finishing the story. So yeah, it was mainly the annoying passengers on the bus, but also partly the POV that prevented me from finishing this tale.
"The Ghost of Watson's Mill is Online" by Daniel Archambault was another good one. It had good characterizations and a really interesting way of combining ghosts and technology. I was expecting something a lot weirder from the title, and so I was surprised by the simple and elegant way in which this story was executed. I also really liked it because it's the opposite of the usual anti-technology stuff we get in fantasy and sci/fi these days. A mature look at technology(specifically the internet) and the simple fact that it's nothing more than a tool - a very convenient tool - that we can use or abuse based on our own principles.
As soon as I started reading "This Ink Feels Like Sorrow" I knew that this was a story about the Inuit. The voice and the style both made this stand out from the others and I could tell the characters were Inuit before I was told in the story. Karen Lowachee did a great job of portraying the main character's struggle and his relationship with his brother. She also did an excellent job of portraying the struggles that are present for all Canadians, but which are compounded manifold up North in Nunavut. I have a fascination with Nunavut and the Inuit history and lifestyle, I admit, so this story held many little mentions and tidbits that I recognized and this enhanced my appreciation for the story.
"Safe Passage" by Karina Summer-Smith was another one of my favorites. The characterization was well done and the details of the speculative element and the character's dilemma were revealed slowly but surely to create an intriguing plot. In short, it had all the elements of awesome story-telling.
These are some of the highlights that stood out for me personally, but as I said, the themes and styles are so varied that I'm sure another reviewer would have picked a completely different set of stories to focus on from this anthology. It was a great read and the best thing about it was that the author bios have given me many names of stories and anthologies to go look up! I would highly recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment