Category: Fiction Book Reviews

May 27, 2016

Home is Where the Chicken Legs Are

Home is Where the Chicken Legs Are A review of Marika McCoola and Emily Carroll’s Baba Yaga’s Assistant (Candlewick Press, 2015) By Derek Newman-Stille Masha’s tale begins with stories from her grandmother about the witch Baba Yaga. Her grandmother was once kidnapped by Baba Yaga and had to outwit the witch in order to gain her freedom. Masha, delighted by...

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May 22, 2016

Languages Across Generations

Languages Across GenerationsA review of Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms (NeWest Press, 1994) By Derek Newman-Stille Chorus of Mushrooms is a beautifully written, poetic book that revels in the wonder and majesty of language while being fundamentally about silences. Hiromi Goto examines the multiplicity of silencings that occur in our world – the racialised, ageist, sexist structures that are created...

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May 11, 2016

SUPERficial Government Superhero Programmes

SUPERficial Government Superhero Programmes A review of Mary Pletsch and Dylan Blacquiere’s “The Island Way” in Tesseracts Nineteen: Superhero Universe. Edited by Mark Shainblum and Claude Lalumierer (Edge, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “The Island Way”, Mary Pletsch and Dylan Blacquiere use the superhero format to explore island culture and the interactions between PEI and mainland Canada. The Federal Government...

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May 9, 2016

Multiverse History

A review of Patrick T. Goddard’s “Diary of a Teenage Grizzly” in Tesseracts Nineteen: Superhero Universe” Edited by Mark Shainblum and Claude Lalumiere (Edge, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Diary of a Teenage Grizzly”, Patrick T. Goddard brings together multiple different comic book and fan narratives. He addresses a letter to the editors of Tesseracts Nineteen: Superhero Universe in which...

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May 6, 2016

Putting Monsters on the Map

A review of Kate Story’s “Equus” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016)By Derek Newman-Stille  Fairy tale collides with steampunk in Kate Story’s “Equus”, where the past and ideas of futurity collide to create an uncertain present. Story narrates the experiences of Sir Sanford Fleming, an inventor known for proposing standard time zones and...

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May 4, 2016

A Seance Evoking Future Horrors

A Seance Evoking Future Horrors A review of Tony Pi’s “Our Chymical Seance” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille With “Our Chymical Seance”, Tony Pi plunges us into a world of Victorian spiritualism, a world filled with mediums, ectoplasm, haunting devices, and complete with the obligatory skeptic who brings a rational...

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May 2, 2016

Frozen Wooden With Steampunk Horror

Frozen Wooden with Steampunk Horror   A review of Kate Heartfield’s “The Seven O’Clock Man” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille As much a horror tale as it is a steampunk story, Kate Heartfield’s “The Seven O’Clock Man” evokes the powerlessness of youth. Heartfield constructs a community where the late mayor...

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May 1, 2016

The Horror of the Sense of Wonder

A review of A.C. Wise’s “The Lion and the Unicorn” in Lackington’s, 2015 (https://lackingtons.com/2015/02/12/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-by-a-c-wise/) By Derek Newman-Stille   Wonder is something that shapes much of speculative fiction, propelling us to imagine new possibilities and new ways of interacting with the world. But, a sense of wonder can also contribute to a constant desire for the new, the unique, the special,...

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April 28, 2016

Signing the Electric

Signing the Electric A review of Terri Favro’s “Let Slip the Sluicegates of War, Hydro-Girl” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille In “Let Slip the Sluicegates of War, Hydro-Girl”, Terri Favro creates a technologically advanced steampunk Canada in the midst of the war of 1812, using the hydro-electric dam at Niagara...

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April 26, 2016

Disability and Immigration

Disability and ImmigrationA review of “Crew 255” by Claire Humphrey in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Crew 255”, Claire Humphrey uses steampunk to comment on the interrelationship between immigration, disability, and ethnicity. After an explosion of an airship in Toronto, people are brought into the city from other countries to...

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