reviews – Page 29 – Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

February 25, 2013

Five Stages of Grieving Yourself

A Review of Corey Redekop’s Husk (ECW Press, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Corey Redekop’s Husk is a visceral, body novel with philosophical ponderings on existence. Redekop’s protagonist is a queer-oriented zombie actor, trapped in consciousness as his body deteriorates around him. The reader is put into the position of experiencing death and resurrection into a desiccated body and Redekop captures...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

February 21, 2013

Empowering the Freak

A Review of Leah Bobet’s Above (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Leah Bobet’s novel Above focusses on a group of people who have taken up residence in the sewers. Chased from society above the ground and called “Freak”, “Monster”, “Sick”, and “Cursed”, they retreated beneath the city to create their own society, free of discrimination. Their most...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

February 19, 2013

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night…

A Review of Ian Rogers’ SuperNOIRtural Tales (Burning Effigy Press, 2012). By Derek Newman-Stille I was so excited to see that Ian Rogers had collected a number of his Felix Renn Black Lands novellas into one volume and published it as SuperNOIRtural Tales. I had reviewed his novellas Temporary Monsters (http://speculatingcanada.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/performing-the-monster/), The Ash Angels (http://speculatingcanada.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/spectres-spooks-and-supernatural-s-a-d/ ), and Black-Eyed Kids (http://speculatingcanada.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/when-death-is-better-than-continuing-fear/)...

Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

February 17, 2013

Medusa’s Confusion

A review of Sandra Kasturi’s The Medusa Quintet in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories (Edge, 2010) By Derek Newman-Stille In her poem The Medusa Quintet, Sandra Katsuri re-envisions the story of Medusa. She is created as a largely unaware and unquestioning woman who is coping with ideas of perfection and an imperfect body. Her body is destroyed and her vain...

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February 13, 2013

Loss and Changes

A Review of Scott Fotheringham’s The Rest is Silence (Goose Lane Editions, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Memories are a significant part of our experience, particularly when things are changing rapidly. Scott Fotheringham’s The Rest is Silence is a novel about rapid changes – personal, social, and environmental. Two narratives intertwine in this novel: that of a man in the Nova...

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February 9, 2013

Characters in Books Become Real in the Otherworld

A Review of Charles de Lint’s Spirits in the Wires By Derek Newman-Stille In his Spirits in the Wires, Charles de Lint expresses something that I have wished to be true since I was a child: that the characters that we read in books become real through our collective imagination. De Lint’s Otherworld and the In-Between, standing between our world...

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February 3, 2013

Oracular Warnings

A Review of Joseph Macchiusi’s The Betelgeuse Oracle (2009) By Derek Newman-Stille Joseph Macchiusi’s The Betelgeuse Oracle straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy, presenting an apocalyptic present that is partially scientific and partially supernatural, challenging the firm boundaries that are often placed between them. Macchiusi’s protagonist, James, is a security guard at York University who has always had...

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February 2, 2013

Frankengoats and Unicorns

A review of Amanda Sun’s Fragile Things (In Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales. Edge, 2011). By Derek Newman-Stille In Fragile Things, Amanda Sun explores the role of a teen-aged boy, Alex, who is taking care of a unicorn, or, as he calls it, a Frankengoat. The unicorn is a hybridised animal that was born accidentally on his...

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January 28, 2013

Dragonville

A review of Charles de Lint’s The Painted Boy (Viking, 2010) By Derek Newman-Stille Charles de Lint often takes his readers into the hidden parts of the world and brings attention to the things that people ignore in the world around them, whether that be the fantastic side of the world and the potential for a magical viewpoint or attention...

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January 25, 2013

The Bookstore of Belonging

A review of Claude Lalumiere’s The Door To Lost Pages (ChiZine Publications, 2011) By Derek Newman-Stille In The Door To Lost Pages, Claude Lalumiere once again shows his ability to add a hint of the mythic to the underpinnings of reality and challenge the hegemony of the real by suggesting that there is more to the world than what we...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2

Tag: reviews

Five Stages of Grieving Yourself

Empowering the Freak

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night…

Medusa’s Confusion

Loss and Changes

Characters in Books Become Real in the Otherworld

Oracular Warnings

Frankengoats and Unicorns

Dragonville

The Bookstore of Belonging