https://www.starburstmagazine.com
  • Subscribe
  • Featured
  • Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • News
  • Trailer Park
  • Subscribe
  • Film Festival
  • Store
  • Cart (0)
  • (0)
  • Account

Sorry there are no results, please try searching for something else

Please Use the search box on the left to search the site.

Search Results:

News

Out Now – ISSUE 448

STARBURST celebrates the anti-hero with previews ...

reviews

PARTY BUS TO HELL

From writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky, Party Bus to ...

News

ASH VS. EVIL DEAD Cancelled After Three Seasons

No, no, no, no, no! We’d all hoped that the ...

News

Guillermo del Toro Signs with DreamWorks Animation

For genre fans, Guillermo del Toro has been viewed ...

News

GOOSEMBUMPS Sequel Adds Peyton Wich

With a Goosebumps sequel currently in development, ...

News

A WALKING DEAD Movie Could Happen

Sadly, more and more viewers seemed to have been ...

News

The Nee Brothers to Direct MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

For several years now, Sony Pictures has been ...

reviews

BATMAN NINJA

The loose premise of Batman Ninja was enough to ...

reviews

SLEEPING DOGS (1977)

If you’ve got a fondness for New Zealand cinema ...

trailers

DEADPOOL 2

Director: DAVID LEITCH Screenplay: RHETT REECE, ...

Reviews | Written by Ian White 13/05/2017

WICKED WONDERS

The best short stories, especially those which deal with wild, wonderful and fantastical themes, often read like poetry. There’s a certain beauty to the way in which they crystallise their subject, draw us into the very essence of the tale, and then leave us wishing that we could spend much more time inside their fragile, beautifully sculptured worlds. Ellen Klages is one of those writers, and this fantastic and diverse collection reveals Klages at the very height of her powers.

 

From the charming “The Education of a Witch”, which chronicles a small child’s attachment to her Maleficent doll and the development (perhaps) of some Carrie-like powers, to “Amicae Aeternum”, a gentle sci-fi tale about two best friends who are about to emigrate to another planet, to the rich fairy tale-ish fantasy of “Sponda the Suet Girl”, to the brilliant laugh-out-loud vignette “The Scary Ham”, you’re never quite sure what to expect when one story ends and the other begins. But these four tales are only part of the journey – there’s also the lovely “Gone to the Library”, which perfectly captures that moment in childhood when reading and numbers are both filled with adventure, and the dark Alice in Wonderland gothic of Friday Night at St. Cecilia’s. The historical fantasies “Hey, Presto!” and “Caligo Lane” are wonderful, as is the poignant “Goodnight Moons”, which has a twist in the tail that breaks your heart, but don’t forget “Echoes of Aurora”, “Mrs. Zeno’s Paradox”, or the sublime “Woodsmoke”. And the list doesn’t end there.

 

In many ways each story is so very different, and Klages doesn’t like to be pinned down by genre. But, in many other ways, they all have something in common – most of Klages protagonists are children (even her adult protagonists don’t seem to have quite abandoned the child inside them) and there is a wonderful innocence-mixed-with-knowingness to her writing, a kind of confidential ‘sitting around the campfire’ kind of storytelling, that not only makes her characters immediately identifiable but also allows her to examine older, more grown up experience through the prism of childhood. There is genuine magic in each one of these stories – even those stories where magic is not an element - and Klages prose is so exquisite that this is the type of book you’ll want to read out loud, just to hear how the words sound on your tongue. Absolutely gorgeous.

 

WICKED WONDERS / AUTHOR: ELLEN KLAGES / INTRODUCTION: KAREN JOY FOWLER / PUBLISHER: TACHYON PUBLICATIONS / RELEASE DATE: 23RD MAY


Reviews you may like

Read More

reviews | 18/04/2018

2000 AD DIGEST: BATMAN/DREDD: JUDGMEN...

In 1991, comic book history was made when John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s ...

View Article Read More

Share

reviews | 18/04/2018

DOCTOR WHO: TWICE UPON A TIME

At last, the powers that be(BC) have given us the very first novelisations ...

View Article Read More

Share

  • 2000 AD DIGEST: BATMAN/DREDD: JUDGMENT ON GOTHAM/VENDETTA ON GOTHAM

    In 1991, comic book history was made when John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s indomitable Judge Dredd, arguably the UK’s most popular c...

    Read More
  • DOCTOR WHO: TWICE UPON A TIME

    At last, the powers that be(BC) have given us the very first novelisations of 21st-century episodes of Doctor Who, written in the style ...

    Read More

© Starburst Magazine - all rights reserved

  • Contact
  • Privacy