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a universe in words

December 15, 2020

With her traditional magical beauty, Jane Yolen’s THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS is unforgettable

Rick Klaw blog a universe in words, Jane Yolen, r/fantasy, reddit, review, the midnight circus 0

THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS, along with all the rest of the 2020 titles, is currently 20% off with free media mail shipping on the Tachyon site.

A UNIVERSE IN WORDS praises Jane Yolen’s beautiful THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS.

Jane Yolen doesn’t consider herself a horror writer, not even a particularly scary one. And yet her stories bristle with the unknown, the edge of something not quite safe, the supernatural. It is not about the blood or the glint of moonlight on a knife. It’s not about the abject sadness of a matchstick girl freezing to death on Christmas eve. Yolen’s stories that are scary are so because they recognize the emotional weight of it all. No need for guts spilling out here! Yolen’s THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS retains her traditional magical beauty while she pulls back the curtain on the darkness backstage.

[…]

Jane Yolen is a master story writer. Although not all stories with resonate with every reader, there is a gem or three in The Midnight Circus for everyone. Get your ticket, join the queue, and get ready for beauty, horror, sadness and beauty.

At REDDIT r/Fantasy, The_Real_JS agrees.

So, as a rule, short stories aren’t really my thing. I generally try and read one a year just to try new and different things. This year, that just happened to coincide with my first Yolen book ever. And I have to say, there was a lot here to love. I’m coming to this review a bit late, more than a month after I finished it, and there are still stories that have stayed with, ideas that really grabbed a hold. I’ll touch on a few of them here.

May 24, 2016

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS is truly a magical collection

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized a universe in words, chuma hill, elizabeth story, falling in love with hominids, juli witte, nalo hopkinson, review, ted-ed

At A UNIVERSE IN WORDS, Juli Witte discovers Nalo Hopkinson through the fascinating FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS is truly a magical collection of short stories which brings the reader completely different and new worlds to explore. What I found delightful about FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS as a whole was the way in which Hopkinson works with Fantasy and Science Fiction. She discusses it in her Introduction as well, that Science Fiction and Fantasy are exactly the types of genres which can be used to explore the everyday through the extraordinary or out of the ordinary. Quite often Sci-Fi authors are surprisingly lazy in how adventurous they try to be, not just with their stories but with their writing styles as well. Personally I a, a fan of authors who take a risk, who demand something of their reader as well. Whether it is having different narrators, switching between Creole and Standard English or unreliable narrators, each story in FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS is always refreshing. At the heart of Hopkinson’s collection lie the hominids of her title, the Great Apes, the humans. Each story has a character at the core which Hopkinson explores with delicacy, which means that no matter how fantastical the story gets, it remains true.

I give this collection…

5 Universes!

I absolutely loved FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS. Almost every single story was a hit with me and I have become a definite fan of Hopkinson’s writing. Each story was original and held something that fascinated me. I’d recommend this to fans of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Women’s Fiction.

Nalo Hopkinson is the educator for TED-ED Lesson Series Club original program, How to write descriptively.

For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story