fairy tales Archives - Tachyon Publications

July 26, 2017

Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS engages and captivates

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized collection, elizabeth story, fairy tales, infinite text, Jane Yolen, review, the emerald circus, the joycean booknerdery

The first pair of reviews for Jane Yolen’s forthcoming THE EMERALD CIRCUS are encouraging.

THE JOYCEAN
BOOKNERDERY praises the collection.

Personally, I love
short story collections. The talent and skill it takes to create an
entire story and fit it into a few pages honestly blows me away
sometimes. With Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS, I didn’t know
what I was expecting, but regardless, it was well beyond my
expectations. Not only is her writing style engaging and captivating,
but the stories themselves are magical and fantastic to read. Every
story in this collection is a retelling or recreation of stories or
characters or historical figures many of us are familiar with, from
The WIZARD OF OZ, PETER PAN, and ALICE IN WONDERLAND to Edgar Allan
Poe, Emily Dickinson, and Hans Christian Andersen.

<snip>

I loved every moment of this book and I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It grabbed my attention and I found myself wanting more of these stories. It left me thinking of other legendary characters or people and other fairy tales or myths, wondering how they came to be, if the stories we’re familiar with were true or whether there was indeed magic involved. If you are a fan of science fiction or fantasy, the classics or poetry, fairy tales or children’s stories, this book has something for everyone. I give this book a solid 5★s! The book will be released on November 14^th, 2017 and I wholeheartedly recommend it!

Photo: Jason Stemple

INFINITE TEXT enjoys the book.

THE EMERALD CIRCUS is a great introduction to Jane Yolen as it incorporates works from various points in her writing career. This anthology includes all the stories that haunt us past childhood and stay with us in a collective imaginary space. Arthurian Legends, Children’s Literature, and 19^th Century American gothic poets share a fantastical quality that remains a point of comparison when reading contemporary literature. At the end of the collection of retellings, Yolen takes a few pages to explain how the idea for each of these stories came about.

<snip>

This story is just an example of the kind of excellent work that Yolen accomplishes by creating alternative possibilities in this collection of retellings. Such attention to detail is present in all the stories in THE EMERALD CIRCUS and it is a collection I would recommend to everyone.

For more info on THE EMERALD CIRCUS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

April 10, 2017

Tachyon tidbits featuring James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Jane Yolen, and W. P. Kinsella

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized a. i. story bundle, cyberpunk, elizabeth story, fairy tales, James Patrick Kelly, Jane Yolen, John Kessel, nine: a journal of baseball history and culture, patty nason, project muse, review, rewired, ryan schneider, stacked, the emerald circus, the essential w. p. kinsella, Thomas Canty, w. p. kinsella, william steele

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, Jane Yolen (photo: Jason Stemple), and W. P. Kinsella (Ed Steer)

Ryan Schneider on his eponymous site profiles James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel in his preview of A. I. Story Bundle.

The A.I. Storybundle is live, but only until April 20, 2017! Explore Artificial Intelligence and how A.I. will affect the future in ARISTOI by Walter Jon Williams, THE BOHR MAKER by Linda Nagata, ARACHNE by Lisa Mason, REWIRED: THE POST-CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY, edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly with stories by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, and others, QUEEN CITY JAZZ by Kathleen Ann Goonan, EYE CANDY by Ryan Schneider, GLASS HOUSES by Laura R. Mixon, CYBERWEB by Lisa Mason, LIMIT OF VISION by Linda Nagata, and THE A.I. CHRONICLES ANTHOLOGY, edited by Samuel Peralta.

STACKED includes Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS among its listing of FAIRY TALE RETELLINGS OF 2017.

PROJECT MUSE finally publishes an excerpt William Steele’s 2015 review of THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA from NINE: A JOURNAL OF
BASEBALL HISTORY AND CULTURE.

Reading THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA is like rekindling a friendship after several years away. Though his most recent novel, BUTTERFLY WINTER, was released in 2011, it has been fifteen years since his last collection of short fiction was published. For his longtime fans, this collection is a reminder of his strength as a storyteller, his sharp wit and satiric observations, and his characters whom the readers come to recognize as people they’ve known for years. And for those readers who are new to Kinsella’s fiction or who may only know his baseball novels such as SHOELESS JOE and THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY, these stories will introduce them to the Silas Ermineskin narratives from the Hobbema Reservation in Alberta, Canada; his short vignettes written in the style of his favorite author, Richard Brautigan; and his baseball stories that were not used as chapters of his later novels.

Published in time for his eightieth birthday, the collection is an interesting retrospective of Kinsella’s most popular stories, such as “Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa,” and some of his lesser-known works. And while this collection offers very little new material, it does remind readers of his abilities to speak through a Cree Indian’s voice and to incorporate magic realism in his baseball narratives, both trademarks of his earlier collections. For those who are only familiar with his novels, many of the baseball pieces will strike a familiar chord, as he wove them into the plotlines of some of his baseball novels.

Though many readers may expect Kinsella to only write about either baseball or Cree Indians, some selections included here show his ability to throw an occasional curveball. “Do Not Abandon Me” examines a woman who is ready to leave her husband but finds herself torn between the safety of her predictable relationship and the excitement of an affair with a far more mysterious and world-traveled antiques dealer. “The Last Surviving Member of the Japanese Victory Society” is a touching love story that bridges two different cultures, allowing the narrator to find both love and happiness after a lifetime of being deprived of both. Dedicated to his wife Barbara, who passed away on Christmas Eve 2012, the story is a reminder of Kinsella’s knack for writing a story in a way that causes readers to empathize with the character, longing to know what happens after the story ends.

Some stories in the anthology are among the author’s favorites, including “First Names and Empty Pockets,” a piece Kinsella has often said is the best short story he has ever written. The story is told through the voice of a man who developed a relationship with Janis Joplin and is able to save her from dying at age twenty-seven, helping her realize her full potential as an artist. In “How I Got My Nickname,” the narrator, also named W. P. Kinsella, gets a chance to play for the 1951 New York Giants, hitting .333 before helping set up Bobby Thomson’s famous “shot heard round the world.” In both cases, Kinsella’s unique style of blending fact and fantasy together brings to mind his baseball novels that are known for the magic realism that drives them.

For more info about REWIRED: THE POST-CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Patty Nason

For more info on THE EMERALD CIRCUS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty

Cover design by Elizabeth Story