Magic for beginners
The nine stories in Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen: effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock themes of genre fiction into the stuff of delicate lyrical fantasy. In "Stone Animals," a house's haunting takes the unusual form of hordes of rabbits that camp out nightly on the front lawn. This proves just one of several benign but inexplicable phenomena that begin to pull apart the family newly moved into the house as surely as a more sinister supernatural influence might. The title story beautifully captures the unpredictable potential of teenage lives through its account of a group of adolescent schoolfriends whose experiences subtly parallel events in a surreal TV fantasy series. Zombies serve as the focus for a young man's anxieties about his future in "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and offer suggestive counterpoint to the lives of two convenience store clerks who serve them in "The Hortlak." Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies. Contents: The Faery Handbag (2004) The Hortlak (2003) The Cannon (2003) Stone Animals (2004) Catskin (2003) Some Zombie Contingency Plans (2005) The Great Divorce (2005) Magic for Beginners (2005) Lull (2002)
Stats for nerds
1recommend
5mentions
5people
2012years
20% recommend80% neutral
What Hacker News says
- The Scalzi and Bacigalupi books are so worth it.
Bacigalupi is a great author. I really liked the Wind Up Girl, and about 80% of the short stories in Pump 6 were good.
Old Man's War is a recent classic. I've read all the books in the series, and the first is the best.
I've read all the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaborations, and honestly I don't care for McKean's artwork. It took me a while of looking at the preview to realize I'd already read Signal-to-Noise. Forgettable.
I haven't read:
Although I own the Kelly Link books. Never got around to them. My wife liked Magic for Beginners.Cory Doctorow: Pirate Cinema Lauren Beukes: Zoo City Mercedes Lackey: Invasion Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen Kelly Link: Magic for Beginners - A few things really upset me with that:
First, books are a special kind of products, they do not obey the same rules as commercial products, they are culture. To explain a little, I am french and we have a law for the unique price of books: the price you will pay for a book will be the same on amazon, at fnac, in your local bookshop or in a supermarket.
Second, the word e-reader is nowhere to be found, ePub is also not prominently featured, contrary to iPad and Kindle. For a no-DRM ebook offer, I would have thought that the standard format for ebooks would be more important than the name of the most DRM-filled devices.
Third, Pirate Cinema, Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners are CC licensed (some NC-ND, some only NC), I would be happy to know the license of the books that are here sold (included the other ones) and in the case of Magic for Beginners if it includes the non CC licensed short stories. For the first humble indie bundle, there was a promise that some games would be opensourced, a similar promise would be great here.
- Also, links to reviews on Goodreads:
Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539171-pirate-cinema (rating: 3.82)
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8503271-pump-six-and-othe... (rating: 4.11)
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11351953-zoo-city (rating: 3.68)
Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle by Mercedes Lackey – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10824696-invasion (rating: 3.73)
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66659.Stranger_Things_Hap... (rating: 4.00)
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners (rating: 4.01)
bonus books:
Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/957373.Signal_to_Noise (rating: 3.88)
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51964.Old_Man_s_War (rating: 4.18)
- edit: 2 minutes too slow. Going to just leave this up as it has the ratings;)
And because I think goodreads review are way above amazon in quality (usually, not always) here are the links for GoodReads (ratings in brackets):
Pump Six and Other Stories http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2819368-pump-six-and-othe... (4.11)
Zoo City http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7163862-zoo-city (3.68)
Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1986356.Invasion (3.73)
Stranger Things Happen http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66659.Stranger_Things_Hap... (4.00)
Magic for Beginners. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners (4.01)
Pirate Cinema http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13539171-pirate-cinema (3.82)
extras
Old Man's War http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51964.Old_Man_s_War (4.18)
Signal to Noise! http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166570.Signal_to_Noise (3.88)
- You know what would be great if adapted by Goodreads?
Standard Deviation for ratings. I have a hunch that with the standard-deviation, all ratings for all books even out at 4/5. Not sure why, but I think that goodreads-users are too nice due to using real names.
Edit: Just played around with the "rating details" tab and numpy:
Magic for Beginners has a mean rating of 4.01 and a stddev of 0.99, Pirate Cinema has a mean rating of 3.85 and a stddev of 0.89, Pump Six has a mean rating of 4.11 and a stddev of 0.81, so looking at only the standard deviations, all books have a very similar rating. Interesting, but that doesn't tell me much, except that the standard-deviation is massive in this context.
