Imaginal Casements

Brom was a fantasy illustrator before he started writing his own books. They all contain spectacular color plates as well as black and white illustrations, which add a lot to the story.

Krampus opens with a prologue of the imprisoned Krampus vowing revenge on Santa Claus, then cuts to Santa Claus being chased through a trailer park by horned goblins, one of whom falls to his death when Santa escapes on his sleigh drawn by flying reindeer.

But he left his sack behind, which is promptly picked up Jesse, who just moments previously was considering suicide because he's basically a character from a country song: he's broke; his wife left him, taking their kid with her, and she's now with the town sheriff; Jesse never had the music career he wanted because of poor self-esteem and stage fright, AND he's being forced to do dangerous drug smuggling by the crime lord who runs the town with help from the sheriff. Santa's sack will provide any toy you want, but only toys; Jesse, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, uses it get his daughter every toy she's ever wanted, so now his wife thinks he stole them and the corrupt sheriff is on his ass again. And so are Krampus's band of Bellsnickles, who also want the sack because it's the key to freeing Krampus...

This book is absolutely nuts. The tone isn't as absurd as the summary might make it sound; it is often pretty funny, but it's more of a mythic fantasy meets gritty crime drama, sort of like Charles de Lint was writing in the 80s. Absolutely the best part is when Krampus finally gets to be Krampus in the modern day, spreading Yule tidings, terrorizing suburban adults, and terrifying but also delighting suburban children.

A Bad Idea comic by Matt Kindt, Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain. A swords and sorcery parody/pastiche about a group of badass, backstabbing, greedy, terrible people tasked with saving a peaceful city from invaders. I picked this up based on the art, which is spectacular - I especially love the unusual color palette.





Unfortunately, the story is both cliched and kind of edgelord, and I didn't care about any of the characters. Also, the art is extremely gory - the panel above is mild. So I won't be continuing this series, but I may look into what else Ramon Villalobos, the artist, has done.

Ben is on a work trip, away from his wife and three young children, when he decides to take a hike through the woods by his hotel. Ben sees a man with a Rottweiler face disposing of a corpse, and flees into the woods with the dog man pursuing him.

The next thing he knows, he's trapped in a surreal world halfway between a nightmare and a video game. It often involves distorted reflections of his own past - Ben has a scar on his face from a Rottweiler bite and he keeps getting attacked by Rottweiler-faced men, an old lover appears at the age she was when he last saw her, and he befriends a talking crab that knows a suspicious amount about him. He has to stay on the path, or he'll die. A mysterious old woman gives him tasks and tells him the only way he can get home is to find the Producer. Things appear and disappear in a very dreamlike manner, the scene shifting from a cannibal giant's castle to a hovercraft to a desert. After each ordeal, he gets a banquet with champagne.

This extremely weird book is a bit like a dreamlike, horror-inflected Alice in Wonderland for bros. I almost gave up on it halfway through - it was so "one random thing after another and the whole thing is clearly not real" that I got bored - but that's when something happened that intrigued me enough to continue. It doesn't need to be as long as it is - it's a short book that would have been better as a novelette - but the ending, while not explaining all that much, still manages to be satisfying.

I wouldn't re-read this - the actual reading experience often felt like a slog - but it was definitely different and had some good twists, so I'm not sorry I read it. I suspect there's some overlap in readership between this and Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Don't read the spoilers if there's any chance you'll actually read the book.

( Spoilers! )

Probably it's all a metaphor for life.

Content notes: Horror-typical gore and gross-outs.

Audio and transcript here.

Kat Spada: Today, I’m talking to Rachel Manija Brown, a writer who’s published over 30 books, and opened up Paper & Clay Bookshop in late 2024. Rachel, will you tell me about why you decided to open a bookshop?

Rachel Brown: I had never intended to open a bookshop. I always thought it was one of those idle daydreams that people who love reading and books have. I never planned to actually do it because I didn’t think it would be successful—they frequently go out of business. But after I moved to Crestline, which is a very small town in the California mountains, the little town did not have a bookshop.

It had a shop that was kind of a bookshop. I would say about ten percent of its inventory was books, but it was primarily gifts and herbs and crystals and things like that. But it had a really great atmosphere, people loved it, the people who worked there were really great. And all the kids in town used to hang out there, especially the queer and trans and otherwise kind of misfit kids. And I used to hang out there.

[When it went] out of business, I was so sad at the idea of the mountain losing its only bookshop. Especially the thought that all the queer, trans, bookish, and otherwise misfit teenagers, like I had once been, were going to lose their safe space.

I started daydreaming about opening it myself, and I thought, I love this idea so much, maybe in a couple of years when I have actual preparation, I’ll open a bookshop. Then I realized it was at was such a good location, that I would never get that good of a location again. It’s smack in the middle of the tourist district, every person who visits Crestline walks right past it.

Unfortunately, this was all while I was in Bulgaria for a month. So, I spent some time frantically trying to take over the lease, which was extremely difficult from another country. I couldn’t take possession of the shop until November 1st, and I really wanted to open it in time to get all the Christmas customers. And I have a tiny house, so I couldn’t really buy very much, because I had no place to put it. So I took possession of the shop on November 1st, and I opened on November 14th.


I've posted the rest of the edited transcript below the cut. ( Read more... )

A middle-grade novel about a boy who lives in the woods, tagged as "A worthy successor to Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain."

12-year-old Raymond Hurley lives with his beloved dog Rosie and his neglectful, drug addict, emotionally abusive parents, who move constantly, have only cooked a homemade meal for him once in his entire life, and scream at him and stomp out when he cooks Thanksgiving for them. The one time he told anyone about this, he was temporarily placed in a children's home that was even worse than living with his parents, so he has decided to never tell anyone anything ever.

When they take off, ditching him and Rosie, he lives in the woods behind his middle-school. He continues attending school, as they feed him twice a day. Otherwise, he dumpster-dives after hours at the school, and fishes in the river. While this is all going on, he accidentally makes two friends at school despite his resolve to stay under the radar, accidentally befriends an old man who also fishes in the river, and accidentally tames a coyote (!), who he names Hank. But obviously, this is all unsustainable long-term...

This book isn't that much like the classic "kid survives in woods" books. It's not really about wilderness survival, it's about homelessness and the psychological effects of negligence. It doesn't have the vibe at all of something like Hatchet, where there's something satisfying and profound about living off the land and being in nature, even though it's hard and dangerous and uncomfortable. Raymond's life in the woods is just sad. It's closer to something like Homecoming, in which four kids abandoned by their mother make their way across the country in search of a home, but it's sadder and more aimless than that because Raymond is alone in his predicament and doesn't have a goal other than "stay out of the children's home."

The elements that are survival-y, like taming the coyote, clash with the overall feel of suburban social issue fiction. Especially because they're wildly unrealistic - you can't tame a coyote to the point of petting it and playing with it and having it play with your dog! A coyote will EAT your dog! (There's a key scene involving a venomous snake that also pinged my "it doesn't work that way" sense.)

I didn't really like this book, though it's not a bad book at all. I would have liked it better if it had fully committed to being a realistic book about a homeless child. I also would have liked it better if Raymond's big goal wasn't just "stay out of the children's home," but "stay out of the children's home because I hate it and they'll take away Rosie and who knows what will happen to her." He never once worries about that, which seems like a really odd thing to not be concerned about under the circumstances. If he'd been committed to protecting Rosie, it would have given him and the book more drive. I get that the writer wanted to have Raymond be more just drifting through life, but since he's putting a lot of effort into not getting caught, I think it would have made the book more compelling if the effort was connected to a living being he cared about.

The ending is an absolutely typical ending for this sort of book:

( Read more... )

Content notes: child abuse, homelessness, animal death.

Once upon a time, the moon Panga was industrial and capitalist and miserable. Then robots suddenly and inexplicably gained self-awareness. They chose to stop working, leave human habitation, and go into the wilderness. The humans not only didn't try to stop them, but this event somehow precipitated a huge political change. Half of Panga was left to the wilderness, and humans developed a kinder, ecologically friendly, sustainable way of life. But the robots were never seen again.

That's all backstory. When the book opens, Sibling Dex, a nonbinary monk, is dissatisfied with their life for reasons unclear to themself. They leave the monastery to become a traveling tea monk, which is a sort of counselor: you tell the monk your troubles, and the monk listens and fixes you a cup of tea. Dex's first day on the job is hilariously disastrous, but they get better and better, until they're very good at it... but still inexplicably dissatisfied. So they venture out into the wilderness, where they meet a robot, Mosscap - the first human-robot meeting in hundreds of years.

I had previously failed to get very far into The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this novella. It's cozy in a good way, with plenty of atmosphere, a world that isn't quite perfect but is definitely one I'd like to live in, and some interesting philosophical exploration. My favorite part was actually Dex's life as a tea monk before they meet Mosscap - it's very relatable if you've ever been a counselor or therapist, from the horrible first day to the pleasure of familiar clients later on. I would absolutely go to a tea monk.

I would have liked Mosscap to be a bit more flawed - it's very lovable and has a lot of interesting things to say, but is pretty much always right. Mosscap is surprised and delighted by humanity, but I'm not sure Dex ever shakes up its worldview in a way it finds true but uncomfortable, which Mosscap repeatedly does to Dex. Maybe in the second novella, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.

And while I'm on things which are implausibly neat/perfect, this is a puzzling backstory:

1) Robots gain self-awareness and leave.

2) ????

3) PROFIT! Society goes from capitalist hellscape to environmentalist paradise.

Maybe we'll learn more about the ???? later.

But overall, I did quite like the novella. The parts where Dex is a tea monk, with the interactions with their clients and their life in their caravan, are very successfully cozy - an instant comfort read. And I liked the robot society and the religious orders, as well as a lot of the Mosscap/Dex relationship. I'll definitely read the sequel.