jeregenest: (Default)
Generation Loss is about Cass, a casualty of the punk rock generation, one who barely limped out of it. This era is a great inspiration to Hand’s creativity and I certainly don’t mind that she keeps returning to it. Cass is a photographer who has an interesting view of the world, and most of the book hinges on strange and different ways of viewing the world, mostly through a camera lens, but like most of Hand’s book it dwells on creativity in a myriad of forms, including music a big concern of hers. This makes sense given how primal music is.

Photography is very important and the title has multiple, very important, meanuings.

Hand uses an island on Maine as a setting, and captures much of the winter crazinesss and bleakness well.

This book also drops names to other Hand books, including Cass being from Kamensic.

Unlike most of Hand’s books this is not straight fantasy (it has hints that something more is going n but the characters are probably just crazy). Generation Loss is difficult to classify, uncomfortable, spiky. She both fights with and against the conventions of the thriller genre to get at an evil deeper than its mere perpetrator. When the killer is revealed, it's more a confirmation of dread than a surprise. So although Generation Loss moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound. Highly recommended.
jeregenest: (Default)
I just finished reading Bibliomancy by Elizabeth Hand, published by PS Publishing. I got Tyler from Pandemonium Books to do an order from PS Publishing (PS Publishing being British) and I'm glad I did (plus its a publisher he should be carrying!). Elizabeth Hand is one of those novelists I really like, I put her in that camp of weird history fantasy with Crowley and Powers and Blaylock, the stuff that I can really dig my teeth into. The fact she uses Maine so effectively (especially in her short stories) is just an added benefit in my book.

Bibliomancy is a collection of 4 novellas. My favorite was 'Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol' which involved half-remembered early televison and the redemption of the human soul. It made me cry. I also liked 'The Least Trumps', with its well realized pseudo-literary history and its changing history.

The other two short stories 'Cleopatra Brimstone' and 'Pavane for a Prince of the Air' round out the collection and make the book well worth the bother of getting it. I'm not sure I could have justified the expense if I hadn't just sold off a big bunch of my gaming collection for store credit. But then its hard for me to justify any expense for books these days. Thank goodness for the library.

Profile

jeregenest: (Default)
jeregenest

September 2017

S M T W T F S
     12
345678 9
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 31st, 2025 05:19 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios