Report to the Men’s Club
November 16th, 2004by Carol Emswhiller
ISBN: 193152002X
In story after story, Emswhiller uses her not-exactly-human characters to reveal what being human really is, or should be. There are Godzilla-like creatures, a variety of mountain critters, and even some amphibious People in these nineteen stories, and none of them are unbelievable.
They are unexpected, however. I mean, how can you really expect blowdart-shooting mountain critters than play at being Bigfoot for human hiker audiences? Or a superhero grandma losing her edge? Or a colony of self-selected mediocre artists in the wilderness, or murderous poets (okay, maybe that one, but not as it is played out in the story)? This makes for an odd and oddly compelling reading experience.
Fans of Kelly Link or Ray Vukcevich will probably be interested in this book, as will other fans of slightly off-kilter yet strangely familiar fictional worlds. Recommended.
November 17th, 2004 at 9:55 am
In the interests of full disclosure: others may not expect poets to be murderous, but trust her, she’s married to one….