A sprawling and engrossing map of genre fiction.
A work of literary criticism takes readers through a history of genre literature.
Literary history—like all history—is composed of long-term trends punctured by explosive moments. An example of the latter was a dreary holiday that a group of writers spent near Lake Geneva in 1816. The weather was poor due to a massive volcanic eruption in 1815—1816 was known as the year without a summer—and it inspired the writers to hold a scary story contest. The work that came out of it included the first instances of apocalyptic fiction, vampire fiction, horror fiction, and SF, all of which would go on to shape and occasionally dominate popular culture in subsequent centuries. With this book, Pelham traces this and other moments of inspiration, out of which such archetypes as the brilliant detective, the boy wizard, the femme fatale, and the invaders from outer space all developed. Often viewed as the less serious siblings of literary fiction, these genres are shown by the author to be far more complex and popular than their pulpy reputation implies. He links them together in a web of influence that seems at times to touch all of art. Along the way, he reintroduces readers to visionaries like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, James M. Cain, and Patricia Highsmith. Pelham’s prose is breathless and detailed, like a lecture by an enthusiastic tour guide who has more information than the expert has time to cover: “Tolkien, a fan of Verne, Wells, Burroughs, and tales of the American wilderness (I’m guessing The Last of the Mohicans in particular), was a scholar of linguistics and the 20th century master of world building. Middle Earth’s languages, cultures, and histories ring true.” Pelham can’t examine everyone, and there are a few notable absences. The hurried quality causes some of his digressions into pandemics or the Fermi paradox to feel slightly superfluous. But there are fun factoids throughout (including etymologies for words like robot and phantom), and readers are sure to learn a lot. As a broad survey of genre fiction, and particularly as an investigation into the origins of classic genres, the book more than delivers.
A sprawling and engrossing map of genre fiction.Pub Date: April 12, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-73-712432-8
Page Count: 255
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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