Debris by Jo Anderton

Published by Angry Robot on September 27, 2011

Tanyana Vladha is an exceptionally skilled pion-binder. Pions are friendly, sparkly, playful subatomic particles -- except for the red ones, which are angry and nasty. Pions can be manipulated for all sorts of constructive purpose, and their manipulation is the task of a pion-binder. Tanyana is using pions to build a massive statute when she's attacked by red pions. The attack destroys her ability to manipulate (or even to see) pions, but gives her the ability to see the debris that pions leave in their wake -- an ability that the governing authority (veche) uses to define her new (and low status) role in life: debris collector. She must win the trust of her collection team and adjust to her new life -- and new powers -- while trying to find the persons responsible for her downfall.

The plot is an intriguing mix of mystery and action; I was never certain quite where the story would take me. It's also strange. To an extent, the strangeness is compelling, yet by the end the story's oddity borders on fantasy. The world Anderton describes is so unfamiliar that I found it difficult to relate to (or care about) the threat that Tanyana battles. I was more interested in the relationships between the characters, the evolving loyalties and inevitable betrayals. The characters are interesting, particularly a debris collector named Lad, who seems to be a bit simple-minded but turns out to be gifted in ways that most people can't recognize.

Debris is, in a sense, a novel about class conflict. The veche and their moneyed friends oppress those who don't have the gift of pion-binding. Some descriptions of disparity between the decrepit poor and the snobbish rich echo Dickens.

There are times when the pace drags, as if Anderton felt the need to prolong the suspense (and given that this is the first novel of a trilogy, perhaps she did). For the most part, however, the story zips along to a satisfying conclusion -- although not a conclusion that resolves all the unanswered questions. I'm not sure I'll seek the answers to those questions in the next installment of the trilogy, but I have no regrets about reading this one.

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The Corn Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates

Published by Mysterious Press on November 1, 2011

Joyce Carol Oates' latest collection of stories isn't for the faint-heated. The title story -- about a girl who doesn't come home from school -- focuses less on the horror that the girl will experience than on the guilt her working class mother feels at leaving her eleven-year-old daughter home alone until she returns from the late shift she's forced to work. Guilt gives way to fear: What kind of problems will she cause for herself if she calls 911? What judgments will she face? What will the police think about the beer she's drinking to calm her nerves as she considers where her daughter might have gone? Oates uses the chilling circumstances to explore diverse sources of terror: the twisted child responsible for the missing girl's fate; the police officers who accuse and intimidate the innocent; journalists who are willing to report innuendo in their lust for a sensational story; therapists who insist that it is healthy to dredge up memories best left dormant. This is a powerful, sometimes touching, incredibly intense piece of writing. It is the longest and best of the seven stories in the collection.

My second favorite story, "Helping Hands," tells of a new widow who, in desperate loneliness, takes up with a wounded veteran. Envisioning herself as his savior and him as her protective companion, she invests him with qualities of sensitivity and intelligence that he clearly lacks, while remaining willfully blind to the man's dangerous instability.

The other "nightmares" in the collection are: "Beersheba," about a man who is forced to confront his long-forgotten failings as a stepfather; "Nobody Knows My Name," in which a young girl's natural jealousy of her newborn sister may or may not be responsible for a tragic ending; "Fossil-Figures," about a demon brother's dominance, from their days in the womb to the end of their lives, over his frail twin; "Death-Cup," another story of mismatched brothers, one of whom contemplates poisoning the other with deadly mushrooms; and "A Hole in the Head," in which a doctor revives the practice of trepanation -- drilling holes in the skull to release evil spirits.

Oates tells her stories in lush, rhythmic sentences. She sketches characters with deft precision. She fills their mouths with strong dialog, spoken in unique and realistic speech patterns. Each story builds a sense of dread, bit by bit, often indirectly -- when a mean gray cat starts stalking through the story, you know something awful is going to happen. Yet these aren't simple, predictable stories of horror or suspense. In the two stories about brothers, the characters behave surprisingly; they reveal an unexpected capacity for late-life change. Most of the stories reveal their own little surprises; all of them deliver electric jolts of anxiety before they end.

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Bearded Women Stories by Teresa Milbrodt

Published by ChiZine Publications on November 8, 2011

You might call the characters in Bearded Women Stories freaks, although it probably wouldn't be politically correct to do so. The narrator of my favorite story in the collection, "Bianca's Body," has the lower half of a second body (she's named it Bianca) growing out of her own torso. Although the narrator's husband can have sex with either body (it takes some creative maneuvering), conceiving a child would probably require Bianca's removal -- a possibility that leads to considerable marital strife (in part because Bianca is the better lover). The narrators of several other stories are equally suited for carnival sideshows: a woman has snakes dangling like dreadlocks from her scalp; another is more than eight feet tall; one has an extra set of ears; another has holes in her hands so she can work as "the human fountain."

Some of Teresa Milbrodt's best stories are about women coping with adversity. One of my favorites involves a woman with a debilitating disease who, contemplating suicide, plans to be buried in a scallop-shaped coffin.  Deciding to sleep in it until she dies, the woman finds herself confronting the coffin maker who wants to keep it.

Freakish in mind or body they may be, but Milbrodt's characters have the same problems as everyone else. They're working in low paying jobs, struggling to pay their bills, trying to find ways to better their lives. They wish they could find love, or at least get a date with someone who isn't a jerk. They may have been teased more than other kids, and in adulthood they must endure those who view them as signs of the impending apocalypse, but as a result of being mocked they've learned to have compassion for other people who might be regarded as abnormal.

A unifying theme of Bearded Women Stories is, I think, the commonality of existence. As Milbrodt observes, the tattooed lady may have unusual skin illustrations but everyone develops markings on their skin -- nature's skin art -- as they get older. We are defined not just by the characteristics that make us unique, but also by those that make us just like everyone else: emotions, needs, desires. Most of Milbrodt's characters are visibly or behaviorally odd, but the stories send the message that nearly everyone is odd in his or her own way, even if their strangeness doesn't become evident until you come to know them well.

However unusual we may be in appearance or personality, learning to be comfortable with ourselves is the key to contentment -- that, at least, is overall message I took from Milbrodt's stories. The cyclops woman, for instance, knows that -- unlike herself -- "those who decree themselves unlovely" would never be noticed in a crowd. At least for now, she -- unlike her glaucoma-suffering father who insists that she hide her eye behind a shade -- has the ability to see clearly. That theme resonates through other stories. Which character has the greater problem: the "Butterfly Woman" who has skin flaps like a flying squirrel or her diabetic mother? The woman in "Markers" with the tattooed body or her stroke-impaired sister? And which character is the true freak: the titular bearded lady in "Mr. Chicken" (for whom deciding not to shave becomes a liberating experience) or the obese man who eats one hundred chicken nuggets every day at the restaurant she manages while fixing frightening stares on the other customers?

Not every story works; the only one not narrated by a woman is the least interesting of the "freak" entries, while the final story is too ordinary to fit in with the rest of the collection. Still, every story is well written, filled with the sort of detail that breathes life into characters.  The characters are worth knowing, and the insight they provide into unusual lives is worth pondering.

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Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker

Published by Poisoned Pen Press on November 1, 2011

Mercury's Rise is the third novel in Ann Parker's Silver Rush mystery series. The story takes place in Colorado. Ann Parker provides enough period detail to create a convincing 1880 background, although I can't say I was enthralled by her detailed descriptions of the garments worn by her female characters (readers with a stronger interest in the history of women's fashion might react differently). In any event, as she makes clear in an author's note, Parker's research about Colorado in 1880 was thorough.

Mercury's Rise starts with a death, then fills in the back story. Inez Stannert and her friend Susan Carothers are taking a coach from Leadville to Manitou (a city known for its mineral springs and favored by patients suffering from consumption). Inez is traveling to Manitou to meet her sister, Harmony, who has been caring for Inez's son, William, for the last year. Another passenger, Edward Pace, has an apparent heart attack and dies, shortly after drinking one of the tonics the irascible Dr. Prochazka had prescribed for Edward's wife, Kirsten Pace. Kirsten suspects foul play, leading Inez to investigate. The mystery deepens when other targets of homicidal mischief begin to appear.

Inez is a strong, independent woman in a time and place that has little regard for the concept of gender equality. Inez is a saloon keeper in Leadville; her taste for whiskey is met with disapproval in the more genteel environs of Manitou, and her role as a business owner is viewed with suspicion by the men who surround her. Inez is more than a little distressed at the sudden reappearance of Mark, the husband she had intended to divorce on the ground of abandonment. Mark has an explanation for his disappearance but Inez doesn't know whether to believe him. Mercury's Rise gives equal attention to Inez's domestic problems and to the mystery Inez investigates.

Although Parker's prose is competent, her pace is slowed by redundancy as characters tell other characters facts that the reader already knows. For my taste, there's a bit too much soap opera in Inez's relationships with Mark and with her meddling Aunt Agnes. The mystery, on the other hand, is intriguing, even if the culprit's identity isn't difficult to guess. The motivation for the crimes is credible. Parker appears to have done her research into nineteenth century medicine and divorce law. Parker integrates an interesting discussion of medical science's developing understanding of the cause of tuberculosis into the plot. A twist on the domestic subplot in the final chapters, after the murder mystery is resolved, is less interesting and not very convincing. The story of Inez and Mark continues long after the murder is solved -- too long to sustain my interest. In short, I liked the mystery; the soap opera, not so much.  

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Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Published in Sweden in 2008; published in translation by Thomas Dunne Books on October 11, 2011

The Earth and its creatures consist mostly of water. When water gets its evil on, it is a formidable and dangerous element. Even without a supernatural infestation, oceans (particularly at night) are frightening to behold. In Harbor, John Ajvide Lindqvist imagines the waters of the ocean as a diabolical force.

In 2004, a little girl named Maja disappears while visiting a lighthouse with her parents, Anders and Cecelia. Her disappearance on the small, isolated island of Domarö is impossible to explain. When Anders returns to the island a couple of years later, a series of eerie events suggest that Maja is trying to contact him. Anders later learns that Maja is not the first island resident to have disappeared, and that the island harbors secrets from generations past.

Anders is one primary character; another is Simon, an aging magician and escape artist who has lived on Domarö for years. In 1996, Simon pledges himself to a Spiritus, a dark little creature that resembles a centipede. When Simon drools on the Spiritus, he gains some of its life force; holding the Spiritus in his hand empowers Simon. Despite Simon's connection to the island, its life-long residents have kept a secret from him: the secret of the sea. It is the secret that animates the novel and that Anders must eventually understand if he is to make sense of Maja's disappearance.

As the plot develops, John Ajvide Lindqvist surrounds his characters with menacing images: a cardboard cutout of an ice cream man seems vaguely sinister; the wind-swept sea conveys a feeling of dread; the distant growl of a moped signals danger. Even swans are best avoided on Domarö. This is artful storytelling.

Unfortunately the images of horror are more interesting than the actual horror. The problem, I think, is that there are just too many different manifestations of evil: the dead return to life in ghost-like fashion, the living are possessed in zombie-like fashion, a malevolent force dwells in the deep ... the riot of horror themes becomes a bit much, particularly with the addition of the Spiritus. While the Spiritus is the most imaginative of the supernatural forces at play in Harbor, its existence (and the role it plays at the novel's end) is almost too convenient. Having voiced that small complaint, however, I must give Lindqvist credit for tying it all together at the novel's end.

Harbor works best as a novel of psychological horror -- the horror not just of losing a child, but of a parent's realization that he never really knew his child. As a tale of supernatural horror, the novel is creative but not particularly frightening. The lengthy story is nonetheless entertaining. There are stories within stories in this unusual novel: stories of smuggling and stagecraft and love and Nordic adventure. Often the stories provide background, explaining, for instance, why two kids who went missing came to be treated as island outcasts and how Anders' father died. The stories of individuals confronting fears and hardships in an isolated environment showcase Lindqvist at his best, and provide sufficient reason to read Harbor.

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