Fiction Reviews
Januaries
(2024) Olivie Blake, Tor, £22, hrdbk, 391pp, ISBN 978-1-035-03957-9
This is a collection of fourteen stories, some of them originally self-published.
‘The Wish Bridge’ tells of a bridge that appears, somewhere in the world, every full moon. To cross it one must engage with the guardian, who can grant a wish or tell a truth, forgive a sin or permit a wrong, and give something back or excise something unwanted, and warns that you will almost certainly pay more than you know. Most that find the bridge make their choices and cross it but one night the bridge is found by somebody merely passing by, who has no desire to cross the bridge, and becomes concerned for the guardian. Over a long period, he seeks and finds the bridge a number of times and makes an offer to the guardian.
‘The Audit’ is set in a world where a young person can be assessed for their potential lifetime earnings, receive them now, and enjoy them whilst they are still young and full of energy. The only drawback is that later on they will have to start work and, for the rest of their lives, work relentlessly to earn the money that has been advanced to them. This can affect the way they view the present.
In ‘Sucker for Pain’ we meet Nora who, whilst only nine, was ‘adopted’ by a witch so as to be the companion to her son as he grew up. Nora was not treated well but, now in her late teens, the tables are turned when she meets a vampire.
An arranged marriage is the start of ‘The Animation Games’, where neither of the betrothed think much of each other. During an argument an accident leads to her death. For some reason she reanimates, then returns and kills him. He also reanimates and kills her again, and so it goes on for many deaths until they reach a conclusion.
‘The House’ is based on wedding vows that the author wrote for friends and acknowledges that the future is unknown but they are venturing into it together.
‘To Make a Man’ introduces us to Marcelo, a talented fighter who is going nowhere because he accepts the money to throw his matches. He notices a mysterious lady in the audience who later tells him that, if he does not change his ways, he will die of a bullet wound in a year’s time. She is no ordinary lady and, although he does not know it, he is no ordinary guy.
The main character in ‘Preexisting Condition’ has no idea who she is, only that she is not particularly well and that she helps Mihaila prepare her stews. When she meets Kamon she discovers the truth; Mihaila is a shaman who had killed her then brought her back as a servant, but Kamon will also prove to be a problem.
‘Monsterlove’ is about something to do with a shapeshifter(?) producing a youngling whereas ‘How to Dispel Friends and Curse People’ is a long poem. I cannot say I understood either of them.
How the gods have fun with people is the theme in ‘Fates and Consequences’. Unfortunately Atropos accidentally killed the wrong mortal and that creates problems in the Underworld.
In ‘Sous Vide’ Chrissy gets a much needed extra job ‘on the side’ but it is ‘no questions asked’. It turns out to be cooking meals for a demon.With ‘Sensual Tales for Carnal Pleasures’ our unnamed character meets Noctus, the prince of the night castle. It will be an interesting night for both of them.
‘Chaos Theory’ introduces us to Naomi, Violeta, Jessamyn, Hadia, and Aya, who are all versions of the same person but in different parallel worlds. Aya is an assassin and kills her mark, Charles McCabe; now she has to ensure that her equivalents kill all his equivalents in order to keep balance.
Finally, ‘A Year in January’ tells of a woman looking for someone to share her apartment, advertising it on Craigslist. The applicant is rather strange lady who calls herself January and says she needs somewhere for a year whilst she serves out her banishment.
There were some interesting ideas in these stories and they were written in different styles; it would be easy to think they had different authors. Some of the stories I enjoyed, others left me perplexed. Often I felt they went on too long, especially as sometimes I was not sure what they were supposed to be about. Perhaps some of the stories were based in cultural situations I do not know of, perhaps some of the fantasies relied too much on cultural references I did not get. Whatever it was, whilst I thought that some of the stories were very good, others left me at least somewhat cold. Whatever the reason, some story lines were only explained by reference to the blurb on the cover, for example the lady answering the Craigslist advert was, apparently, a banished fairy. On the other hand, the cover blurb misrepresented other tales.
All told, I found the stories more disappointing than invigorating, and I felt that I had missed the point of many of them. Perhaps the author moves in different circles?
Peter Tyers
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