Baum Plan and Stranger Things Happen

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Small Beer Press, awesome publishers of much goodness, have been giving away some of their books as Creative Commons downloads. I 've reviewed Maureen McHugh's Mothers and Other Monsters before and now it's time for John Kessel's "Baum Plan For Financial Independence" and Kelly Link's "Stranger Things Happen".

Both are short story collections at the literary end of the fantasy/magical-realism/man-that's-some-weird-shit genre. Both are well written, evocative and interesting. Kelly Link's stories are usually fairy tale ish weird shit kind of; Kessel's are more mashups of other tales weird shit with a dollop of allusion. Both collections will repay careful reading and rereading with new interpretations of what the fudge is going on. Aw hell, go and read a couple of stories, see if they are your cup of tea. They're free.

Comments

  1. Unknown26/6/08 18:58

    I quite liked "Stranger Things Happen", but I luuuuurrrvved "Magic For Beginners" in an obsessive kind of way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gareth26/6/08 20:35

    Yep, I think I preferred Magic for Beginners, especially the story about the Library TV series.

    ReplyDelete

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