Yeti Review: The Alchemist - Paolo Bacigalupi / The Executioness - Tobias Buckell

In A Few Words: The Alchemist and The Executioness showcase two rising stars in the the genre but aren't completely successful in fully realizing the inherent potential in their shared fantasy world.

Pros:
1) Fast, fun stories that work both in print and audio formats
2) The Alchemist is a fantasy version of pitch perfect Bacigalupian exposition
3) Bramble ravaged world feels real as the vegetative threat influences the entire culture

Cons:
1) The worldbuilding away from Lesser Khaim is underdeveloped
2) Buckell attempts to put too much story into The Executioness, resulting in pacing problems

The Review: Fantasy is a genre that lives and dies by magic. It's what unifies a thousand different worlds and yet makes each one distinct. Each author imbues their world with a unique approach, relying on the reader’s sense of wonder to make their words come to life. In some stories, magic is re-entering a world that had all but forgotten it. In others, powers relied on for far too long are beginning to wane. In the shared universe constructed by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias Buckell, magic not only defines the world, it attempts to destroy it. It’s a world where magic comes at a terrible price, even if it doesn’t earn you an encounter with the executioner’s axe. The world of The Alchemist and The Executioness is slowly being consumed by a poisonous bramble which thrives on magic, encroaching ever closer with every whispered word and forbidden act.

It may be difficult to sell coma-inducing vegetative growth as a legitimate threat but it’s hard to deny that the two stories are their strongest when firmly entangled in thorns and vines. You can’t write paired novellas (or good ones, anyway) without fleshing out the world in advance. In the case of The Alchemist and The Executioness, the entire world is structured around the bramble, the culture that created it, and its effect on the peoples that resist it. It’s got depth but not necessarily breadth. As a result, when the stories leave the bramble behind, they border on becoming generic fantasy.

Luckily, Bacigalupi’s offering rarely strays far from the heart of the story, detailing the exploits of Jeoz the alchemist as he attempts to engineer a device capable of eliminating the resilient bramble. The intrigue caused by the possibility of this “balanthast” is somewhat predictable but the way that Bacigalupi develops the characters and their collective culture more than make up for the simple story. The interactions between Jeoz and his daughter are genuinely heartfelt and as the story progresses it’s easy to become drawn in.

Bacigalupi’s bread and butter has always been environmental fiction, and it doesn’t take a literary scholar to see the similarities between this imagined world and ours. With the ever encroaching bramble, humanity faces a slow death of their own creation while anyone capable of substantive change selfishly ignores potential solutions for personal gains. While the global warming analogs are hard to ignore, they are never heavy handed. This may be his first foray into fantasy but with it he proves that his trademark style transcends genre. Bacigalupi’s flawless execution of show-not-tell worldbuilding is what earned him the Nebula and Hugo awards. The same skills are present here even if they aren’t quite as ambitiously applied as in The Windup Girl.

The Executionness has a harder time keeping the story in the deep end of the world. The story begins promisingly as a middle-aged woman is called to do her dying father’s work. Tana reluctantly joins the ranks of the magister’s executioners as the only executioness - a title that sticks with her despite the tumultuous events that change everything else. Before long, Tana is off and running on a quest of vengeance. The problem is that Buckell attempts a novel’s worth of characterization and exploration but only has a quarter of the pages to deliver it. To compensate, he skimps on critical development, resulting in a strangely paced story that feels rushed on more than one occasion. The piecemeal presentation of the final two acts often resorts to what are essentially “training montages” and the scenes in which the novice quickly becomes a master are only missing the bad 80s soundtrack.

This is frustrating because Tobias Buckell has crafted a story worth telling. The middle aged female protagonist is appealing and unique, the villains are more than just cardboard blackhats, and way the story ultimately plays out is memorable. Tana travels most of the continent on her quest for revenge, abandoning the intricate city of Khaim – the same setting that serves as the foundation to Bacigalupi’s tighter, more intimate tale. On said journey, she encounters a variety of interesting factions only tangentially related to the bramble. Because they lack the shared infrastructure of Khaim that links the two novellas, they require additional exposition. Sadly though, there isn’t any room for much more than moving from one set piece to the next. Buckell just lacks the page count/play time necessary to fully develop the elements he has introduced.

Ultimately, the combination of new characters, new locations, new cultures, and an aggressive plot is simply too much development to juggle in a novella of this length. None are intrinsically problematic but sometimes it’s necessary to cut scope in order to deliver higher quality. Even if increasing the word count wouldn’t have made the already 5+ hour audiobook unwieldy, it would still have the negative result of either inflating the word count of the well-composed The Alchemist or unbalancing the two stories.

As of this review, I’ve both listened to the audiobooks and read the advance print copies. I’m reluctant to steer readers one way or the other or suggest a definitive reading order. On one hand, the stories were original meant to be read aloud and the dialogue and sentence structure clearly reflect this. On the other hand, if you are anything like me, you will pick up on a lot more of the subtle details that create a cohesive world if you have the ability to easily re-read a line or two. Not to mention the promised interior illustrations from Subterranean Press.

While the stories are quick and entertaining, it’s difficult to label them complete successes or failures. The Executionness explores an atypical heroine as she travels across a diverse landscape dripping with potential for future narrative exploration. It also gets caught over-achieving at times, trying to do too much with too few words. The Alchemist is less ambitious but the simple tale is brilliantly executed and much more suited to the length and format. Neither would be the same without the other and together they are more than the sum of their parts. When the linked creation actually gets the detailed development it deserves, the magic is plain to see. The key to future entries into this shared world will be maximizing that magic while eliminating the bramble.

Covering Covers: The Alchemist and The Executioness [Print Editions!]

Do you want to experience Paolo Bacigalupi's and Tobias Buckell's shared world novellas but only consume media in a format you can afford to throw at the wall?

Well good news! Subterranean Press announced today that they've secured the rights to print The Alchemist and The Executioness in all the gravity demanding glory inherent in a pair of signed hardcovers.

Cover Artist: J. K. Drummond



Now I hoped that Subterranean would put them together in a back to back edition like those old pulp SF doubles but with covers this good I can't complain. (Even if both characters look younger and healthier than their stories would actually indicate). Even better, the blurb on Subterranean's website also promises interior illustrations, something I consider to be severely underrated.

I've actually known that they were publishing print editions ever since I received some unexpected ARCs earlier this summer. That being the case, I've already read AND listened to these novellas and a review is just around the corner. If you want to know more about the story, check out the original story about the Audible.com exclusive audiobook.

The Alchemist and The Executioness will be out from Subterranean Press in January of 2011 from these two:

I had to show this one more time...

SubPress Announces New Peter V. Brett Novella

Like many of my fellow genre readers, I am somewhat of a completist. And by somewhat, I mean that I have 100+ Star Wars novels and counting. It's an addiction, and an expensive one. But on the plus side, it means I keep an eye out for material that flies under the radar. A great place for that kind of material is Subterranean Press, a small press that features high quality, signed, and often exclusive titles.

Today they announced another exclusive Peter V. Brett novella set in the same world as The Painted Man and The Desert War. Earlier this year, they offered The Great Bazaar and Other Stories, a signed collection of Brett's work that tied into his larger mythos. That book sold out upon printing and is now very difficult to find (impossibly so if you are looking for something cheap). The new novella is titled Brayan's Gold and will feature exclusive art as well as some interior illustrations from Lauren K. Cannon. I think interior illustrations are a brilliant touch.

Included with the announcement was a basic summary:

Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons-bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.


Arlen Bales is seventeen, an apprentice Messenger in brand new armor, about to go out for the first time alongside a trained Messenger on a simple overnight trip. Instead Arlen finds himself alone on a frozen mountainside, carrying a dangerous cargo to Count Brayan's gold mine, one of the furthest points in the duchy. And One Arm, the giant rock demon, hunts him still.


But Brayan's Gold may offer a way for Arlen to be free of One Arm forever, if he is willing to wager his life on the chance.

 Subterranean doesn't have the cheapest books, but they sure are pretty. Brayan's Gold should see print in Jan 2011 and will probably sell out way before that. You don't need to buy it, but if you're interested I'd recommend ordering sooner rather than later.

Yeti Review: The Lifecycle of Software Objects - Ted Chiang

In a few words: Chiang shows signs of growing pains in his longest work to date; presenting interesting questions about artificial intelligence but refusing to provide answers.

My Rating: 3/5

Pros: Chiang is an extremely strong prose stylist, creating emotion impressively quickly; the ideas of artificial but immature intelligence are fascinating and beg for further exploration; the 144 pages read very quickly and smoothly

Cons: The sum of its parts are more than the whole; Feels like a long short story rather than a short novel; many of the most intriguing concepts are left hanging and unexplored.

The Review: Ted Chiang has earned more genre awards than he has published stories. With a reputation like that, it’s hard not to have heightened expectations for The Lifecycle of Software Objects. While only 144 pages, it also represents the the longest work of his career. Chiang's latest offering follows two human programmers and the digital sentient lifeforms they help to create. Known as digients, these programmed minds start off as a 21st century version of the Tamagotchi fad of the mid 90s. Provided sufficient empirical attention and a partially randomized “genetic” code base, these “creatures” are capable of learning not unlike a pet or small child. It is the gradual development of these digients and the way their passionate owners react to their evolution that drives the story forward.

As such, the structure of Lifecycle is basically a timeline of critical moments in those relationships. This works well at first, allowing Chiang to jump a few months or a year or two to the next interesting development. Trends change, technology advances, and the digients continue to learn, progressing gradually through a childhood of sorts. This keeps the story fresh, only touching on a concept briefly before moving on. Some highlights were the debates regarding trial and error parenting (you can roll back the digients to prior save points) and how the digients reacted to and interacted with the real world when they are provided robot bodies.

However, it’s this structure that ultimately weakens the overall success of Chiang’s novella. The story feels more like a series of interconnected short stories than a comprehensive whole. The ideas introduced at the front of the book get plenty of attention as Chiang depicts both their implementation and downstream effect but toward the end of the book there isn’t enough time for the same level of exploration. This is particularly frustrating as the digients are becoming more and more capable, reaching the point of young adulthood. So when Chiang throws open the doors on a whole new sets of issues, including independence, self realization, and sexuality, there are dozens of different avenues of exploration he could take. But rather than exploring any of these promising new elements, Chiang chooses to end the book abruptly. The story needs either more words or less words, but I couldn’t tell you which.

That’s not to say the book is without merit. Having not read Chiang before, I was very impressed with his prose. It reads very cleanly and the pages fly by effortlessly. 144 pages, while short for a novel, is still a sizeable piece of fiction. It never seemed to drag and unfortunately this may have contributed to the sudden feeling of the ending. The emotional weight Chiang imbues in his writing was equally surprising, especially how quickly I became invested in not just imaginary humans but in imaginary, hypothetical, virtual creatures.

A great example of this occurs barely twenty pages into the book. One moment the digients are exploring their digital playground with all of the boundless optimism you would expect from a child. The next they are exposed to vulgarity for the first time by a careless technician, cementing a few choice words in their limited vocabularies. Because they are being developed to be sold as virtual pets for the greater online community, they have to be rolled back, erasing their childlike experience of amazement and discovery in a heartbreaking instant. While that recollection fails to do Chiang’s work justice, the amount of innocence he is able to instill his writing is very impressive.

Much like the adolescent digients described within, The Lifecycle of Software Objects feels like something stuck in the middle. There is no denying that Chiang's prose surpasses that of more prolific writers and the story teems with emotion and speculation. But it also feels like an overly long short story and lacks the conclusions that reward readers after investing time and emotion in a longer work. Instead the readers are presented with an abrupt conclusion that resolves little and feels like a trademark short story ending placed where one doesn't belong. Chiang’s writing screams with potential and it’s only a matter of time before he overcomes his growing pains and delivers a complete work. In the meantime, the intriguing concepts and prose laden with emotion make The Lifecycle of Software Objects worthwhile provided you don’t expect to find answers to the questions Chiang poses.

Covering Covers: The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

Awwww, cute little robot fetus...

July 2010 will see the release of The Lifecycle of Software Objects from Subterranean Press. At 144 pages, it's Ted Chiang's longest work to date. If you aren't aware who Ted Chiang is, he's the guy who has more major awards than he has examples of published work. Not counting Lifecycle, Chiang has published 11 stories. Those stories have won a combined 4 Nebulas, 3 Hugos, 2 Locus Awards, a Thedore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a Sideways Award, and a BSFA. Not to mention the 1992 Campbell Award for Best New Writer. 

Spoiler Alert: Chiang is a good writer.

I personally wouldn't be suprised if there is a Chiang novel out there, hidden in the same facility as the garbage powered car, the Ark of the Covenant, and the good versions of the Star Wars prequels. It can't be released for the sake of the collective dignity of science fiction authors worldwide. They just wouldn't be able to cope.

Anyway, back to The Lifecycle of Software Objects. You know why you should read it, but what would you be reading? Here's the summary:

What's the best way to create artificial intelligence? In 1950, Alan Turing wrote, 'Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried.'


The first approach has been tried many times in both science fiction and reality. In this new novella, at over 30,000 words, his longest work to date, Ted Chiang offers a detailed imagining of how the second approach might work within the contemporary landscape of startup companies, massively-multiplayer online gaming, and open-source software. It's a story of two people and the artificial intelligences they helped create, following them for more than a decade as they deal with the upgrades and obsolescence that are inevitable in the world of software. At the same time, it's an examination of the difference between processing power and intelligence, and of what it means to have a real relationship with an artificial entity.

Look for a review of this one as soon as I can get my hands on it.

YetiReview: Lesser Demons and Other Stories by Norman Partridge

30 words or less: A showcase of pulp heroics, sharp prose and dark horror, Lesser Demons delivers the American blend of horror quickly becoming synonymous with the name Norman Partridge.

My Rating: 4/5

Pros: Fantastic prose with a distinctive structure that reads smoothly; Stories that recall the pulp adventures of the past while delivering a second layer of commentary; Small town American characters that are recognizable and relatable.

Cons: While good, the majority of the stories share a similar voice and tone; Collection lacks a diverse set of characters; Surreal stories not as strong as the rest of them.

The Review: Norman Partridge is an American Horror writer. By that I don’t mean he was born below Canada and above Mexico; I mean he’s a writer, a damn good one, and when he writes horror, he writes American horror. Cowboys and criminals, lawmen and drifters, soldiers and strangers. Hard edged men forged from US steel who take whatever life gives them without complaint and chase it with shot of straight whiskey. Partridge’s latest collection from the always impressive Subterranean Press is no different, full of characters ripped from the pages of classic westerns and noir mysteries. These men are given hell and more in the 10 stories that comprise Lesser Demons and Other Stories and with the rich prose that appears to be Partridge’s trademark, it’s hard not to enjoy their misery.

His prose reads like a well cooked cut of steak - thick, juicy, and oh so delicious. It’s the kind of meal that you just close your eyes and savor, chewing slowly to enjoy every last bite. This analogy is an apt one as the stories in this collection are best enjoyed in the same way. You wouldn’t try to pack away ten sirloins in one sitting and if you did, you wouldn’t enjoy it as much as if you had taken your time. Many of these stories seem to be built around similar character archetypes and when taken in quick succession, they begin to blend together. The majority of Partridge’s characters are rough souls from rougher backgrounds, often coming to grips with the type of men they are at the same time providing subtle commentary on the genres they typically inhabit.

One particular similarity is the unexplained marginalization of female characters. When they are present, they are more often than not victims or relegated to forgettable background roles. To be fair, Partridge does work in very masculine settings and many of the pulpy stories he emulates here are guilty of the same crime. The stories in Lesser Demons are born from westerns and monster movies, full of violent men and violent acts. To change the characters from the source material they are derived from would be to give up part of their core essence, something that Partridge holds dear based on the standard style of his writing.

Here is an individual look at each of the stories in this collection and the characters within.

Second Chance – 3.5/5 - A dispute over ill-gotten gains turns out to be a bit more complicated than first glance would reveal in Second Chance. Partridge does a great job of drawing the reader in with the first story in Lesser Demons but ultimately leaves a little too much unsaid leaving the final twist somewhat unclear.

The Big Man – 4.5/5 – A local bigshot, a literal giant, and an orphaned boy are the three principal characters in this small town story that some may recognize as an homage to the 50-foot monster stories B-movies of the past.. But which is The Big Man indicated by the title? That question and the amount of emotion Partridge is able to evoke in only a few pages really gave this story an extra layer that I enjoyed.

Lesser Demons – 5/5 – One of the best stories in the collection of the same name, Lesser Demons engenders feelings of I Am Legend mixed with just a touch of Lovecraftian horror. The simple sheriff doesn’t care who or what caused the outbreak of horrible monstrosities plaguing his town, he just does what it takes to survive, one day at a time. Lesser Demons really illustrates Partridges defining qualities; rich, flavorful prose, relatable “small-town American” characters, and a dark predilection for unromanticized violence.

Carrion - 3/5 – A chance meeting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere ends the life of a former soldier and intertwines the destiny of three other unfortunate souls, driving them to a mysterious house in the desert, one whose windows don’t look out on the same world that you left when you entered it. I enjoyed the lawless Western feel of the plot but the surreal nature of the house and the encircling vultures left me a little cold.

The Fourth Stair up from the Second Landing - 3/5 – A bit more subdued that the average tale in this collection, The Fourth Stair is better categorized as psychological horror. The Fourth Stair up from the Second Landing marks a place where lives end and lives begin and it begins to haunt the minds of the mother and son who step over it on a daily basis. While there was nothing to complain about, I simply didn’t enjoy this story the way I did the majority of this collection.

And What Did You See in the World? – 3/5 – This is a strange story and honestly one I couldn’t really wrap my head around. I found the characters and their peculiarities both repulsive and intriguing especially the way Partridge keeps you guessing as to who the crazy one really is. This is one of those stories that are short enough to experiment with something different without wearing out its welcome in a longer format.

Road Dogs – 3.5/5 – If paranormal romance is turning werewolves into little more than lusty Chihuahuas, Partridge has something to say about it. His werewolves are mangy, violent beasts more likely to rip your heart out than to break it (as they should be). Drawing parallels between the savagery of spousal abuse and the irrational loyalty of family blood ties with the animal instincts of canines, Partridge sharpens the claws of a tired cliché. Although the characters are for the most part unlikeable, Road Dogs again demonstrates Partridge’s ability for crafting realistic, small-town-American characters. An American Werewolf in Paris? More like A Whitetrash Werewolf in Bumf***, Nowhere.

The House Inside – 1.5/5 – Reading like a horror version of Toy Story, The House Inside is the most surreal of all the stories in the collection and my least favorite. Surprisingly, I don’t enjoy surreal very much and this story didn’t change my opinion much. It might have been the fact that the main characters are plastic cowboys and Indians and little green army men that inexplicably spring to life under a strangely powerful sun or the fact that they continued to ask why when no answers would have made sense. The plastic violence just fell flat. I need an internal logic to my stories and when that isn’t there, I start to lose focus.

Durston - 5/5 – Haunted by his past and his reputation, the titular cowboy attempts to put his dark past behind him in this gritty tale of guns and guilt. Durston has blood money in his pocket: money he can’t scrub clean and he can’t gift away. The stark characterization of Durston and his quest for redemption is compelling and multifaceted. Again, Partridge takes a story typically linked with pulp fiction and gives it a third dimension focusing on acts of violence and death and the way humans deal with the resulting realities. Partridge’s razor sharp prose is brilliant in all of his stories but I think it really stands out especially well in Durston.

The Iron Dead – 5/5 - In what I felt this was the strongest story in the collection, Partridge gives us a badass pulp-tacular hero in the mysterious Chaney as well as an unrelenting evil to rally against. A minion of the devil himself has come to town in prohibition era America, one who slaughters without mercy and rebuilds the mutilated remains of his victims into perverse foot soldiers using whatever spare parts he can find, be they metal or man. Chaney is the last of a group of mortals sworn to end this demon’s terrible reign. This story represents Partridge at his best, gory and violent, making pulp plots read like fine literature. In A Few Words after, a brief essay about the stories in this collection, Partridge mentions that we may be seeing more of Chaney and his hell-forged hand in the future. Yes. Please.

Despite the similarities between several of the stories, there is no denying that Partridge has mastered a blend of classic pulp and literary metaphor using his gift for prose to craft tales that are enjoyable, evocative, and undeniably American. Razor sharp with a wit as dark as the hearts of his heroes, Partridge is simply one of the best prose stylists I’ve ever read. Provided you have the stomach for it, you won’t regret pulling the trigger on Lesser Demons.

Covering Covers: Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge

Artist: Vincent Chong

Day job crushed me today so I didn't have time to read or write too much. I did have this gem of a cover in my back pocket though. When I saw that Subterranean Press was coming out with a new Norman Partridge collection, I immediately preordered it. Now Subterranean doesn't publish cheap books but that doesn't mean their editions aren't worth every cent. They really go all out to create beautiful books. And not just the covers but the fonts and the bindings and everything else. It's a guilty pleasure but a pleasure nonetheless.

SubPress does at lot of work with Vincent Chong and it's easy to see why. I love the contrast present in this cover. The bright orange in the title font really stands out against the fade-to-black border that surrounds this curiously lonely farmhouse. It especially emphasizes the "demons" portion of the title which is tied ever so subtlely to the mysterious house by a dusty path.

I'm also a sucker for implied texture and the look of an ancient tattered photograph suggests memories long discarded but not yet faded. Something you keep in your back pocket in a life too unstable to support a frame. It just adds a extra dimension to the cover that I support wholeheartedly. It also makes me think of Paranormal Activity, particularly the especially creepy attic scene. If this cover doesn't sell you, have a look at SubPress's summary:

Tales of hardboiled horror and Twilight Zone noir. Cross-genre blowtorches with bad guys and worse guys. Love stories both dark and bittersweet. A brand new novella and extensive story notes. You’ll find this and more in the fifth collection from three-time Bram Stoker award-winner Norman Partridge, an author Locus calls “one of the most dependable, exciting, and entertaining practitioners of dark suspense and dark fantasy... emphasis on the dark.”


In Lesser Demons, Partridge explores the kind of fiction that made him both a horror fan and a writer. Using the shotgun prose of a crime novel, the title story draws a deadly bead on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. “The Iron Dead” introduces Chaney, a monster-hunting pulp hero with a mechanical hand built in hell. “Carrion” cuts a mean swath through Robert E. Howard territory, while “The Big Man” explores dark shadows of American life never imagined in the atom-age horror movies of the fifties.

I just recently discovered Partridge (my review of Dark Harvest) but his prose style is so impressive that I'm very excited at the opportunity for more. Additionally, with this collection, I can work toward two of my reading goals this year: consuming more short fiction and exploring the dark catacombs of the horror genre. I don't hit the trifecta (I'm also trying to read more female authors) but two out of three ain't bad. (As a side note, I never did post my reading goals article did I?). Anyway, if you are looking to expand your horizons into something a little more sinister than your typical fantasy, I would definitely give Partridge a chance.

YetiReview: Scenting the Dark and Other Stories

30 Words or Less: In one of the most impressive debut collections I’ve read, Kowal proves why she deserves the Campbell Award for Best New Writer by portraying identifiable characters in unforgettable scenes.

Rating: 5/5 stars

The Good: Kowal’s stories evoke honest emotion with apparently little effort; Authentic sounding dialogue free from tags and other distractions; Simple scenes that will sneak into your memory and stick there.

The Bad: The price to page ratio is a little poor though price to quality remains high, the majority of stories are more speculative fiction than Hard SF or Fantasy.

Mary Robinette’s debut collection, Scenting the Dark and Other Stories, is built like a featherweight boxer. It might be short and lean but if you aren’t ready for it, it’s got a punch that will knock you on your ass. Luckily for me, I received fair warning from John Scalzi, Paul Melko, and whoever voted for the 2008 Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Scenting the Dark weighs in at only 80 pages but it’s safe to say that there isn’t an ounce of fat anywhere in this collection. A lot of first collections seem to be everything the author has published so far, regardless of quality. From the 8 stories included here, it appears that Kowal selected the best of the best. On the other hand, if this is all of Kowal’s short fiction to date: Wow. The most remarkable part of Kowal’s writing isn’t the weight of her ideas or whatever passes for quality plot in short fiction. The ideas and the plots are there (and stronger than the average piece published in the genre magazines) but Kowal’s most impressive feat is how she evokes such emotion is so few pages. Two of the collection’s best stories, “Just Right” and “Locked In” check at only 8 and 4 pages respectively but I felt a greater connection to those characters than I have in entire novels.

Here’s a story by story breakdown of Scenting the Dark and Other Stories:

Portrait of Ari – 4/5 – A great selection for opening story, “Portrait of Ari” focuses on a young artist whose memories of his girlfriend aren’t exactly what they seem. The mysterious tone and lack of clear detail provoke the imagination in preparation for future stories.

Death Comes but Twice – 4.5/5 – I’m a sucker for “Victorian Biological Science Fiction” and this very short story works perfectly as a letter confessing the results of some dangerous experimentation. At only six pages, this is just another example of Kowal doing less with more.

Some Other Day – 4/5 –Josie grows up in the shadow of her father whose name became a curse after inadvertently kills off the mosquito population. As her relationship with fellow researcher Stan grows, she discovers more than she anticipated. Kowal’s strength really lies in developing characters with minimal description and efficient use of dialogue. All the relationships in this book feel real, but this pairing stood out as particularly authentic.

Just Right – 5/5 - A heartbreaking story set in a kitchen over breakfast. The scene Kowal lays out is memorable, frightening, and realistic all in one. It’s not exactly SFF but who cares when the stories are this moving.

Scenting the Dark – 4.5/5 – Titular story in which a blind man and his dog encounter…something. Using non-visual stimuli, Kowal ratchets up the tension in this story that is all too easy to close your eyes and envision

Locked In – 5/5 – While “Scenting the Dark” is scary, dark and unsettling, “Locked In” is all that and more. In only four pages and without leaving a hospital bed, Kowal induces one of the most basic human fears.

This Little Pig – 3/5 - Arguably the weakest story in the collection, This Little Pig is yet another story that’s not quiet SFF. Concerning a simple boy whose chief goal in life is to drive around in an old fashioned car (i.e. Internal Combustion Engine) with his school crush, the story doesn’t generate the same level of intrigue the rest do. At the same time, I use the term weakest only in comparison to the other 7 stories. Kowal maintains her standard of relatable characters and crisp, clean dialogue. It wasn’t a bad story, just forgettable.

Jaiden’s Weaver – 4/5 – Evoking thoughts of Charlotte’s Web, Jaiden’s Weaver has an optimistic, YA flavor to it. Telling a simple story of a girl and her pet teddy bear spider, Kowal demonstrates a knack for world building that I hope to see more of in future stories.

All in all, Scenting the Dark makes it clear that Kowal can do in 5 pages what other authors can’t do in 50. It’s going to be interesting to see what she does with 300 or so pages to play with in her debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, due out from Tor this summer. I expect huge things.