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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of TWENTY EPICS Edited By Moles And Groppi I Sing, November 12, 2006
I sailed through TWENTY EPICS like a voyager on warp speed, feeling the heat of the flames and the cold of far space burning my temples as I flew. Editor David Moles, this time assisted by the able and resourceful Susan Marie Groppi, has once again gathered a group of wise and clever storytellers who see through crystals into futures far beyond the ordinary vision. Not every story works, but most of them succeed on their own terms. As you have probably guessed, contributors were invited to work almost epigramatically, like haiku poets, polishing down the contents of an entire epic into the space of one short story. Not as easy as it sounds, but as the results prove, not so difficult either. I attended a group reading from this anthology at a specialist bookstore in the Mission District of San Francisco. Editor Groppi indicated that her "co-pilot" David Moles couldn't be present because he was in Switzerland. Reading between the lines, i took it that his decamping for Basel wasn't particularly helpful to completing their joint project, and that she was put to the task of doing all the dirty work. However enough of Moles' harmless, avuncular spirit hovered over the process so that he deserved editorial credit; besides which, it was partly his idea in the first place.
We heard the well known Tim Pratt read from "Cup and Blood," a story which combines elements of the Holy Grail (and the DA VINCI CODE as well) with the vampiric undertones that have always accompanied the Grail matter (with that "drink of my blood" refrain it's a natural). Pratt reads beautifully, so involved with his own voice that sweat pours off the top of his head as he introduces new complications to the world's oldest story. I wound up having a great deal of respect for this imaginative thrillmaker. Groppi read from Meghan McCarron's THE RIDER, in which the psychotic memories of a young American woman are revealed (in an ambiguous way, which left one unnervingly not sure what was "real," what "induced") to be actual experiences of her years in a hellbound death and sex camp in some other dimension, where, like on LOST with the Others, little children are especially prized. I can still hear Nell's cry, "No, No, I won't any more, No, Please no, No, Not the Rider!" It is strong meat, comparable to actress Meg Tilly's new novel GEMMA in which a young girl is kidnapped, molested and defiled by an older criminal man. I had the feeling also that Groppi, herself no writer, wanted perhaps to showcase at least one of the fine female writers whose work appears in TWENTY EPICS.
When Marcus Ewert read his piece, the atmosphere lightened considerably. Ewert, best known in the Bay Area for his ongoing memoirs of life as a "Beat Boy," the former boyfriend of Ginsberg and William Burroughs, is also a terrific fiction writer and his story "Choose Your Own Epic Adventure" manages to satirize the entire enterprise, and to be true to it at the same time, playing the reader like a guitar (or zither) by remaking those pop children's books of "Choose Your Own Adventure" to fit the sometimes grisly mold of the epic sword and sorcery fantasy. It's so clever I can't really describe it, but think of a combination of Julio Cortazar and Dr. Seuss and you will have arrived in the right neighborhood. His reading invited audience participation. "If you choose to have a flesh-and-blood child, go to Section 19. If you feel you're not up to the challenge, and would prefer a spell-bairn instead, go to Section 28." We all shouted out whatever was the most outlandish, and then Ewert "obeyed us," a gleeful grin on his freckled face.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Story, January 9, 2008
I just read "Siege of Cranes". Wow! I was simply amazed. Truly it is an Epic in just over thirty pages. I haven't read the other stories in this collection, but I have to say that now, I plan to. Rosenbaum's "Siege of Cranes" alone is worth 1/2 the price of the book. I was able to download that one story and read it for free. I was so amazed and entertained that now I will need to read the rest of the book. Excellent!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Twenty Epics Is Full of Treasures, December 29, 2007
It is no mistake this book was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. This is one of the most enjoyable and fresh story collections I've read over the years. And having read that year's winner immediately before picking up this volume, I'm not sure the judges got it right. These stories are honest, readable, accessible stories without the pretense, style, and worldview affectations the WFA winners and nominees often display. (Unlike another reviewer I found the story written like a book from the Bible, "The Book of Ant" by Jon Hanson, clever and engaging rather than distractingly experimental.)
It's difficult to pick favorites from this collection. However, "The Creation of Birds" by Christopher Barzak, is a powerful read. From the wonder that the opening paragraphs create to the awesome and touching conclusion, this story does not waste one single word. And Sandra McDonald's "Life Sentence" is the story that Richard Matheson might have written if he'd been writing for the love of writing, rather than writing for a living.
The production quality is excellent. The card stock cover is sufficiently heavy, the paper looks and feels great, and the text is crisp and reads easily.
Congratulations on the nomination!
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