In Place of the Book I Left Behind

I'm not sure quite where I first came across Marie Brennan. I remember reading reviews of Midnight Never Come so perhaps that's where it started, though I normally discover authors through their short stories. What drew me into buying the book was that it combined two of my major obsessions as a tweenager: fairies and the Tudors. Plus I read the first chapter in a bookstore and I decided it sounded right on target. And so far so good. However, I have now gone and left my copy of the book on the other side of the world and in all likelihood will not see it for another six months. Grrr!

So anyways, to make it up to myself (and because I stumbled over her website today), I have decided to read the short fiction she's made available. The first story I read was "Calling Into Silence". It took me a little while to get into it because the story "felt" quite familiar. And I'm not really a nomadic-tribe-short-story kind of person. However, I liked the main character and there were some nice stylistic effects in the story. It wasn't a jump-up-and-bite-me or remember-forever sort of story, though it has a good pedigree.

"For the Fairest" and "Silence, Before the Horn" are both short retellings of old stories. Each with their own Marie Brennan twist. I preferred the humour of the former to the despair of the latter. Similarly, "A Thousand Souls" is another flash story that builds on an old legend. It also has a sad feel to it, but I'm not sure if it's as good as the two previously mentioned in this paragraph.

"Such as Dreams are Made Of" is the story of a building contractor, ruthless and ready to do battle with anyone who comes between him and his plans. However, when he finds himself assaulted by a man that no-one saw and the CCTV has no record of, he discovers he has opponents that not even he can exercise control over. This story of a contractor moving with the times opposed by those who want to retain fragments of the past is again a familiar one, but Marie Brennan's strong writing style and careful subversion of what the reader expects give the story its own flavour. Enjoyable, particularly the ending.

The theme through all the stories seems to be to take something familiar in a new direction. Which I suppose is what Midnight Never Come also does, though on a bigger scale. All in all, I'm not sure that I liked any of the short stories freely available as much as I'm enjoying the book and reading them has only made me more irritated with myself for leaving it behind. However, what I have also discovered on the website is that Marie Brennan has another series. So perhaps I'll give that a try... (or, at least, put them in my Amazon basket while I scrape together the pennies to buy them).