The Imagination Chamber, by Philip Pullman

In addition to Philip Pullman's substantial fantasies, His Dark Materials (three volumes) and The Book of Dust (two volumes published, the third, at present, forthcoming), Pullman has published some short companion volumes to the series. These are small illustrated books--Lyra's Oxford, Once Upon a Time in the North, Serpentine, and The Collectors-- basically short stories published on their own. Now comes The Imagination Chamber: Cosmic Rays from Lyra's Universe, which is pure commercial product. The publisher claims that "this is a book like no other"--that much is true--and "it contains untold riches"--the emphasis should be on "untold" for nothing told here contains any riches.  Furthermore, the publisher boasts: "Every page will give you an exciting glimpse into Lyra's world. Every page will give you an astonishing insight into the storytelling mind of Philip Pullman."  Well, the book is 87 pages, but (with one exception in the short foreword) all left-hand pages are completely blank, and the right-hand pages have usually one small paragraph of text (at most four paragraphs) that seem to be passages pulled out of Pullman's various drafts of the manuscripts of the books he has already published. The text is unburdened by illustrations. Very disappointing overall, and the only insight I found is to wonder why Pullman should have seen fit to publish such a blatant rip-off of his readers. Haven't his other books sold enough copies? Is he really in need of more money?

Crampton, by Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz

In 1998 Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz wrote a spec-script for an episode of The X-Files, but efforts to get it read by the television show's producers were unsuccessful. A few years later, they removed all references to the tv show and expanded the script into a feature-length screenplay. Both versions were titled Crampton, and the feature-length screenplay has just been reprinted in an elegant limited edition. Though some of Ligotti's surface-level obsessions (mannequins, degenerate small towns, etc.) appear in the screenplay, what's missing are the qualities of Ligotti's prose that make his fiction so good. Reduced to mere dialogue, there isn't much worth experiencing here, and less for any quality actors to grab onto. Sure, with special effects, this screenplay might have made a passable B-grade movie, but with the stock characters and a contrived, unsatisfying ending, one wonders if a B-grade film is the highest this work could aspire to be. I wanted to like this, but must sadly admit it simply isn't very good.

Possessions and Pursuits, by John Howard and Mark Valentine

This is the third and final collection of stories, written by John Howard and Mark Valentine (separately, not in collaboration), influenced by the supernatural themes in the metaphysical thrillers of Charles Williams published in the 1930s-40s. John Howard contributes a novella "Fallen Sun" about the competition for the recently re-discovered mirror of Byzantium, which takes one to an alternate reality. Mark Valentine contributes two short stories: "Masque and Anti-Masque" describes an unusual seasonal festival in a small university town; while "The Prospero Machine," set in a resort town, finds odd magic recurring through the work of a strange Mazzaroth Society. All three stories are finely conceived and executed, bringing this admirable series to a high point in conclusion. The three slim volumes, all published in limited editions, would make an excellent trade paperback omnibus for wider distribution and readership.

White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link

Kelly Link's stories are often inspired, in some small or large way, by fairy tales, but they are modern stories and in no way emulations of the classic fairy tales. White Cat, Black Dog is her fifth collection, and it contains seven stories, the first concerns a white cat, and the last a black dog, thus giving rise to the book's title.  And it follows the flow of a typical story collection--the first few stories are high spots, and so is the end tale, while the lesser ones (lesser in the sense of being only slightly less good than the others) come in the middle.  The final story, "Skinder's Veil" (slightly associated with "Snow-White and Rose-Red), is the high point of the book.  It original appeared in an Ellen Datlow anthology a few years ago, When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson. Though I highly recommend White Cat, Black Dog, if you read or sample only one of Link's stories, I'd suggest everyone try "Skinder's Veil."

Saturnalia, by Stephanie Feldman

Saturnalia is set in a near future Philadelphia in an America that has been much altered by climate change. The city is now host to various pagan clubs and secret societies, with social climbers and elites mixing together, some with aims of getting a very valuable ticket out to somewhere safe. They hope to accomplish this via occult means, involving the successful creation of a homunculus, and a frightening mandragora. The story involves a small number of friends and former-friends, all with murky motivations that seem to shift a bit too easily. The main narrative depends upon something which happened three years earlier, but which is only gradually revealed to the reader via flashbacks. The prose is solid, and the plotting compelling and hallucinatory, as the novel enfolds over a short span of time. A few loose ends remain, but overall I very much enjoyed this book, especially in its opening up of a new world of occultism at play in a ravaged future.

Event Factory, by Renee Gladman

Event Factory is a difficult book to describe. It is called a novel, but it is very short for one, and it is published in a small size with spacious margins and double-spaced lines. The content is harder to describe. An unnamed female narrator has come to a surreal city called Ravicka, and from there it gets weirder. She is a kind of linguistic traveler who operates in non-sequiturs and fantastical imagery. Thus the style of the writing is the bulk of the impetus for reading the book. Yet it is tough to get into, though eventually one becomes accustomed to the rhythms of the events, and it it does lead to a kind of oblique ending. Moreso it makes the reader question what they want in reading something like this. Does one really enjoy a mysterious puzzle held at a distance from the reader via language and perception? I didn't, but I soldiered on to the end primarily because the book is short, and I was curious enough to want to experience the whole of it, whatever that might be. This is the first of a series of small books set in Ravicka, but my curiosity is now more than sated, so the further aspects of Ravicka will remain unvisited by me.
 

The Twits, by Roald Dahl

I was inspired recently to look to some Roald Dahl children's books that I didn't read when I was younger, and I picked The Twits to read first. It's an odd tale, concerning a very unpleasant married couple, Mr. Twit and Mrs. Twit, who prank each other when they aren't tormenting monkeys or collecting birds to make up a weekly dish, Bird Pie. The only plot to the book concerns revenge, and how the monkeys and birds work together to end the terror of the Twits. A pleasant read, of its kind, but not one of Dahl's best. It's pretty short too, and many pages have characteristic Quentin Blake illustrations, which add to the charm of the book. I understand that Neflix has announced a new animated movie of The Twits coming out in 2025. It will need more plot to turn this book into a film.