Fractured Fairy Tales
(1997), told by A.J. Jacobs. This is an
odd production. “Fractured Fairy Tales” was an independent segment of
The Rocky
and Bullwinkle Show, which ran on American television for five seasons from
1959-64. Some ninety-one short episodes
were produced, narrated by Edward Everett Horton. Just what this collection is supposed to be
is not clearly defined. The authorship
is credited to A.J. Jacobs, who was born in 1968, after the series had
aired. But the book is copyrighted to
Ward Productions, and Jay Ward gets a kind of author blurb on the rear flap
despite the (unstated) fact that he died in 1989. The book contains twenty five stories, each usually
only four or five pages long, and they are much in the style of the original
productions, but there are a good number of pop culture references (to “action
figures,” “jazzercise,” to the zip code “90210”) that date to the 1990s rather than the early
1960s. Most of the stories are
moderately amusing, but one misses the velvety narrative voice of Edward
Everett Horton, and the simple visual style, and the familiar character voices
of people like June Foray or Daws Butler. Reading these stories on their own
seems like a one dimensional experience compared to the much more appealing
animated episodes.
How to Fake a Moon
Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial (2013), by Darryl Cunningham.
This small book, in graphic novel
format, exposes the scientific illiteracy that is rampant in modern popular
culture, covering eight topics in particular:
the idea that the moon landing was a hoax; that (1) homeopathy or (2) chiropracty
are worthwhile medical treatment options; that vaccines cause autism; as well
as taking on the supporters of fracking and the deniers of evolution, climate
change, and science.
I can’t
recommend this book enough. It should be
taught in every elementary school in the United States. Darryl Cunningham
has done another similar book The Age of
Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis, which I’m looking
forward to reading.
The Prince of the
Aquamarines & The Invisible Prince (2015) by Louise Cavelier Levesque,
translated by Ruth Berman. These two
fairy tales date from the first half of the eighteenth century, during that
flowering of interest in the writing of fairy tales in
France. Neither has appeared before in full in
English—the second tale, “The Invisible Prince,” was included by Andrew Lang in
much abridged form in
The Yellow Fairy
Book. They are primarily of historical interest, but it’s good to have them
available, and the translator Ruth Berman does a fine job in an afterword of
discussing the historical context of the two tales.
Written in Darkness
(2014) by Mark Samuels. A collection of
nine new stories by Samuels, with an introduction by Reggie Oliver. Samuels first collection
The White Hands and Other Weird Tales (2003) was a very promising
debut, but it was followed by some much less interesting work (perhaps early work?), including
Black Altars (2003) and the novella
The Face of Twilight (2006), so that by
the time
Glyphotech (2008) came out
I’d ceased paying attention to Samuels’s work.
The Man Who Collected Machen and
Other Stories (2010) didn’t seem attractive either, but I thought I’d check
in again when
Written in Darkness
came out. And I’m glad I did. This is Samuels at the top of his form, and
seeing that
The Man Who Collected Machen
and Other Stories is out in an affordable trade paperback edition, I plan
to try it out too.
These Last Embers (2015)
by Simon Strantzs, with wraparound cover art by Drazen Kozjan. Simon Strantzas
is a Canadian author of four collections of stories, and Drazen Kozjan is a
Canadian illustrator. This is the first
of a series of chapbooks from a Canadian small press. Strantzas story is good, but not amongst his
best; it is too short (a mere ten pages of text) to be really effective.
Kozjan’s wraparound cover is outstanding. Yet the story and illustration seem mismatched in tone. Still I look
forward to future chapbooks from this publisher.
