Posted January 2, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries
Genres: Crime,
Mystery,
Short Stories Pages: 304
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: 
Synopsis: A Postman murdered while delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas pine growing over a forgotten homicide. A Yuletide heist gone horribly wrong. When there's as much murder as magic in the air and the facts seem to point to the impossible, it's up to the detective’s trained eye to unwrap the clues and neatly tie together an explanation (preferably with a bow on top).
Martin Edwards has once again gathered the best of these seasonal stories into a stellar anthology brimming with rare tales, fresh as fallen snow, and classics from the likes of Julian Symons, Margery Allingham, Anthony Gilbert and Cyril Hare. A most welcome surprise indeed, and perfect to be shared between super-sleuths by the fire on a cold winter's night.
A Surprise for Christmas is the 2020 collection of short crime/mystery stories based around Christmas-time from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as always by Martin Edwards. It’s a surprisingly star-studded volume, including stories from Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, along with other standbys that appear more often in the anthologies of this series (like Carter Dickson, AKA John Dickson Carr).
It’s a strong enough collection, much in the same vein as the others, without being surprising — after all, that’s somewhat part of the point in crime/mystery fiction of this general period. It usually isn’t too surprising, though here and there an author like Julian Symons is included (as in this one), someone who tends more toward a psychological story.
Oddly enough, the Symons story included here is a repeat with a different title, previously included in The Christmas Card Crime, from 2018. Weird that no one realised that. The other stories are all new to the series so far as I can tell, though I haven’t read Crimson Snow.
“The Turn-Again Bell”, the final story, has quite the atmosphere, and would’ve been my favourite of the book, except that it seems a little trite in how it all wraps up. It doesn’t feel quite at home with the other stories in this volume, to be honest, being less a crime/mystery, and more definitively a Christmas story. Maybe that’s just me.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, Martin Edwards, mystery, short stories
Posted December 13, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Who Killed Father Christmas? And Other Seasonal Mysteries
Genres: Mystery,
Short Stories Pages: 264
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: 'The red robe concealed the blood until it made my hand sticky. Father Christmas had been stabbed in the back, and he was certainly dead.'
The murder of Father Christmas at one of London’s great toy shops is just one of many yuletide disasters in this new collection of stories from the Golden Age of crime writing and beyond. Masters of the genre such as Patricia Moyes and John Dickson Carr present perfectly packaged short pieces, and Martin Edwards delivers a sackful of rarities from authors such as Ellis Peters, Gwyn Evans and Michael Innes.
The answer to any classic crime fiction fan’s Christmas wish – and the only way for you to answer Who Killed Father Christmas? – this new anthology is set to muddle, befuddle, surprise and delight.
I think this is the first of the British Library Crime Classics anthologies I’ve read that’s themed around Christmas, though there are three or four others. As usual, it’s edited by Martin Edwards, and features a spread of different authors (within the volume, there are no repeat authors, though many of them have been seen in the other anthologies). This is a rare one without a Sherlock Holmes story, and unlike the usual habit, it’s not arranged in order of when it was written/published, but instead with an eye to increasing the sense of variety between the stories.
I have to say that I probably prefer the chronological order, because part of my interest is in the development of the genre (I studied it during my undergrad, and can’t quite turn off that part of my brain — it adds to the interest for me, so I don’t see why I should). I can’t say that it felt particularly more varied than the other volumes, either.
I was a little shocked by the inclusion of a modern story (from the 90s): it seems a bit early to call that a classic. I was a kid in the 90s, and I’m only in my 30s now: it’s not that long ago. I know some stories are “instant classics”, but with this series I’m really expecting a certain period and a certain fit with the themes of that period — not that style etc through the eyes of a more modern author. So, hmm.
Anyway, it’s a fun seasonal volume. Crime is crime, no matter the time of year, so it’s not exactly about the joy and bounty of the time of year, mind you — but if that’s your cup of tea, you’ll have fun.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, Martin Edwards, mystery, short stories
Posted November 27, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Settling Scores: Sporting Mysteries
Genres: Crime,
Mystery,
Short Stories Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: Talented sportsmen inexplicably go absent without leave, crafty gamblers conspire in the hope of making a killing, and personal rivalries and jealousies come to a head on fields of play The classic stories in this new British Library anthology show that crime is a game for all seasons.
I thought I’d read these sporting mysteries (in this collection curated by Martin Edwards) in honour of the Rugby World Cup, the only sport I have so far managed to care about or even half-understand. The majority of these stories need no sporting knowledge at all to understand and follow; the sporting environment is just the backdrop. Even where you do need to know something, it’s fairly minimal.
It’s not a bad spread of stories, though the tone varies a bit (some stories feel rather brutal, and one involves spies and espionage, etc). Not one of my favourite collections, perhaps, but the sporting types might appreciate it a bit more. I did appreciate that it wasn’t just football and cricket stories or something — there was an archery story included, for example.
As ever, the collection is greater than the sum of its parts: it’s nice to read across a spread of the classic crime/mystery writers, and not just the biggest names, though there is (inevitably) a story by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Martin Edwards, short stories
Posted October 29, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Sacraments for the Unfit
Genres: Fantasy,
Short Stories Pages: 146
Rating: Synopsis: The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic brought out the ritualist in many of us. In this collection of contemporary weird short fiction, a variety of different persons and beings try to fill up their days in varying states of isolation and mystery, real or imaginary. An angel outlives the Apparat that used to employ him; a deity complains about no longer feeling seen; a museum curator living alone begins to inexplicably alter; a medievalist suffering from vision loss gets into a strange relationship with the ghost of the codicologist M. R. James; enigmatic objects begin to work themselves out of the ground by the grave of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, prompting scholarly speculation. Sacraments For the Unfit is a series of vignettes about the transformations that can happen while staying in place.
I can see why this book has been compared with Ursula Le Guin’s work. It had the same quality I have with some of her more impenetrable stories where I just don’t quite “get it”. Some of them seem to require some outside knowledge for more clarity — a little knowledge of M.R. James wouldn’t hurt, or Wittgenstein, which is quite the ask (I know a little about James, almost nothing about Wittgenstein).
In the end I don’t regret reading it, but also it wasn’t quite 100% squarely my thing, if that makes sense. I’m eager to read more of Tolmie’s books and stories, though: I really liked The Fourth Island and All the Horses of Iceland.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Sarah Tolmie, SF/F, short stories
Posted August 10, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah
I am not the world’s biggest fan of short stories, in general, I must admit. There are some stories I’ve appreciated a lot, so it’s not that my mind is completely closed to them… but mostly I prefer something a bit meatier. Where I do like short stories, I often like the ones that surprise me, the ones with a sting in the tail. And there were one or two here that worked in that way for me, like the title story: a sudden moment of everything falling (ha) into place, and oh, oh, that’s what that was…
Overall, I didn’t really adore these stories, but there are some great moments that did catch my eye — ways of describing things, capturing a moment, etc — and some lovely writing. If you enjoy short stories more generally, I suspect there’s a lot here for you… but for me, they weren’t quite as striking or memorable as I’d hoped — which I know is more about me and what I like than the stories themselves!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Lesley Nneka Arimah, short stories
Posted May 17, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Permeable Borders, Nina Kiriki Hoffman
I’ve been meaning to try Hoffman’s books for literally years. Not sure how long this one has been on my TBR, but long enough. Short stories aren’t always my thing, so perhaps it wasn’t the right place to start: nonetheless, it’s what came up on my Kobo first and I thought, well, why not?
I ended up bailing, I’m afraid; it’s competent enough writing, but I didn’t get hooked on the stories or characters, and one of the stories was just unbelievably gross, with a ton of rape and rape culture. I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be approving of rape, but it’s just not a sort of story I’m interested in, and the obsession with rape in that particular story turned me off all the others. I’ll definitely try some of Hoffman’s novels, but her short story writing seems to be unequivocally not my thing.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, short stories
Posted March 23, 2018 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Sum, David Eagleman
Sum is a slim book, just 100 pages long, with 40 different views of what the afterlife might be like. Some of them feel too glib and flippant for me (though no doubt the same stories would make others smile), but there are some that are really inventive, bittersweet and clever, and some that just have really good lines. Like this one:
There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
Yow. That’s just true in a sad way: the only afterlife everyone can be sure of is when people speak of them once they’re gone. There’s definitely poignancy in the idea of waiting for that last time your name is spoken before you move on.
I found some of the stories a little too similar in tone or basic idea, but it’s still a creative collection.
Rating: 4/5
Buy this book: Amazon UK | Amazon US | The Book Depository
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Tags: book reviews, books, short stories
Posted December 22, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Maps to Nowhere, Marie Brennan
Almost all of these short stories worked for me, which is a wonder (I can be picky!). Each of them had some really fascinating ideas, and the only one that left me cold was ‘Love, Caycee’ (and even then, I liked the idea, it’s just I don’t think it quite came together into a story I found fun to read). Of course, one of my favourites is the one featuring Isabella Trent, particularly for the last letter in the narrative. Of course Isabella would get herself arrested over a matter of science!
But the others are all worth the time too, and I particularly liked ‘Once a Goddess’, the first story of the collection. Brennan is really great at atmosphere, as these stories show; each of them evoked its own landscape in my head.
Rating: 5/5
Buy this book: Amazon UK | Amazon US
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Tags: book reviews, books, Marie Brennan, SF/F, short stories
Posted October 29, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Snowdrift and Other Stories, Georgette Heyer
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 3rd October 2017
I’ve been a fan of Heyer’s Regency romances and adventures for a while now, so when I saw this was ‘Read Now’ on Netgalley, I confess I pounced. It’s actually the collection Pistols for Two (which I hadn’t read yet) but with three extra stories from early in Heyer’s career.
While Heyer’s short stories aren’t precisely what I like in a short story — something with a twist, something maybe a little unpredictable, something packed into as small a space as possible — they’re fun little stories, very much like her longer works but compressed. The same types of hero and heroine, the same sorts of love scene and the same sort of happy ending abound, along with Heyer’s usual wit. If you enjoy the banter between her characters and the sparkle of her writing, all of that is in evidence here. If I had to call the collection anything, I might call it Miniatures!
If you don’t love Heyer’s work, well, this won’t be for you. It’s very much typical of her, and she doesn’t have the space to make her heroes and heroines distinctive. And if you’ve never tried Heyer, well, I’d start with The Talisman Ring instead, if I were you.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer, romance, short stories
Posted September 28, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Starlings, Jo Walton
Received to review via Tachyon; publication date 30th January 2018
It’s no secret that I love Jo Walton’s work, and I’d better add here that I’ve spent time with her as well — I’d call her a friend. Still, I knew her work first, and this is a fun collection. Jo may say she doesn’t know how to write short stories, but all the same everything here works pretty well. I only knew ‘Relentlessly Mundane’ and some of the poetry before, I think. It was nice to re-encounter the poetry here and spend some time with it — reading it online wasn’t the same at all. I hadn’t read the play, either, ‘Three Shouts on a Hill’; entertaining stuff.
My favourite of the short stories… hmm, possibly ‘Sleeper’, and I liked ‘What Joseph Felt’ a lot too.
Really, I never know quite how to review short story collections: suffice it to say that I enjoyed it, and I think it’s worth it, especially if you’re already a fan of Walton’s work. I’m glad I got to read it ahead of time.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jo Walton, SF/F, short stories
