REVIEW: The Moon Over the Mountain (short story) by Atsushi Nakajima, art by Nekosuke, translated by Asa Yoneda

The Moon Over the Mountain is a fantasy/magical realism Japanese story (or I misunderstood and it's symbolic or something). I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is the story of Li Zheng of Longxi, a young civil servant who quits service because he feels he has more to offer the world as a poet. He never becomes famous, however, and eventually leaves his wife, children, and everything else behind, disappearing. Later, his old friend, government inspector Yuan Can of Chenjun, encounters a beast that almost attacks him but races away at the last second. Then Yuan Can hears the voice of his old friend, who tells him that he has become a terrifying beast, a tiger. He had Yuan Can record some of his poetry and asks him to tell his wife and children that he is dead, and to care for them in some way. He admits that his combination of narcissism, fear of failure, and lack of desire to put in strenuous work is what has transformed him into a beast.

REVIEW: Stitches: Short Stories (anthology) by Hirokatsu Kihara, art by Junji Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen

This is an anthology of short horror stories. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This one's on me - I wasn't paying attention and initially got this thinking that it was an anthology of Junji Ito manga shorts. Instead, it's an anthology of (primarily) textual short stories by Hirokatsu Kihara, illustrated by Junji Ito. This didn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Maybe it'd be a Japanese Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, with the illustrations making everything several times creepier.

Or not. Most of the stories were either not very memorable or were downright disappointing with their lack of follow-through. "The Kimono" was kind of sweet and creepy, and "The Play" was mildly creepy. However, several of the stories literally ended with some variation of "nothing happened, thank goodness." It was a letdown.

There is one manga story in the collection, created by Junji Ito and based on a "true story" collected by Hirokatsu Kihara. It starts off good and creepy due to Ito's artwork...and then the main character chickens out and changes the subject in order to avoid learning anything truly scary.

All in all, not really worth it, not even for Ito's artwork.

REVIEW: Defekt (novella) by Nino Cipri

Defekt is the second work set in Cipri's sci-fi LitenVerse world. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This takes place at around the same time as Cipri's first LitenVärld (knockoff IKEA) work, Finna, and features a cameo appearance of one of that work's characters, but I think it could be read and enjoyed on its own.

Derek is a model LitenVärld employee, always striving to support the store and its goals. Right from the moment he wakes up in his converted shipping container home behind the store to the moment he leaves work, he lives and breathes his job. It kind of creeps his fellow employees out. His supervisor encourages him to stop trying to make friends and just focus on his work, but he can't help but feel a little lonely.

Then Derek starts to feel a little...off. It begins with a sore throat. When it progresses to coughing up blood and gristle, a coworker encourages him to take his first sick day ever. He wasn't even aware that he could do that. Unfortunately, this then results in upper management questioning Derek's loyalty to the store and assigning him to a special nighttime inventory shift. Meeting his new coworkers is a shock, to put it mildly.

REVIEW: Spring Comes Riding in a Carriage (short story) by Riichi Yokomitsu, art by Atsuki Ito, translated by Yui Kajita

Spring Comes Riding in a Carriage is a Japanese realistic fiction short story. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I'm slowly working my way through all the Maiden's Bookshelf stuff that has been translated into English. This particular story was originally published in 1926 and is focused on a married couple. Their marriage started rough, with the husband having to fight against his wife's parents' objections in order for them to get married in the first place. Then the husband had to deal with issues with his mother-in-law. Now the couple is finally left to themselves, but they still can't fully be happy - the wife is dying (tuberculosis?). Her husband acts as her caretaker, simultaneously resenting the way he feels tethered to her and dreading the day she finally leaves him. She rages at him, accusing him of wanting to be elsewhere, with someone else, only letting up as she becomes more prepared to die.

REVIEW: What Moves the Dead (novella) by T. Kingfisher

What Moves the Dead is horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives a letter from their childhood friend Madeline Usher indicating that she is dying, they immediately travel to the Usher ancestral home. Although Alex has been warned, it's still a shock to see how ill the last two remaining Ushers look. Madeline's brother, Roderick, with whom Alex once served, looks like a strong breeze could blow him away. Madeline looks like she could die at any moment.

Despite being nobility, the Ushers are ruinously poor, and it's painfully evident in the condition of the house and surrounding land. Surely the mold, mushrooms, and algae-infested lake can't be good for Roderick and Madeline's fragile health, but Roderick refuses to leave without Madeline, and Madeline is too sick to go anywhere. 

REVIEW: The Turn of the Screw (novella) by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw is gothic horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

A young governess is hired by a man to care for his niece and nephew. He leaves them entirely in her care and makes it clear that he doesn't want to be bothered about them. 

The governess is quickly charmed by Flora but is somewhat nervous about Miles, the eldest of the two, when she receives a letter saying that he has been expelled from his boarding school. When Miles arrives, however, he turns out to be just as charming as Flora, and the governess can't bring herself to ask what happened at school. 

After the governess sees a couple unexpected people on the grounds, she learns that they may be the ghosts of Miss Jessel, the previous governess, and another former employee, Peter Quint. She becomes obsessed with the idea that the children have seen these two as well and are somehow being negatively influenced by them.

REVIEW: This Is How You Lose the Time War (novella) by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a blend of science fiction and f/f romance. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Red and Blue are agents from opposing forces in a war that spans multiple timelines and locations. They become intrigued by each other, seeing each other as worthy adversaries. Although they never directly interact, they communicate through letters cleverly woven into the fabric of worlds where they know or suspect their paths will cross. Initially, the letters have a taunting tone. Eventually, however, their relationship warms, becoming something more like love.

But that doesn't change the fact that they're on opposite sides of a war. One side or the other will win, right?

REVIEW: If Found Return to Hell (novella) by Em X. Liu

If Found Return to Hell is fantasy. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Journeyman Wen is an intern at One Wizard, a wizarding firm that helps callers with any number of magical problems, as long as their problems are covered by insurance and the customers can afford to pay. Once upon a time, Wen dreamed of actually helping people. Now, however, daily life involves nothing more than passing customers off to more qualified but overworked wizards.

One of Wen's latest calls seems like something that might warrant a house call. Surprisingly, Wen's supervisor doesn't assign someone else to the job, but rather sends Wen, who brings along Nathaniel, a friend and coworker at the call center. Unfortunately, Wen ends up promising a little more than they should and soon ends up with a problem in the form of a new roommate who's possessed by a demon prince from Hell. 

REVIEW: The Girl Who Became a Fish (short story) by Osamu Dazai, art by Nekosuke, translated by David Boyd

The Girl Who Became a Fish is, maybe, magical realism. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is the story of Suwa, the young daughter of a charcoal maker. During the summer months, when visitors come to the area to see the local waterfall, Suwa's father has her run a small tea stand. Although she obediently does as she's told, her voice is drowned out by the sound of the falls and she rarely sells anything. One day, while staffing the tea stand, she witnesses a student accidentally fall and drown.

This gets tied in with a story Suwa's father once told her, about two brothers, one of whom was transformed into a serpent, as well as Suwa's eventual fate.

REVIEW: The Mist (novella) by Stephen King

The Mist is a horror novella originally published in 1980. I bought my copy new.

Review:

A terrible storm hits western Maine, although thankfully the damage to David and Steff Drayton's home is relatively minor. In the aftermath, David decides to go to the supermarket to pick up a few things. His 5-year-old son Billy comes with him, as does his neighbor, Brent Norton. Steff stays home in order to continue working on cleanup.

Immediately after the storm, a thick fog starts rolling in. By the time David is in line at the supermarket, the fog has swallowed up a good portion of the parking lot, making him uneasy. But the true fear doesn't start until a bloodied man stumbles in from outside, and others try to leave. Something is moving around in the fog, and whatever it is is deadly.

REVIEW: Matchmaking a Player (novella) by Angela Casella

Matchmaking a Player is a contemporary romance novella, part of the author's Highland Hills series. I got my copy free.

Review:

I could have sworn I'd kept at least a few notes about this, but apparently not. I'll have to work from memory. Unfortunately, I honestly don't remember much about this other than that it was just okay.

The main character, Brittany, works at a bar and has a serious crush on her boss's brother, Logan. If I remember right, Logan was interested in her when they first met, but she was married, so he didn't say anything. Now that she's divorced, there's nothing standing in their way except their own issues. 

The romance itself didn't make much of an impression on me - it probably didn't help that I haven't read any of the other works in this series (this novella was a freebie I acquired at the last Book Bonanza). The most memorable bits, for me, were the matchmaking romance author who literally wrote the main characters of this novella into her latest book (I'd think that would feel super weird in real life, but what do I know?), and the fact that Brittany and Logan got caught having sex behind the bar by Logan's brother, Brittany's boss, and this was treated as more mildly amusing than anything.

Anyway, this wasn't bad, I guess, but it didn't prompt me to look up any of the author's other works.

REVIEW: The Scourge Between Stars (novella) by Ness Brown

The Scourge Between Stars is sci-fi horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

A couple hundred or so years ago, desperate colony ships left Earth in search of a new home. The place they found, Proxima b, turned out to be to dangerous to settle, so their descendants are heading back to Earth. Things don't look good. They can't go back to Proxima b, they likely don't have enough food, oxygen, and fuel to make it back to Earth (which may not even be habitable, anyway), and they keep getting caught in the crossfire of what seems to be some kind of enormous alien war.

Jacklyn Albright is the acting captain of the Calypso, barely holding herself together, much less the ship. Her mother committed suicide, her sister is dead, and her father, the ship's captain, hasn't left his quarters or spoken to anyone in over a week. Then things go from bad to worse. There are glitches in the ship's systems, something keeps making banging noises inside the ship's walls, and a crew member is found horribly mutilated.

REVIEW: Just a Little Crush (novella) by Willow Winters & Amelia Wilde

Just a Little Crush is a contemporary romance novella. I got it for free.

Review:

Aubree has had a crush on her best friend's brother, Jackson, ever since she first moved to town three years ago. At the time, however, she was seeing someone else. After she broke up with that guy, Jackson was seeing someone else. There's never been a good time to confess her feelings, and now...she doesn't want to ruin her friendship with him or his sister.

They're all doing their regular Sunday night thing, drinking and watching football at The Peanut Bar and Grill, when a couple guys hit on Aubree. Jackson cuts in, and suddenly things shift between the two of them. But is it just a one-night stand or the start of something else?

REVIEW: Disquiet (novella) by Julia Leigh

I've seen Disquiet labeled as gothic fiction. I'd call it an understated domestic drama, if you can consider a woman literally carting her baby's corpse around everywhere "understated." I checked my copy out from the library.

Review:

Olivia married her husband and left her family against her mother's wishes. Now, more than a decade later, she's back with a broken arm and two children in tow. Unfortunately, it's not exactly the best time to be coming back to the family. Olivia's brother Marcus and his wife Sophie arrive home shortly after Olivia does, but not with the happy, healthy baby they expected. Sophie isn't handling her stillborn baby well, and for some reason the doctors thought it was a good idea to let her take the baby's corpse home with her. The idea is that she'll get some time with it before the funeral, at which point it will be buried and life will go on. Sure.

I don't understand what I was supposed to get out of this, besides the fact that no one in this family could properly communicate with each other. I'd have cheered at the ending, except that everything that happened then should have happened way earlier. Preferably before the baby's corpse started decomposing.

Overall, this was a frustrating and weird read about people who generally made my skin crawl, and not in an entertaining or even terribly interesting way.

REVIEW: Double Happiness (novella) by Jen Trinh

Double Happiness is a contemporary romance novella. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Winnie is convinced that her sister Nancy is about to marry the wrong guy. While Bradley is just some jock with a megawatt smile, Steven is Nancy's childhood sweetheart. Nancy and Steven are clearly perfect for each other, and Winnie is convinced that all she needs to do put them near each other and Nancy will realize he's her soulmate. Plus, as Nancy's Maid of Honor, Winnie also has the power to do a little bit of pre-wedding meddling designed to highlight the ways in which Bradley is a bad match for Nancy. What could possibly go wrong? What Winnie fails to realize is that Steven is actually in love with her, and her meddling might ruin her relationships with both him and her sister.

REVIEW: Rosebud (novella) by Paul Cornell

Rosebud is a science fiction novella. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Five sentient digital beings form the crew of a small survey ship that has been sent out by the Company to explore and report its findings back to the Company. They encounter a mysterious black sphere that they know they must report. However, something seems to be happening to their perceptions of time and reality.

This got on my radar due to its sentient digital beings. It initially comes across like a very quirky read - as digital beings, the crew members can present themselves pretty much however they'd like, so one of them is a foul-mouthed balloon, another is a ball of hands, and yet another one is a swarm of wasps. As readers learn about them, their situation, and their relationship to the Company, it becomes apparent that there's some self-editing going on, revealing darker undercurrents. 

I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. It felt like is was aiming for "happy" but presented from the viewpoint of the character with the least to be happy about.

REVIEW: Nothing But Blackened Teeth (novella) by Cassandra Khaw

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Not too long ago, Cat took a break from her university studies to take care of her mental health - it had gotten bad enough that she was feeling suicidal. Now she's on a trip with the people she's closest to: Phillip (a rich white guy Cat was once briefly in a relationship with), Faiz (another guy Cat was once in a relationship with, although they learned they made better friends than lovers), Talia (Faiz's fiancee), and Lin (possibly another guy Cat was once in a relationship with??).

Talia has always dreamed of getting married in a haunted house, and so Phillip has paid for them all to travel to Japan and spend some time in a old Heian mansion supposedly haunted by a bride whose groom died before they could be wed - the bride was buried alive in the house, to keep the house standing while she waited for her groom, and every year after her death they buried a new girl in the house, to keep the bride company. Cat is there because Phillip and Faiz were there for her when she needed them the most, but the tension is palpable - Tina only barely tolerates Cat for Faiz's sake.

As you'd probably guess, getting married in a house haunted by the ghost of a bride who never got to marry her groom isn't a good idea, and things rapidly go south.

REVIEW: One Love Chigusa (novella) by Soji Shimada

One Love Chigusa is science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This takes place in the relatively near future, 2091. Xie Hoyu, a 25-year-old man, gets into a terrible motorcycle accident that would likely have killed him if it weren't for advancements in modern medical technology and a coincidentally nearby ambulance. Even so, the work done on him was particularly extensive, and he was left with a cyborg body that had more non-organic parts than anyone else in the world. His doctors were reassured that he seemed to be healing and adjusting well. The one difference that Xie initially noticed was a lack of interest in human company.

When it comes time for him to be discharged, however, the differences in his perceptions of the world become more apparent. Human faces, particularly women's faces, now look demonic and distorted with anger. It's so difficult for him to be around others that he begins contemplating suicide, until one day he sees his salvation: a woman whose face and manner are both refreshingly human and exceedingly beautiful. He becomes consumed by a desire to find her again and speak to her.

REVIEW: BadAsstronauts (novella) by Grady Hendrix

BadAsstronauts is humorous sci-fi. I bought my copy new.

This review includes some spoilers.

Review:

Melville, South Carolina has produced two astronauts: Walter Reddie, who flunked out of the Shuttle Program, never went to space, and is now a drunk; and Walter's second cousin once removed, Bobby Campbell, Jr., who is doomed to die alone on the International Space Station after ensuring the safe return of his six other crewmates. NASA doesn't have the funds to save him, and the only one making noises about doing anything is Richard Branson, but Walter knows it's just that, noises.

Walter has an idea. If NASA won't save Bobby Campbell, Jr., then he and Melville, South Carolina will. Initially, it seems like a bad joke. Walter's an aging drunk, and astrophysicists aren't exactly growing on trees in Melville. Gradually, however, a movement starts to build around Walter, something so big and powerful that the world can't help but wonder whether the self-proclaimed "Redneck NASA" will manage to save Bobby Campbell, Jr. after all.

REVIEW: The Factory (book) by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd

The Factory is, I guess, workplace literary fiction. Possibly surreal fantasy? I bought my copy new.

Review:

This relatively short work follows three characters: a guy who got laid off from his job working with computers and has taken a job as a temp proofreader at the factory; a woman who gets a temp job at the factory shredding documents; and a moss researcher hired to spearhead the factory's efforts at green-roofing. Each of them are doing what turns out to be meaningless jobs with no accomplishments, but they're being paid decently. As we learn about the three employees, we also learn about three not-quite-normal factory fauna.