Tears of the Ancient and Other Stories by Jason R. Koivu
My rating: 4/5 cats
i don’t read a lot of true fantasy stuff—elves, goblins, quests…i mean, apart from monsterporn, in which i’ve read a goblin tale or two. but it’s good for me to push myself out of my comfort zone, especially when it’s for the benefit of a fellow goodreader, who has a very gracious introduction to this collection of fantasy tales:
I like you. Do you know why? Because you’re about to read my book! That’s very cool of you. Seriously, I really appreciate it when someone takes the time to read something I’ve written.
how can you NOT want to read a book with such a flattering and humble intro? it’s impossible, you cannot.
so i did. and while, yeah—a lot of these stories are intended for an audience with a deeper appreciation/familiarity with a genre in which i’m underexposed, there’s still a few little bits that appealed to me and my own interests.
Grag the Third
this is like a goblin version of Flowers for Algernon, relayed in story-within-a-story structure, which is one of my favorites.
it also includes the line:
“Remove your hands from my Willy,” I told him, but he yanked and yanked at it and just wouldn’t keep his hands off my weasel!
it’s a silly freewheeling adventure tale with potty humor (and regular humor, for you grown-ups), and a horrible horrible place called “The Shithole,” which is described in very clear detail. unfortunately.
it’s hard being the smartest goblin in goblintown—to have tastes more sophisticated than your fellow creatures.
Oh, how I love cookies! They’re my absolute favorite human invention. The other goblins are not okay with that. The worst beating I ever received was for coming back from a raid with nothing but a sack filled with custard creams. I hid my obsession until I discovered I could get away with it if I told them I was eating, say, ladyfingers. Gingerbread men were acceptable too, as long as they thought they were made of real men.
goblins are typically doltish, man-eating creatures, but with the aid of a golden helmet and an attraction to a golden-haired maiden, our hero is able to elevate himself above the hoi polloi and have an exciting adventure filled with danger and hilarity, while the other goblins are filling their time playing games like “stone head,” in which two goblins stand face to face and hit each other on top of the head until one of the two gets knocked out or dies. Usually one dies..
to each his own! me, i’m more the cookies-and-maiden type, and this story was a hoot, and a fine way to open the collection.
The Last Siren
this is a brief (one-page) story, taking the form of an article in Leisurely Travel magazine, providing details about an unusual tourist destination—a tiny island inhabited by the world’s last siren. she’s been living a comfortable spinster life all alone with her cats and would prefer not to be annoyed by sailors or tourists, thank you very much. her songs repel seamen, natch, leaving her more time for petting her pussies. this review implies more lesbian subtext than is actually in the story, but i don’t care. it’s there if i say it’s there.
The Misguided Spear
this one is a longer story, about the glory of nature and some of the magical creatures you may find within if you are wearing your fantasy-goggles. it’s mostly about a feline/human creature and a dryad, but i was much more interested in the fleeting glimpse of the leba: a tubular brown dog-and-otter hybrid with short legs and a long tail, and i wish this had been illustrated so i could awwwww over it. this one reads like a darker retelling of Rip Van Winkle or a Twlight Zone episode (although not necessarily the rip van winkle caper) it’s got a gasp of an ending, and a brief mention of the Battle of the Boring Beetles, in which “boring” is used as a verb and not an adjective, but still made me picture this in my head:
but with more bleeding by paul mccartney and more triumph by ringo.
Mr. John M. Paulson
this is a dark fantasy cautionary tale about becoming too absorbed in work; about misplacing priorities and letting the little things like health and family take a backseat while slavish devotion to the job turns you into something monstrous.
Work, that time-stretching plane of dreary existence, where stress alone threw off monotony. He began to feed off the stress, eventually longing for it until it identified him. He created tension and manufactured pressure, which in turn bred an anxiety that he willed into a welcome angst. This was killing time and that was a living.
we’ve all been there. this story warns us to cut it out. like, now.
Laugh Potion #1
this one starts off as a realistic-for-a-fantasy-world revenge plot and turns into something very goofy and THEN turns into something horribly sad that made me laugh and laugh and laugh, despite the horrific number of puns in this tale.
it involves a mushroom comedian.
this is an example of mushroom humor:
there will be puns.
Tears of the Ancient
this is your basic fantasy-adventure story with chambers and crystals and orbs and spheres and armor and wizards and portals and spears and all that stuff, plus a spinolacerta, which is a dragonny thing.
i enjoyed it just fine, but it seemed less complete than the others, like there should be more to this story after it ends. in his (flattering, humble) intro, the author stated that these characters were being developed for a longer fantasy series, so maybe he was just test-driving them and we will get the rest of the story in future works. which i would read. as long as he holds off on too much punnery.
so, while not my usual fare, i enjoyed most of it very much, and he’s definitely an author you should be supporting cuz he’s a damn good egg.
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