Blue is a Darkness Weakened by Light by Sarah McCarry
My rating: 4/5 cats
WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
and yes—i totally missed posting a few days here because of holiday distractions, so i’m going to try really hard to get caught up. yeesh!
last year, amy(other amy) tipped me off to this cool thing she was doing: the short story advent calendar, where you sign up to this thingie here and you get a free story each day.
i dropped the ball and by the time i came to my senses, it had already sold out, so for december project, i’m going rogue and just reading a free online story a day of my choosing. this foolhardy endeavor is going to screw up my already-deep-in-the-weeds review backlog, so i don’t think i will be reviewing each individual story “properly.” i might just do a picture review or—if i am feeling wicked motivated, i will draw something, but i can’t be treating each short story like a real book and spending half my day examining and dissecting it, so we’ll just see what shape this project takes as we go.
and if you know of any particularly good short stories available free online, let me know! i’m no good at finding them myself unless they’re on the tor.com site, and i only have enough at this stage of the game to fill half my calendar. <— that part is no longer true, but i am still interested in getting suggestions!
DECEMBER 21
I suppose if one is not acquainted with an actual vampire, love disguised as cruelty sounds better than the world outside. All these monsters, waiting for the right girl. All these girls, hoping for monsters. Once a beauty finds her beast, she blossoms. Her junky old jewels turn out to be talismans, her dead mother’s cheap locket a portal to another plane. All she needs to learn magic is for someone to call her pretty.
man, i almost missed out on this one. i was on my nook, scrolling through the tor site, choosing what to read next for this project, and my giant finger meant to keep scrolling down, but accidentally hit on the title link, and there it was, right in front of me, for my eyes to read. i figured it was a sign, even though that first paragraph had me rolling my eyes big time, but i’m so glad i kept going, because my eyes were meant to be rolling at that first paragraph, and from there on out, this story was a complete delight to me.
vampires, grammar, the loneliness of the city, the allure of eternal life when your own seems to be taking too long to become anything significant…so many things here made me laugh, in a rueful way:
The vampire is suspicious of vampires with arcane tattoos, bare pectorals, magical powers, secrets; vampires who eat deer instead of girls. Vampires who are looking for love.
—Where on earth does she get her ideas, do you think? the vampire asks, paging through Rosamunde’s adventures.
—They hate that question, I tell him. —They write essays online about how much they hate it. The vampire looks up at me, an eyebrow raised.
—Where do you get your ideas?
—I don’t have ideas, I say. Since the vampire started helping me, my editorial letters have gone more cutting and less enthusiastic. The literary agent says I am showing promise.
i loved this one and am very grateful for my gigantic fingers!
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2016/10/12/blue-is…
DECEMBER 1: FABLE – CHARLES YU
DECEMBER 2: THE REAL DEAL – ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 3: THE WAYS OF WALLS AND WORDS – SABRINA VOURVOULIAS
DECEMBER 4: GHOSTS AND EMPTIES – LAUREN GROFF
DECEMBER 5: THE RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE – NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 6: WHEN THE YOGURT TOOK OVER – JOHN SCALZI
DECEMBER 7: A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT – DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 8: DEEP – PHILIP PLAIT
DECEMBER 9: COOKIE JAR – STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 10: THE STORY OF KAO YU – PETER S. BEAGLE
DECEMBER 11: THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES – ALAN BEARD
DECEMBER 12: THE TOMATO THIEF – URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 13: THE JAWS THAT BITE, THE CLAWS THAT CATCH – SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 14: ROLLING IN THE DEEP – JULIO ALEXI GENAO
DECEMBER 15: ANTIHYPOXIANT – ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 16: THE AMBUSH – DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 17: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRAITOR AND A HALF-SAVAGE – ALIX HARROW
DECEMBER 18: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW – PAT CADIGAN
DECEMBER 19: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS – PAUL CORNELL
DECEMBER 20: THE TRAINS THAT CLIMB THE WINTER TREE – MICHAEL SWANWICK
DECEMBER 22: WATERS OF VERSAILLES – KELLY ROBSON
DECEMBER 23: RAZORBACK – URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 24: DIARY OF AN ASSCAN – ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 25: CHANGING MEANINGS – SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM – ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 27: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SUDDEN DEATH – CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
DECEMBER 28: FRIEDRICH THE SNOW MAN – LEWIS SHINER
DECEMBER 29: DRESS YOUR MARINES IN WHITE – EMMY LAYBOURNE
DECEMBER 30: AM I FREE TO GO? – KATHRYN CRAMER
DECEMBER 31: OLD DEAD FUTURES – TINA CONNOLLY
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