Reseña: The Litany of Earth (Innsmouth 0)

The Litany of Earth (The Innsmouth Legacy 0)

by  

Ruthanna Emrys

32 pages

Published May 14th 2014 by Tor Books

ISBN:1466868945 (ISBN13: 9781466868946)

Edition Language:English

 BLURB: The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. "The Litany of Earth" is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My shelves: dark-urban-fantasy, short-story, novelette-short, situ-1940s

Recommended for: Cthulhu fans

The people of the water are born in shadow on the land, but what they make beneath the waves will live in glory till the dying sun burns away their last shelter.

Aphra Marsh is a survivor of interment camp. Her old town was Innsmouth.

For you, o not versed, Innsmouth is a fictional place of Lovecraftian horror. ( The Shadow Over Innsmouth )

More than a short story this is a sneek peak into the book of this author - Winter Tide . Takes place in the 1940s, after the war. Emrys (really??) narrate with Aphra, the other side of the people persecuted and stripped of family, legacy and religion. She is an Old Deep hybrid, with head down she lives following lost threads when able. Her tranquility is once more shattered when one man, Spector, ask her help with ... other people. Now, she is bitter, but then curious.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the comparation between the religion persecuted and culture persecuted and ... I don't know ...satanist? aliens pagans with human sacrifices? Actually, I do mind. But it's interesting.

The ending of this story -see here -is a bit weak. But I'm curious enough to look for the book.

URL

http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/05/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys

Reseña: Monstress #9 (singular issue)

Monstress #9 (singular issue)

by 

Marjorie M. Liu

Art by Sana Takeda 

28 pages

Published December 28th 2016 by Image

ASIN.B01M1KUSNM

Edition Language:English

BLURB: A terrible force rises from the heart of the sea, intent on consuming Maika-and the monster inside her.

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Almost forget how oustanding is the art in the series. Almost.

What a wolf teach her pups but teeth and hunger?

And I didn't get before the 'relatives'. Let me say: Wow, and 'poor Maiko' /SPOILER--->mommies issues doesn't cover all<---SPOILER/

 [ mommies issues doesn't cover all (hide spoiler)]

How many monsters are in this serie anyway?

And the journey continues...

Reseña: An Unnatural Vice (Sins of the Cities #2)

+Digital Arc gently provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review+

An Unnatural Vice (Sins of the Cities #2)

by  

K.J. Charles

250 pages

Published June 6th 2017 by Loveswept

ISBN13: 9780399593970

Edition Language:English

BLURB: In the sordid streets of Victorian London, unwanted desire flares between two bitter enemies brought together by a deadly secret.

Crusading journalist Nathaniel Roy is determined to expose spiritualists who exploit the grief of bereaved and vulnerable people. First on his list is the so-called Seer of London, Justin Lazarus. Nathaniel expects him to be a cheap, heartless fr fraud. He doesn’t expect to meet a man with a sinful smile and the eyes of a fallen angel—or that a shameless swindler will spark his desires for the first time in years.

Justin feels no remorse for the lies he spins during his séances. His gullible clients simply bore him. Hostile, disbelieving, utterly irresistible Nathaniel is a fascinating challenge. And as their battle of wills and wits heats up, Justin finds he can’t stop thinking about the man who’s determined to ruin him.But Justin and Nathaniel are linked by more than their fast-growing obsession with one another. They are both caught up in an aristocratic family’s secrets, and Justin holds information that could be lethal. As killers, fanatics, and fog close in, Nathaniel is the only man Justin can trust—and, perhaps, the only man he could love.

My rating:2.5 the spiritual-guide was out the building stars

My bookshelves: historical-fiction, m-m, mxm-historical-romance, netgalley, situ-1870s, w_con-man-or-grifter, w_journalist

Not as I was expecting. Seriously tempted to put just 2 stars to this book.

Journalist seeks to unmask a medium in Victorian London, the plot is complicated in a tangle of questioning for an inheritance.

Strangely, during the narration of the séance, I keep thinking in Houdini and his own obsession with spiritualism.

My problem with this book is that Nathaniel Roy -the journalist and former lawyer- is an uncharitable character, from a priveleged upbringing , he has never suffered hunger or despair to do everything to survive, but he feels with the right to judge others. In another hand, Justin Lazarus, the subject that deceives those who 'want to be deceived', is a character of gray morality, much more understandable; and I could sympathize with him.

The vision of London wrapped in a tangible fog where Justin manages to navigate is not very subtle, but convincing. I think they are not the type of couple that you expect to stay together for a long time, not with the way Nathaniel thinks.

Reseña: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poesia)

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 

by 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

22 pages

(first published 1798)

BLURB: The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is a hauntingly beautiful work, acclaimed both for the lyrical quality of its language and for the ghostly atmosphere it evokes. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's masterpiece related the tale of a sailor who shoots a lucky albatross and is condemned to wander the sea in search of redemption, burdened with guilt over his deed and the resulting deaths of his shipmates.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

La balada del viejo marinero es un clásico poema con una métrica que cuesta un tanto seguir. En esta época los viajes largos por barco era cuestión de suerte si llegabas o no a casa, y si no te encontrabas con mal tiempo, sin brisa y detenido , y plagas y canibalismo iban a la orden del día. Muchos horrores que no resultan demasiado inventados , pero que son explicados de forma imaginativa y supersticiosa por los protagonistas.

Es un clásico, asi que supongo que en algún momento habria que leerlo.

Reseña: Christabel (poesia)

Christabel 

by 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

5 pages

(first published 1816)

BLURB:  Christabel is a long narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in two parts.

The story of Christabel concerns a central female character of the same name and her encounter with a stranger called Geraldine, who claims to have been abducted from her home by a band of rough men. Christabel pities her and takes her home with her; supernatural signs seem to indicate that not all is well.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Donde Christabel encuentra en el bosque después de medianoche a una extraña mujer, y no encuentra nada mejor que invitarla a su lecho.

And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side—
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree!
Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep!

Con conatos de vampirismo lésbico o meramente de un espiritu maléfico y donde se entrecruzan elementos de cuento de hada y cuento admonitorio buscando redimir la virtud , el final es especulativo porque el Sr. Coleridge nunca llegó a concluirlo. Hay menciones de espiritus en pena, de traspaso de un umbral de hierro (¿contra las hadas?) aunque puede concluirse como eso de que los vampiros no pueden entrar solos a un hogar. Un amor perdido, y una mujer/espiritu/demonio seductor. Cosas compelidas a no decirse y ojos de serpiente.

Interesante.

Y anterior a Carmilla pues fue escrito en 1797.

(Me recuerda un poco a lo que hace Gaiman en "Nieve, cristal y manzanas".)