Strange Horizons Reviews, January 31-February 4

The last Strange Horizons review of January is Edward James's take on Kate Elliott's Cold Magic, which is actually a reflection on the two fantasy sequences Elliott has already written, to which the trilogy that Cold Magic begins is a continuation.  On Wednesday, Graham Sleight reviews Susan Hill's ghost story The Small Hand, which he finds a little old-fashioned in its willingness to tie up all its loose ends, especially compared with other modern literary ghost stories like The Little Stranger.  Yesterday Nathaniel Katz made his Strange Horizons debut with a review of Haruki Murakami's After Dark, a novel which, according to Nathaniel, makes a fantasy setting out of nighttime Tokyo.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A belated and slight clarification, although I may be misunderstanding what you've written, in which case, my apologies.

the two fantasy sequences Elliott has already written, to which the trilogy that Cold Magic begins is a continuation.

My reading of this suggests it implies that Cold Magic is a continuation of the same worldbuilding sequence of the two previous series, when in fact the three fantasy sequences James references are all separate fantasy worlds/stories, not linked ones. The linking he discusses has to do with thematic and structural issues. A minor point but crucial.
May 22, 2011 11:41 PM

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