If you’re not familiar with her novels, you should be. Connie Willis is probably the best living science fiction author, winner of all the science fiction writing awards, penning classics like To Say Nothing of the Dog, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Remake, Doomsday Book, and many others. But you might not know she’s also a fan of the Christmas story, and has written two collections of stories, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories and A Lot Like Christmas. This year she was tapped to select the contents for American Christmas Stories, an all-new collection of 132 years in 59 stories from well-known and lesser-known writers and authors, from Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and Langston Hughes, to Ed McBain, Shirley Jackson, and Ray Bradbury. Readers will find writers across the ages combining multiple genres with the Christmas tale like science fiction and horror. All reflect the American experience from 1872 to 2004. It’s an incredible look at culture in America, both good and bad, and it’s available now here at Amazon.
Your next creepy movie for fall is waiting for you now on Netflix. It’s director Stacie Passon′s 2018 adaptation of award-winning author Shirley Jackson′s 1962 mystery thriller, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. And although it is not technically a story about one of our favorite horror tropes, creepy little girls, you will meet two very creepy young adult sisters who live alone on the hill at the edge of town with a secret that may not be all that secret. Taissa Farmiga(The Nun, American Horror Story) stars as Mary Catherine Blackwood, called Merricat, the stranger and younger of two siblings, with Alexandra Daddario (White Collar, True Detective) as the older sister, Constance. No doubt inspired by the acquittal in the murder trial of Lizzie Borden, the movie (as with the original novel) takes places six years after the poisonings of the sisters’ parents, with Constance as the sole suspect. Who really poisoned them?
Crispin Glover(Back to the Future, Alice in Wonderland) delivers possibly his finest performance as Uncle Julian. Present at the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, Uncle Julian was also poisoned, but survived with an addled mind and failing body. Constance seems to have never recovered from the accusations, and the townspeople certainly will not let the family forget. Constance has a smile fixed as she goes about surviving each day, a PTSD victim ready to snap at any time. Merricat is left to venture out once a week to get groceries and get lambasted by all those that looked down upon the family for their wealth and scandal. Yet Merricat is happy with the status quo, burying her father’s possessions to ward off evil spirits and bad fortune. As she tells us as narrator, Constance is the most precious person to her in the world.
But the sisters’ world comes crashing down as a cousin, played by Sebastian Stan(Captain America: Winter Soldier), appears in a sports car and begins taking over the house. Worse for Merricat, Constance seems to be falling in love with him, and the new couple begins to make plans for the future. In a world of oddities out of Great Expectations, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? or Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, can anyone in the house find normalcy or have any hope of getting their lives back?
It’s a fantasy novella that reads like a classic Louis L’Amour Western, full of legend and lore, a book for readers that enjoy every word by an author who really knows how to pen sweeping, artful prose. And don’t let the fact that it comes at the end of a series stop you from giving it a try. It’s Peter V. Brett’s Barren, part of his Demon Cycle series, just released by Harper Voyager. It’s a rather epic story of the past catching up to the present for Selia, a woman warrior in her late sixties. She’s the leader of a community with its own religion and a dialect that could double for the speech of colonists from the Firefly ‘verse. It’s also a community that has a variety of demon attacks it must fend off each nightfall. And while this warrior wrestles with managing the village problems and her own personal relationships, the attacks are only getting worse.
Brett, known for writing his first fantasy novel on his telephone during commutes on the subway, writes his world of the village of Tibbet’s Brook quite eloquently. Unlike most fiction these days, every sentence is not simply about rushing the reader to the gotcha at story’s end. Brett fully immerses the reader in this unfamiliar place, with struggles that parallel those of our own world in any decade. At times Barren feels as classic and on-point as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, with a bit of the unexpected a la Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. The fear in the story isn’t some uncertain future or neighboring army, but both themes are part of the story–the fear comes from the trust and prejudices of those that surround Selia. The Western feel comes from the relationships of Brett’s characters with an interconnected past, a close-knit group of recently united but competitive chieftains akin to the culture in the World of Warcraft realm. In this regard you could drop the fantastical elements and swap spears for rifles and these characters, and this story would hold up as a L’Amour novel (Selia is a grown-up Echo Sackett from Ride the River).
Told from two stages of Selia’s life, we meet the young woman learning from her mother and father, the tribal leader, and then as the older woman who has taken on her father’s role. She gains and loses her most significant personal relationships along the way with only the support of those who are closest to her. She’s an inspiring, strong heroine lead, respected by many in Tibbet’s Brook, the kind of leader who is first into the battle–she gets some nicely choregraphed action scenes to prove her physical prowess. For the short page count there are a surprising number of good supporting characters. If Brett’s other stories include such fascinating female leads, then this would be a series for fans of the fantasy genre to reach out for.
Seldom does a preview really do a bad movie justice. Remember those unappealing trailers for last summer’s campy remake of the classic ‘70s cult soap opera, Dark Shadows? Well, they kind of nailed it. It’s not actually as gaudy and silly as the ads made it out to be, but it is fairly boring, one actor turned in the worst performance of a career, and it runs out of plot about 30 minutes in.
But those first 30 minutes! They are so, so very watchable. Tim Burton & Co. absolutely nailed the period gothic revival flair, calling to mind films like Burnt Offerings and anything written by Shirley Jackson. The mood is perfectly set by a marvelous flashback sequence to the 18th century and the founding of the Collins family fortunes—and misfortunes. When wealthy Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) rejects his housemaid Angelique’s (Eva Green, The Golden Compass, Casino Royale) advances in favor of a more suitable mate (Bella Heathcote), Angelique reveals her witchier side, luring Heathcote’s Josette to her death and somehow cursing Barnabas into a vampire, then leaving him locked in a coffin for the next 200 years. This segment beautifully launches the film, which jumps ahead to the “present” (1972) and a mysterious young woman (also Heathcote) alone on a train—practicing her interview, and her alias, for a post as governess at the Collins manor house.
Allen Purcell, the protagonist in Philip K. Dick’s 1956 novel The Man Who Japed, unexpectedly reminded me of a character from a classic Hollywood film from 1955, Ensign Pulver, from John Ford’s comedy drama Mister Roberts. If you haven’t seen Mister Roberts or readThe Man Who Japed, you’re missing out on two of the best comedic works from their respective creators.
or read 
, you’re missing out on two of the best comedic works from their respective creators.
