I was hoping that this would be another Rollng In The Deep, and for the most part it wasn't, it's sci fi about two sisters who get trrapped on either side of holes ripped in reality and the government out to weaponise some of the more weaponisable effects, as they do, but it does have one magnificently Rolling In The Deep-level burst of holyshit fuckoff horror near the end, so actually I got what I wanted out of it and am overall quite pleased.

It turns out a number of these stories were also in Strange Itineries which I read last year, but rereading them was hardly a chore and that was a library book and this one is mine all mine. Powers deploys time loops and ghosts and ghost loops and looping time ghosts over and over again and each time there is something new and original about them. I daresay it'd be facile to credit his Catholicism for his facility at deploying the almost ritualistic logic of dealing with ghosts and time travel, but as a raised Catholic myself, it seems that there's something he just gets right about them, moves them out of the fantasy/horror cliches of robed figures in darkened woods or mud-smeared shaman-types and into the everyday manipulation of ourselves and the things around us in patterns and repetitions or carefully ordered sequences used to create deeper meanings and find the power to shift things that aren't bound by the physical laws we understand. Making magic mundane, like the roads and boulevards of his beloved Los Angeles revealing stranger things underneath to marvel at.

And since I just finished his short story collection, might as well round it out with one that isn't collected. A particularly dim beggar has his intelligence boosted by matching him with the collective gestalt of the Spponsize Boys, Horriban the clown's miniature homonculi. I was a bit worried it was going to be an 'intelligence is unbearable!' narrative, but it ends up being an exploration of identity and conscience instead, and though ultimately tragic, it culminates with a genuinely transcendant climax atop a high wooden tower overlooking the West End of London. This was published in 2020 - Powers is still absolutely at the top of his game.

It's sort of the Seven Samurai, only in a grimdark tale of pointless revenge, only they're all talking animals, and it's a mixture of European swashbuckling and western tough-guyisms, and everyone;s horrible, no really, they're irredeemable, no, seriously, the best bits was when they were being killed, you actually WANT them to fail their mission, oh and because they're animals broad stereotypes are ok now, I'm telling you I actually cheered when the first of them got wasted and kept going because at that point I figured there was only one of them getting out so at least I'd enjoy the rest of them being scragged. I think the whole point of this was to have a mouse be the toughest scariest bastard in a world of other more vicious animals. That's it. That's the joke.

The Carpenter/Lovecraft influences are a bit hard to miss, but if they somehow go over your head, Hill makes it explicit in his afterword. This gorgeous looking (Stuart Immonene!) tight little horror epic about a small salvage outfit run by three brothers sneaking into a disputed area of the Arctic Circle at the behest of a corporation whose missing ship just came inexplicably online after decades of silence, certainly manages the Carpenter, but as is often the case the Lovecraft is a big squidy monster with lots of eyes. Before that, however, it generates its own chilly atmosphere and Hill is ruthless when it comes to his characters, however lovable. What's notable, perhaps is a trait from good ol' Stephen King himself in deploying some 'magic' objects that both afflict and assist the protagonists. All in all fun and effective, hope there's a sequel, since it certainly ends with a hook. 

I believe Morrison's pitch for this was 'All Star Santa Claus,' which I found more bewildering than anything else, and now if anything happened to Klaus I would kill everyone in this room and then myself. Klaus as mythic hero, superhero, science hero, only Morrison could bring it off, throwing huge storytelling strokes across every page, but the point is always that Klaus brings toys to children at the darkest time of the year, and if he has to battle magic monsters and monstrsosities and capitalism to do it, then battle he will, and each and every goddamn story ends with a huge sentimental lump in the throat and watery eye and you might think that's cheap but it's not it's Christmas.

So I have finally read The Black Arrow and put to bed my own personal misconception that it was the name of an individual who shot bad guys with black arrows, instead being a fellowship of guys living in the forest all mad at a particular lord for being a bit of schnaky bastard, and probably a murderer, specifically of the hero's Dad. The hero, fostered by the Lord, has managed to get to his current age without noticing that his father's death and the guy fostering him and getting paid for it might be connected, but, actually, our Dick is frequently described as not being the quickest on the uptake and a bit too trusting for the world despite many other excellent qualities. As the War Of The Roses rages, Dick falls in love with an attractive young fellow he has many adventures with. The fellow turns out to be a girl, but they get over that and pledge their troth, then are seperated and Oor Dick must steal a ship and lead a band of cut-throats to her rescue, which fails miserably. Then he meets a certain Richard Duke of Iforgetwhich and bravely fights in a big battle even though he senses this other Dick might be a wrong 'un, but stalwartly sacrifices advancement for love and Honour, having learned many a valuable lesson about Life.

Affecting story as a homeless man who hears the bottles and cans in his trashbag talking to him carries out a cosmic mission to clear the way to the stars by burning down churches and mosques. Is it a delusion or the truth? A human tragedy or a vision of hope, sacrifice and grandeur? Strange and beautiful. Perfectly narrated.

This is a fun story in a nice steampunk/supernatural setting with nice characters trying to rid the titular tram car of the titular haunting only to be stymied by the offical who calls them in on the issue of budget, obliging them to seek help from an unusual source. Unfortunatley though the narrator has a good voice his actual reading is a bit naff.

What starts out as a fun take on princesses locked in towers turns into something a bit darker and more twisted as the loneliness of isolation and the traumatic violence of fighting monsters drive the Princess to extremes. The now-traditional process of female empowerment via endless fighting and killing hides something rather bleak and sad in its ultimate conclusion, or so I thought. Superbly narrated.