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I will go—I shall go—to see what the end is going to be
So I didn't win a Lammy last week, but Anthony R. Cardno just reviewed Forget the Sleepless Shores for Strange Horizons and I am delighted:
Each time I skim the collection, I find myself pausing to read just a paragraph or two of "The Salt House," "The Creeping Influences," "The Boatman's Cure," "All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts," or "The Face of the Waters," and before I know it I've reread the entire story and gleaned something I'd missed on previous reads. Sometimes what draws me back in is a particular phrase or a bit of dialogue. Often, it's the natural imagery that permeates almost every story.
It's no surprise, based on the collection's title, that water imagery is front and center, but the author includes geologic imagery almost as often. In these tales, water represents change, impermanence, and movement towards or away from a character's goals or destination, while geologic forces often represent permanence, steadfastness, an immobility. Interestingly, the author never reverses the tropes, never uses, say, an earthquake as an agent of change or stagnant pools of water as an image of permanence. I find myself wondering if that's on purpose, but that’s something only Sonya Taaffe can tell us for sure.
That is favorable and analytical. It's true, I don't write about earthquakes. (I've never experienced one that I've noticed, even though we have them in Massachusetts. There are fault lines all over this state.) My oldest-written published story has geology as a force for change, but it isn't my usual construction. I love that someone wondered.
(The rest of the review also delights me.)
Each time I skim the collection, I find myself pausing to read just a paragraph or two of "The Salt House," "The Creeping Influences," "The Boatman's Cure," "All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts," or "The Face of the Waters," and before I know it I've reread the entire story and gleaned something I'd missed on previous reads. Sometimes what draws me back in is a particular phrase or a bit of dialogue. Often, it's the natural imagery that permeates almost every story.
It's no surprise, based on the collection's title, that water imagery is front and center, but the author includes geologic imagery almost as often. In these tales, water represents change, impermanence, and movement towards or away from a character's goals or destination, while geologic forces often represent permanence, steadfastness, an immobility. Interestingly, the author never reverses the tropes, never uses, say, an earthquake as an agent of change or stagnant pools of water as an image of permanence. I find myself wondering if that's on purpose, but that’s something only Sonya Taaffe can tell us for sure.
That is favorable and analytical. It's true, I don't write about earthquakes. (I've never experienced one that I've noticed, even though we have them in Massachusetts. There are fault lines all over this state.) My oldest-written published story has geology as a force for change, but it isn't my usual construction. I love that someone wondered.
(The rest of the review also delights me.)
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Thank you!
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I'm really pleased!
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It's a great book. :)
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Thank you!
It's a great book.
*hugs*
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Thank you!
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Your post reminds me of something a geologist said, which I read in a newspaper: "New England is riddled with ancient faults."
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I'm really happy about it.
Your post reminds me of something a geologist said, which I read in a newspaper: "New England is riddled with ancient faults."
That's very good.
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Nine
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Thank you. I like this feeling seen.
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*My oldest-written published story has geology as a force for change*
Which one is that? I feel I should know, but I've not got any of your books to hand to check.
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
Which one is that? I feel I should know, but I've not got any of your books to hand to check.
"Stone Song." It hasn't been collected; it was published in Vera Nazarian's Sky Whales and Other Wonders (2009). I can send it to you. I am still proud of it and it is old enough that it is totally not the direction any of my other writing went, except for the elemental language.
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Either a poem or a collection. I wonder if anyone geological has used it.