Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link

[chocolatepot]

This is an anthology of short stories, one of the books I got in the Humble Bundle. I'm not really reviewing it because that would consist of something more thorough, but - I don't like it much. The first story I did, but I didn't read it this time because it had been in another anthology and so I'd read it a couple of times before.

The thing is. There's this writing style that I generally label "Valente-ish" that seems to be intended to evoke the style of the Grimms' fairy tales. It's a bit sing-songish at times, the figurative language tends to be deliberately weird or nonsensical, magic is treated very matter-of-factly and ... there's something to it I can't put my finger on, but it always strikes me as being to the Grimms as Heyer is to Austen. Not objectively better or worse, but if you're looking for one and get the other the itch isn't going to get quite scratched, you know? And for me, the writing just takes up too much of my attention. It's too determinedly whimsical. It doesn't feel real to me, there are always so many little asides:

The pirate-magicians lured Prince Wing into a trap so obvious that it seemed impossible it could really be a trap, on the one-hundred-and-fortieth floor of The Free People's World-Tree Library. The pirate-magicians used finger magic to turn Prince Wing into a porcelain teapot, put two Earl Grey tea bags into the teapot, and poured in boiling water, toasted the Eternally Postponed and Overdue Reign of the Forbidden Books, drained their tea in one gulp, belched, hurled their souvenir pirate mugs to the ground, and then shattered the teapot which had been Prince Wing into hundreds of pieces.

It's just too much. So I might not bother finishing, I haven't really enjoyed any of the stories (and had to skip one which involved a dog shelter).

Comments

[lliira]

I feel like they're trying really, really hard to be Terry Pratchett. But without realizing that you need to have actual characters, dialog, and especially heart for that.

[chocolatepot]

Hm, I hadn't thought of Pterry as being part of it, but now I see it. It is kind of like his take on fairy tales and magic turned up to 11, with a handful of extra ~whimsy thrown in.