McKillip, Patricia A. - Harrowing the Dragon

This is a collection of previously-published McKillip short stories. I've read a few here and there, but it was nice to be able to get to them all in one place.

There isn't anything new to this collection, so that may influence people's buying decisions. I'm probably going to end up getting this eventually, but maybe much later, since I already have a few of the stories in the anthologies they first showed up in.

I probably shouldn't have read through this so quickly; many of the stories are starting to blur together in my mind. Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few stories that feel very traditionally fairy tale to me, particularly the language and the imagery. Again unsurprisingly, these ended up being my favorites.

There are also some shorter pieces, the most different being an investigation into the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Alas, I found that one to be more interesting in concept than in execution.

I think my three favorite stories are all quietly subversive fairy tale retellings featuring female protagonists (again, wow, what a surprise...). I've read both "The Lion and the Lark" and "The Snow Queen" before in other anthologies, but I still love them. And I liked "The Lady of the Skulls" as well, despite being able to predict the ending. But then, with fairy tales old and new, the joy is in the telling and the journey, not in the twists.

I was slightly more ambivalent about the two longer pieces, "The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath" and "A Matter of Music." The language in the first is lovely and classical, but possibly a little too much so for me, and I couldn't help but compare "A Matter of Music" to Song of the Basilisk. I'm fairly certain that the first inspired the second, but I love the full-length novel so much that it's odd reading the short story.

I liked this; it's McKillip prose. But it's not stupendously wonderful, and like almost all short-story collections, it has its ups and its downs.

Poll of obsessive-compulsive-ness!

So I realized my sidebar was out of date... again! Except I'm reading entirely too many manga series to even begin to list out, so I was contemplating taking out the series links all together and only leaving categorical ones like "shoujo," "shounen" and "manhwa." And then I was wondering what to do with TV shows like Dead Like Me, which I am currently watching, but has been cancelled a long time ago. And I'll probably go through it so fast that there won't even be time to put it in the sidebar.

And then there are the eight million anime series I'm watching.

Help! I am in organizational hell!

And so the only solution lies within a poll!

[Poll #950552]

Currently reading

rilina asked me how many manga series I am currently reading*.

"Errrr," I said.

I feel somewhat better about my list after seeing hers, but not quite. Reassure me by posting your own lists! We can't be the only people out there reading over twenty series at the same time!

Right?

* "currently reading" is defined rather loosely, as you will probably see in the parenthetical remarks. Said parenthetical remarks will probably also illustrate the phrase "hope springs eternal" (I'll finish, no really!).

( My somewhat embarrassingly long list )