Novella[s] Review: The Drosselmeier Chronicles: The Solstice Tales by Wolfen M.

The Drosselmeier Chronicles: The Solstice Tales by Wolfen M.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Two beloved Victorian Christmas stories get reworked into the same world in this collection of 2 novellas. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King opens the series in a barely re-imagined format. The novella more than just liberally borrows from the original, it offers almost nothing new which is disappointing. Mostly, it seems to be pure set up for Hoffmann’s tinkerer character [Drosselmeyer] to be the main manipulator in other tales now set in his trippy world, one foot in the land of Fae.

The second novella slightly tweaks Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but imagines that the 3 ghosts are Drosselmeier’s doing. More promising is the shift in POV to that of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s dead business partner that opens the Dickens’ version as the haunt coming before the 3-act spiritual crash course in being a decent human being. The promise lies in the queer re-telling with Marley admitting his forbidden love for Scrooge and taking responsibility for how Scrooge turned out.

Unfortunately, the promise doesn’t pay off with new content, it merely acts as a queer filter as the original novel plays out around it. A veneer of 21st century queer acceptance and psychology is provided by Drosselmeier and friends to the ghost Marley in and around their torment of Scrooge.

Many classical tales have received successful reworks, such as The Wizard of Oz inspiring Wicked. The success comes in the new scenes that shape the original tale anew. It’s all about the new content that applies the new slant. And that’s what’s missing here, new content. It’s scene for scene, the original tale without the original author’s name on it.

I received my copy of the collection directly from the author through bookreviewdirectory.wordpress.com.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Ten Thousand Miles” by Connie Wilkins

4 of 5 stars.

The horrors of war get a fresh treatment in this tale set in a Union hospital encampment at the edge of the Louisiana swamp. A virtual limbo, the miasma-filled camp is staged for confusion as first Rebels overtake the camp and then a Union gunship takes aim amid the roiling mists and smoke.

The camp is largely manned by “African-descent” former slaves fighting for freedom. Two main characters hold down the hospital tent. Gem is an elderly African-American woman disguised as a man to help the freedom effort. It reads more queer/trans in the narrator’s use of male pronouns for male-guised Gem. Gem’s also attuned to the restless spirits awaiting reunion with the still battling living.

The narrating surgeon is a widowed white Quaker son and grandson of Quaker abolitionists that were at the forefront of the Indiana portion of the Underground Railroad. He’s also haunted by spirits in the form of his deceased wife. The camp is filled with her beloved moths of every size and color, and they serve as a constant reminder of her.

This moving tale shifts from black to white, male to female, living to dead, substantial to spiritual all amidst the roiling mists and flocking moths . . . It’s recommended.

This tale appears in Shades of Blue & Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War edited by Steve Berman.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Mistress” by Jennifer R. Povey

2 of 5 stars.

This tale relates a contemporary ghost story, when the narrator visits a Civil War plantation house that was burned at the end of the war. The circumstances of its burning and the fate of its final residents remain a mystery.

The narrator sees a female ghost twirling a parasol and realizing that it’s the plantation mistress. [Other site visitors have seen the same visage.] However, this encounter escalates as memories of the final days of the plantation seep into the tourist.

Race and the politics of race are brought up deliberately in the tale in the effort to show its contemporary POV But it has the effect of emphasizing its own “whitewashing” with its focus on the “mistress”, her doting “servants” [aka slaves], and her benevolent treatment of them as the murdering Union and Rebel troops flood the landscape only to meet at the plantation . . .

This tale appears in Shades of Blue & Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War edited by Steve Berman.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This haunting, psychological bender depicts the dramatic hanging of a Rebel supporter by the Union troops. Most interestingly, the tale was written in 1890 with not even a generation lapsed since the end of the war. Wounds between North and South would still have been quite raw. Especially in this tale in which a Southern civilian is baited into doing something illegal by a Union soldier in order to drum up a hanging. And so it plays out.

But it doesn’t play out as characters nor readers would expect as minute details, sensations and thoughts flicker across the page–all from the POV of the condemned man falling . . .

I highly recommend this story. This tale appears in Shades of Blue & Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War edited by Steve Berman.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Spectral Drums” by Devin Poore

4 of 5 stars.

This moving short story uses metaphor to great effect in the interactions between soldiers from 2 different wars. Generations may separate them, but the understanding bridges impossible gulfs.

On the verge of WWI, the narrator [a trolley driver] notes his standard route to and through the old Civil War battlefield. His respect for the history is evident in his stopping to pick up and let off ghostly riders in blue and gray that whisper of home and family. The tourists also on the trolley gape at the spectacle but don’t move to interact. The ghosts do not communicate directly with the living.

One young man on the trolley boldly attempts to initiate conversation with the spirits, but to no luck. Later, when the trolley is down to just the driver, the young man and a handful of ghosts, the man confesses to the driver that he’s left his Indiana farm to join the war front in France. He expresses his hopes and dreams and what compelled him to leave the safety of home. A ghost replies . . .

I highly recommend this story. This tale appears in Shades of Blue & Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War edited by Steve Berman.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Bad Penny” by Carrie Laben

2 of 5 stars.

This tale takes one insignificant hamlet’s quirky town lore and turns it into historical fiction, barely. In Western New York State near Lake Erie, unincorporated Town Line–according to lore–voted to secede from the Union in the Civil War. Neither the North nor the South noticed/cared.

As for their role in the war, 5 men took off for Canada, 5 men went south to join the Rebs, and 20 men donned the Yankee blue. Generations later the town’s claim to quirky fame was aired when it was realized that if the historic vote took place, they had never voted to rescind said secession. In the post-war patriotism of 1946, they formally rescinded and rejoined the US to the delight of journalists looking for a sensationalized story. Cesar Romero [the original television Joker to Adam West’s Batman] emceed the festivities. These are the Wiki-facts.

The tale overlays a veneer of characters of then [during the Civil War] and now [just post WWII]. It’s not the full immersive Erik Larson treatment of fictionalized history, but it does draw a spotlight to the quirky tales hidden within many a town across the land.

This tale appears in Shades of Blue & Gray: Ghosts of the Civil War edited by Steve Berman. I’ve previously read this author’s “Underneath Me, Steady Air”.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Saxophone” by Nicholas Royle

4 of 5 stars.

In an interesting twist of alt-history, this tale depicts a ravaged Iron Curtain separating Communist Soviet Union’s sphere of influence from that of NATO’s. The tense border between East and West Germany led to shots fired, war escalating, and eventually biological warfare. Hungary and Yugoslavia are the worst ravaged, with most of the population turned to zombies and a dark trade in live organ harvestings. Harvested American military organs bring an especially hefty price on the black market . . .

The metaphor of zombies as denizens of warzones is both unique and particularly apt. It is a tense and joyless existence. The fully cognizant zombies try to keep their heads together [literally] to keep on going, even after the loss of their “lives”. Memories of better times, ie living times, are bittersweet.

Hasek, the main zombie POV, played jazz saxophone when living, now he doesn’t have the breath for it. Nor the instrument. That doesn’t stop him from fingering his air-sax out of habit as he tries to bring a little imagined joy into his music-less reality.

This tale appears in Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Fox Tails” by Richard Parks

3 of 5 stars.

Pre-Modern Japan anchors this tale of animal spirits, ghosts, and the rigid class structure of the nobility. A low-ranked noble is hired to find a lord’s wife and son that disappeared after it was revealed that the wife was actually a true trickster fox spirit.

The role spirits and ghosts play in the culture is made clear. As are the strict rules and dangers for interacting with said spirits and ghosts. However, not all fox spirits should be judged by their bushy tails [plural] as the 2-tailed Lady truly loved her husband, showing a loyalty not usual granted the fox spirits.

This tale appears in Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations edited by Paula Guran. I’ve previously read this author’s “The Manor of Lost Time.
 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Swing Shift” by Dana Cameron

2 of 5 stars.

The subgenre of supernatural detective noir gets a 1940s gangland Boston addition with this tale [and series]. Former detective partners Harry and Jake went their separate ways when Harry joined the FBI’s war effort. Jake retreated into the New England countryside. But a case of war effort secrets being passed from a high security lab to the Nazis has Harry call Jake in for his insights.

Jake has somehow kept his werewolf identity from his former partner. He also brings in his family comprised curiously of both werewolves and vampires. Their looks and abilities doesn’t pull from standard mythos, nor does it explain how genetic werewolf and vampire can be sisters.

The stakes of the case, and the reveal are all lacking in this detective tale. The tale’s really Harry’s awakening into a new worldview which he accepts all too easily and without curiosity.

This tale appears in Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations edited by Paula Guran.

 
 
 
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Short Story Review: “Hecate’s Golden Eye” by P. N. Elrod

3 of 5 stars.

Chicago has had its fair share of supernatural detectives–most notably, Butcher’s Harry Dresden the wizarding detective of the modern era. This fun tale takes detective noir and Chicago back to its 1930’s bootlegging, gangsterland roots. Detective Jack Fleming happens to be a vampire, his partner, Charles Escott, isn’t. Together they right wrongs–at least as far as their clients are concerned.

This case involves a stolen inheritance of a rare yellow diamond called Hecate’s Golden Eye. It may be cursed, if one believes that sort of thing. What ensues is a mad scramble of alliances and subterfuge all taking place within a few hours on a single evening as money, the jewels and counterfeits aplenty play the Old Shell Game between the various suspects, clients and detectives.

Jack’s vampiric traits play a role in solving the case. Especially helpful is his ability to hypnotize and turn incorporeal.

This tale appears in Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations edited by Paula Guran.

 
 
 
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