March 24, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Short Ghost Stories Everyone Should Read

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Sheets in a tree that were arranged to look like a ghost floating up in the branches.These freebie posts are so much fun!

Today I’m going to be sharing ten short ghost stories from around the world that everyone should read. Click on their titles to read them for free.

1. “Hover” by Samantha Mabry 

Sometimes ghosts are more annoying than they are frightening.

2. “Ngozi Ugegbe Nwa” by Dare Segun Falowo 

This is the perfect thing to read for anyone who likes antiquing or a good bargain.

3. “Who Will Clean Our Spirits When We’re Gone?” by Tlotlo Tsamaase 

I was picturing spirits taking bubble baths when I read this title. Spoiler alert: that’s not exactly what the narrator had in mind.

4. “Live Through This” by Nadia Bulkin

This was one of the most creative approaches to helping a spirit find peace in the afterlife that I’ve ever read about.

5. “Joss Papers for Porcelain Ghosts” by Eliza Chan 

Are hauntings less scary if you know the person who is now a ghost?

6. “Therein Lies a Soul” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu 

Sometimes spirits become celebrities. This shows how a spirit might react to such an odd response from the living.

7. “The Muse of Palm House” by Tobi Ogundiran 

Would you fall in love in with a ghost? I should warn my readers that this is rooted firmly in the horror genre, not in the romance one.

8. “Emergent” by Rob Costello 

A haunting from the perspective of a dead person who acknowledges they’re dead but absolutely refuses to be referred to as a ghost.

9. “The House Wins in the End” by L. Chan 

Imagine the typical plot from a haunted house story:

  • A new family moves into an old, abandoned home
  • Someone notices the first paranormal act
  • More paranormal acts follow
  • The family attempts to help the spirit(s) find peace
  • If it works, they stay at the home. If it doesn’t, they generally either die at the hands of the ghosts or move away.

This is about what happens to a haunted house after that basic plot has already played out.

10. “The Stories We Tell About Ghosts” by A.C. Wise 

Two words: ghost hunters.

 

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March 23, 2020 · 1:00 am

Wholesome Adventures: A Review of Frozen II

Film poster for Frozen II. Image on poster is of Elsa using her powers to create ice against a purple background.Frozen II is the 2019 animated fantasy sequel to Frozen. It is about Elsa and Anna’s attempts to figure out the origin of Elsa’s magical powers and save their kingdom from being destroyed by the elemental spirits of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

It isn’t strictly necessary to watch Frozen before checking out Frozen II, but I do highly recommend the first film in this series to anyone who loves the fantasy genre or animated films in general.

In order to avoid spoilers, I will only be discussing characters who were also in Frozen.

Characters

Idina Menzel as Elsa

Idina Menzel as Elsa

Elsa was the Queen of Arendelle and Princess Anna’s elder sister. She possessed magical ice powers whose origins were unknown. While she’d grown quite comfortable with using them, she had a deep longing to understand where they came from and why she had them.

Kristen Bell as Anna

Kristen Bell as Anna

 

Anna was the Princess of Arendelle and Elsa’s younger sister. She was deeply in love with her boyfriend, Kristoff. 

Josh Gad as Olaf

Josh Gad (right) as Olaf

Olaf was a sentient snowman created by Elsa’s magic who was first introduced in Frozen. He was as intelligent and silly as always.

Jonathan Groff as Kristoff

Jonathan Groff (centre top) as Kristoff

Kristoff was an ice harvester and Anna’s boyfriend. He was strong, loyal, and determined to help the people he cared about in any way he could.

Sven was his pet reindeer. He was a good reindeer.

My Review

Prepare yourselves for a story filled with wholesomeness and joy.

I love a good adventure that ramps up quickly in a storyline, so I was glad to see this film move so fast in the beginning. That snappy pacing was exactly what Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven needed before setting off on their journey.

Yes, there was a brief summary of what happened in Frozen for anyone who isn’t familiar with this franchise. It was shared by Olaf and was as hilarious as it was accurate. As mentioned earlier, I think anyone who hasn’t seen the first film would have no trouble getting caught up to speed if they jumped straight into Frozen II. The nice thing about film series written for kids is that they tend to be pretty welcoming of new or distracted viewers, and this one was no exception to that rule.

Every sequel has to live up to the story that began that series. I had high expectations for Frozen II based on how much I loved Frozen. While this was a fun story, I thought it didn’t quite have all of the magic of the first one. Many of the jokes in it were references to things that happened in the first instalment, so they had to be explained for people just tuning into this series. I did find myself wishing the screenwriters had spent more time developing new, original jokes, especially when it came to characters that hadn’t been introduced previously. With that being said, I still enjoyed Frozen II and do recommend it.

Olaf was by far my favourite part of this film. Just like in Frozen, he was a regular source of amusement for both the audience and the other characters. His understanding of how the world works was childlike in certain ways and yet quite mature for a snowman of his age in others. I desperately wanted to include one of his jokes in this review, but I think it’s best if you discover all of them for yourselves.

If you need a lighthearted distraction for viewers of all ages, Frozen II is a good place to start.

Frozen II is available on Netflix and Apple TV. It is no doubt quickly attempting to catch up with Frozen and become available everywhere else in the known universe as well.

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March 19, 2020 · 1:00 am

Hopeful Science Fiction: A Model Dog

Click on the tag “hope” at this bottom of this post to read about all of my suggestions for hopeful science fiction. If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.

Recently, I discovered the Better Worlds series, a science fiction anthology of short stories and films about hope that was published at The Verge two years ago. This is the third story from this anthology I’ve covered here, and I will eventually blog about all of them.

There are mild spoilers in this post. 

A Model Dog

A black-and-white sketch of a shaggy dog. John Scalzi’s “A Model Dog” was about an overbearing CEO who demanded that his employees engineer a solution to his dad’s aging dog.

It was written in an unusual and creative way: pure dialogue. That is, the entire story is shared with the audience as we read various conversations between the IT manager and one of their employees.

(The genders of these two characters were never clarified, so I’m making no assumptions about how they identified).

The CEO had a specific vision for how the IT department should handle his request. Not only were they asked to create an android dog, they were supposed to create it to behave just like the living dog who lived with the CEO’s father currently behaved. It was supposed to be such a close replacement that it would be as if the dog would never need to die.

Some of the funniest scenes happened in the beginning when the programmer explained to their boss that they already had 11 action items on their to-do list for that day alone and couldn’t possibly take on another project, much less one as massive as this one. I’ll leave it up to all of you to explore the nuts and bolts of that conversation for yourselves, but it was something I think people from many different professions can relate to.

I loved the plot twists in this tale. While I can’t go into any detail about them without sharing massive spoilers, I can tell you all that they were as logical and internally consistent as they were plain fun to read. Building an android dog that can replace the real thing is incredibly complex. Honestly, this must have been set several decades from present day in order to give this plan or anything that happened after it even half a chance of success.

It was also cool to read about a future for humanity that involved such great improvements in people’s quality of life thanks to technology and science. The task the main characters were given was certainly difficult, but it was by no means impossible. Reading about their attempts to create the perfect android dog only made me more curious to know what else was possible in their world that we can still only dream of. What a joyful place that must be.

If this vision of the future is anything close to what will really happen, sign me up!

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March 18, 2020 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: The Weirdest Thing I Learned Reading Fiction

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Quick! Imagine a carrot.

What colour is it?

I’m going to guess you all picked the colour orange.

One of the weirdest and most interesting things I’ve learned from a book is that carrots weren’t originally orange. Up until the late seventeenth century, they were nearly always purple. You might see a rare one that was white or yellow, but those colours weren’t encouraged by carrot farms.

A bowl full of orange, yellow, green, and purple carrots sliced into round pieces. How did that change? Some Dutch growers began cross-breeding different types of carrots in the late 1600s. It’s thought that they probably crossed purple carrots with white ones to eventually create the orange carrots we all know.

They also selectively bred this crop to make carrots bigger, juicer, and sweeter than the ones that people ate in previous generations.

I wasn’t able to find the book that mentioned this, but this article has more information for anyone who is interested.

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March 17, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2020 TBR

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Some weeks I come up with fewer than ten answers to the prompt. This week I had eleven!

Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world by Lynne Kelly book cover. Image on cover is of a round ball that looks vaguely brain-shaped.

1. Memory Craft: Improve your memory using the most powerful methods from around the world by Lynne Kelly

Will this book be helpful? I don’t know, but I’m curious to see what it recommends!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid book cover. Image on cover is of a gorgeous woman wearing a shimmery, green evening gown.

2. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I decided to read this because so many of my fellow Top Ten Tuesday bloggers enjoyed it. You’ve all convinced me to give it a try.

Life Changing Helen Pilcher book cover. Image on cover is of a series of 10 moths arranged from a black, small one one to a large, cream one.

3. Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth by Helen Pilcher

If you ever meet me in real life and want me to blab without stopping, bring up human evolution, ecology, zoology, or climate change. I would happily discuss any of those topics with anyone for ages!

Outsmart Your Anxious Brain: Ten Simple Ways to Beat the Worry Trick by David A. Carbonell book cover. Image on cover is of a thought bubble filled with anxious scribbles.

4. Outsmart Your Anxious Brain: Ten Simple Ways to Beat the Worry Trick by David A. Carbonell

My anxiety is mild most of the time, but I’m always on the lookout for new coping techniques for it.

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc book cover. Image on cover is of a house surrounded by green leaves. There is also a crutch, ear, and a few disembodied fingers on the cover.

5. Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc

I was the sort of kid who adored the original, sometimes gruesome versions of fairy tales. Some of those stories were incredibly politically incorrect at times, so I’m very interested in revisiting them from a social justice angle.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle book cover. Image on cover is of a man wearing a top hat and black cloak walking down a dark alley.

6. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

The Ballad of Black Tom is a retelling of H. P. Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook.” I can’t wait to see what it’s like.

Greenwood by Michael Christie book cover. Image on cover is of a beautiful pine forest.

7. Greenwood by Michael Christie

Since this is a Canadian novel, I don’t expect most Top Ten Tuesday participants to already be aware of it. I’m excited about it because it tells stories set in the same setting in four different eras: 1934, 1974, 2008, and 2034. I love it when authors do this. It makes the universes they create feel so expansive.

The Season: A Social History of the Debutante by Kristen Richardson book cover. Image on cover is of a pair of white, formal, silk women's gloves.

8.The Season: A Social History of the Debutante by Kristen Richardson

I was the sort of girl and am the sort of woman who dislikes dresses, high heels, and wearing makeup because of how physically uncomfortable they all are to wear for me. High heels are painful, lace is unbearably itchy, and I’ve had many allergic reactions to makeup.

I totally respect the fact that folks from many different genders enjoy this stuff today, but the thought of anyone donning all of those things at once and on purpose both horrifies and fascinates me. It’s going to be interesting to see how it was handled across various eras and cultures in the past.

History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times by Mary Frances Berry book cover. Image on cover is of a red-washed photo of the White House.

9. History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times by Mary Frances Berry

I don’t usually make references to politics on this blog, but I’m a U.S. citizen who is deeply concerned about what’s going on in my birth country. My reasons for being interested in this book are pretty self explanatory, I think.

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom book cover. Image on cover is of a collage of family photos from an African-American family.

10. The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

I love memoirs, old houses, and thinking about the people who lived in old houses decades ago.

This autobiography truly has it all.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal book cover. Image on cover is of two women wearing headscarves holding up their arms to wave at each other.

11. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Isn’t this a fabulous title? I know very little about Indian culture or the Sikh religion in general and am looking forward to changing that.

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March 16, 2020 · 1:00 am

Safe Haven: A Review of Everfair

Book cover for Everfair by Nisi Shawl. Image on cover is of a pair of hands holding a globe that's illuminated by gold light and surrounded by flying birds. Title: Everfair

Author: Nisi Shawl

Publisher: Tor Books

Publication Date: 2016

Genres: Fantasy, Alternate History, Steampunk

Length: 384 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

From noted short story writer Nisi Shawl comes a brilliant alternate-history novel set in the Belgian Congo.

What if the African natives developed steam power ahead of their colonial oppressors? What might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier?

Fabian Socialists from Great Britain join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.

Review:

Content warning: Racism and sexism. I will not be discussing these things in my review.

Strap in for a wild ride.This book has a bit of everything!

Ms. Shawl did a very good job of explaining the political and historical landscape of the setting. I didn’t know a lot about how Belgium colonization of the Congo went so horribly wrong in our world, so I was grateful for all of the details the author provided about why Belgium made that decision and how they expected to make it work before she imaged how things could have turned out much differently for the Congo if they’d already had steam technology when this conflict boiled over.

The cast of characters was massive. Rather than telling this tale from the perspective of one or even a few different people, there were dozens of narrators and other protagonists to sort out as I read. Given the fact that each chapter was written in a form that was pretty similar to a short story and that previous characters often weren’t revisited until many years after their previous entry, I had lots of trouble keeping up with everyone and the plot at the same time. This felt like something that really should have been separated out into several novels or many more novellas. There was so much going on in the plot that nobody got all of the attention they deserved.

There was a list of characters, their relationships to each other, and approximately when and where they lived included before the story began. I was glad to have this information and would highly recommend taking a look at it before beginning the first chapter. As I mentioned earlier in this review, the cast of characters is humongous. Having a basic idea of everyone’s identity and when they lived is crucial in order to understanding the plot, and this list did help with that even though I still believe the plot would have been better served if it were divided into a series and no more than three or four narrators were included in each instalment.

Anyone who loves alternate history speculative fiction should check this book out.

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March 12, 2020 · 1:00 am

Righting Wrongs: A Review of See You Yesterday

Film poster for See You Yesterday. It shows the two main characters running. There is a large clock in the background. Content warning: death of a parent, police violence and gun violence. I will be discussing the last two items in this list in my review.

See You Yesterday is a 2019 science fiction film about C.J. and Sebastian, two high school students who are best friends, fellow science enthusiasts, and inventors.

Their latest invention is a backpack that allows the person wearing it to travel back into time. The technology wasn’t perfect. It could only go back into the recent past and could only be used a certain number of times. They were still figuring out how to change those limitations when the events of this film took place.

After C.J.’s older brother, Calvin, was murdered by the police, she and Sebastian decided to use their unfinished invention to travel back in time and save her brother before time ran out for him for good.

 

Characters

Eden Duncan-Smith as C.J. Walker

Eden Duncan-Smith as C.J. Walker

 

C.J. was the protagonist of this tale. As an incredibly intelligent and driven young woman, she believed she could solve any problem that came her way by seeking the scientifically correct answer to it.

Danté Crichlow as Sebastian Thomas

Danté Crichlow (left) as Sebastian Thomas

 

Sebastian was C.J.’s best friend. He was just as intelligent as C.J. but tended to be more cautious about trying new things until he’d gathered all of the date he needed about how they worked.

Michael J. Fox as Mr. Lockhart

Michael J. Fox as Mr. Lockhart

C.J. and Sebastian’s science teacher

Mr. Lockhart was C.J. and Sebastian’s supportive science teacher. He didn’t believe in time travel, but he did believe that his two smartest students would do incredible things with their lives. Supportive teacher, but doesn’t believe in time travel.

Anyone who is a fan of this actor’s previous work will find a delightful Easter Egg about it at some point in this tale.

Brian "Stro" Bradley as Calvin Walker

Brian “Stro” Bradley as Calvin Walker

 

Calvin was C.J.’s overprotective but loving older brother. He admired his sister’s intellect and believed that she’d one day make life better for their entire family because of it.

My Review

This was such a good story that I’m planning to watch it again!

Obviously, there were strong social justice themes in this movie. The blurb and trailer for it will give that fact away immediately to anyone who somehow missed it. C.J.’s invention was really cool in and of itself, but the thought of it being used to right terrible wrongs only made me more curious to see if and how she’d reach her goal of saving her brother’s life.

C.J.’s character development was beautifully handled. There were excellent reasons for her sometimes stubborn behaviour and unshakeable belief that science can be used any problem if one works hard enough to understand what happened and how it can be changed. I’ll leave it up to other viewers to discover these things for themselves, but it was delightful to see how her past and present shaped who C.J. was and who she was becoming.

There were a couple of fantastic plot twists later on in the storyline. They made perfect sense given everything C.J. had gone through earlier. While I did see them coming due to how familiar I am with tropes in the young adult and science fiction genres, I’d be pretty curious to find out if other audience members had the same reaction to them. Either way, they enhanced the viewing experience nicely.

My brain is beyond eager to discuss the ending in this post, but I’ll need to carefully dance around what actually happened in it in order to avoid spoilers. What I can say is that it fit the themes of this tale well and it had a powerful message for audience members about how we should respond to police and gun violence.

Ending on such thoughtful terms was such a great decision. I’ve read that the director isn’t planning to make a sequel, so it looks like the audience will have come up with our own theories about what might happen next.

A Note on the Violence Tags in My Review

Some of the violence was implied. Other acts of violence were shown directly to the audience, albeit in a sensitive and thoughtful manner. There were the briefest hints of blood in a couple of scenes, but in general this was a pretty blood-free story (especially given the subject matter).

See You Yesterday is something that I’d recommend just as highly to adult viewers as I would it’s original young adult audience.

See You Yesterday is available on Netflix.

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March 11, 2020 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: One Skill I Wish I Had But Don’t

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

screen shot of HTML code.

My response to this week’s prompt can be summed up in one word: programming.

I’m fascinated by the various programming languages that have been developed in order to create websites.

There’s something incredible about seeing how the right commands can create eye-catching sites with enough patience and work.

A few months ago, I took a one-day introductory HTML course to this topic at my local library. It was fascinating to get that taste of that world. I’m dabbling with the idea of continuing my studies in this area (whether in HTML or in another programming language entirely).

What can I say? Computers are cool, and I want to learn more about how to build nice-looking websites for them.

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March 10, 2020 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors Who Have a Fun Social Media Presence

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Cellphone with three pieces of paper lying above it. One has a heart, one has a human emoji, and one has a conversation bubble in it. My first impression of this week’s prompt was that it would be an easy one. It turned out to be trickier than I assumed. In my experience, some people misinterpret social media as a place to sell books or draw traffic to one’s latest blog post.

While I love seeing what authors have recently created, having a fun social media account requires effort, creativity, and, most importantly, regularly engaging with your followers. All of the authors I’m about to share do just that. I’d recommend checking out their creative, thought-provoking status updates regardless of what your personal feelings are about poetry, horror, science fiction, or any of the other genres they represent.

This post is divided into two sections: Twitter and Instagram.

Twitter

N.K. Jemisin

As N.K.’s pinned tweet says:

Please be advised that I only talk here about writing-related topics, which means just politics, media, science, food, charity, cartoons, volcanoes, gardening, space, cats, health care, cats, fanfic, Afrofuturist music, human nature, video gam

And, honestly, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Her Twitter feed is filled with interesting stuff from a wide range of topics.

Chuck Wendig

Chuck is one of the funniest people I follow on Twitter. His timeline is filled with the sorts of random thoughts that most people don’t speak aloud.

Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi’s cat is adorable, and her tweets about the Coronavirus are on point.

Stephen King

Stephen is like that cool uncle everyone hopes will show up at the next family reunion. You never quite know what he’s going to say, but you know it will always be worth listening to.

Instagram

Rupi Kaur 

Rupi’s poetry melds perfectly with the Instagram aesthetic.

Danez Smith

Danez’s feed is such an eclectic mixture of poetry, writing, selfies, and random pictures from his life.

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March 9, 2020 · 1:00 am

Stay Home and Read

Woman holding a book and smilingA few days ago, Toronto learned that someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19 had taken several trips on the TTC, our  public transportation system, after they began coughing and showing other symptoms of that disease.

Our local media has been publishing many stories on the Coronavirus outbreak these winter alongside their regular winter features on cold and flu season. While I have some mixed feelings about how they’ve reported on this new outbreak in particular, it’s difficult to ignore all of the new information pouring in about COVID-19 and how regularly new cases have been diagnosed in Ontario lately.

Like the rest of the world, Toronto is nervous about this topic. There have been so many folks stocking up on toilet paper and other supplies that some stores here have actually put limits on how much of those items you can buy at a time.

I happen to be part of an age bracket that is at very low risk of developing complications from Coronavirus, much less dying from it. I also don’t have any pre-existing medical conditions that would make it harder for my body to fight this illness. If I were to develop it, chances are excellent that it would be no worse than a bad cold or the flu for me if I even developed symptoms at all.

Three piled books on a white wooden table. Still, I’ve found myself staying home more often these days. I’d hate to accidentally spread this illness around to people at high risk of complications if I’m one of those young, healthy people who have it while showing few to no symptoms of it.

When I do go out, I’m noticing that our libraries, stores, and malls feel a bit quieter than usual. My guess is that other folks are cutting back on spending time in large crowds when possible as well.

Since most of my favourite places to visit are outdoors and I’m trying to reduce my time spent in crowds, reading seems like the perfect solution.

March is a chilly, sloppy time of year in Ontario anyways. Might as well read until the weather improves and the spread of this disease is hopefully slowed down while scientists work on a vaccine for it.

This means that you may be seeing more book reviews on my site over the coming weeks. I love writing them, but they take up so much time and energy that I generally can only get through a certain number of them in the average month.

There are only so many TV shows I can watch and hours of Minecraft I can play before needing to do something else with my free time, though, so reading it is.

I already have my first review of this semi-quarantine season ready to go for next week! Thank goodness I still have a big pile of library e-books to plow through as well.

How have your daily routines changed this cold, flu, and coronavirus season? How are your countries and communities reacting to COVID-19? Are you all staying home and getting more reading time in than usual these days, too?

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