Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 1/10/2011
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 1/10/2011 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I admit that the hunky kneeling angel on the cover is what first drew my attention to this book; will see whether it's worth it! It's a fantasy anthology themed on angels, fallen or otherwise, and the list of contributors is impressive, including Neil Gaiman, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Ramsey Campbell, and Jane Yolen, to name a few.
I'd hoped to read this for last year's Chills and Spills challenge, but it got lost among my TBRs; luckily, I found it in time for this year {wry grin}.
It's a good collection, with many more hits than misses. In fact, it's one of those books with so many bits-I-wanted-to-cite that it's bristling with bookmarks! Among my favorites:
"Murder Mysteries" by Neil Gaiman, which I'd already read in its graphic-novel version, but which is equally fascinating in text.
"The Houses of the Favored" by Jay Lake is very short - barely more than a page - but packs quite a punch; it's the angel's-eye-view of the plague of the firstborn from Exodus, and it gave me chills...
Jane Yolen's "An Infestation of Angels" depicts them as winged humanoids rather than heavenly creatures, monstrous beings, "filthy things, dropping golden-hard wing feathers and turds as big and brown as camel dung," which prey on humans when they can catch them.
"Second Journey of the Magus" by Ian R. MacLeod deals with Biblical angels from the viewpoint of one of the three magi, who returns to the lands he'd traveled when following the star only to discover a mix of catastrophic destruction and surreal perfection. It speculates as to what might have happened had Jesus made a different choice during his temptation.
"Being Right" by Michael Marshall Smith deals with a man who longs to be able to prove to his wife that he's right, one of those niggling things that can cause marriages to sour even when everything else seems fine. The atmosphere here, from the rainy London weather to the tension between the couple to the dusty bookshop where the man finds the demonic book that he hopes will solve his problem, is really fine, and the way the plot unfolds is darkly humorous - and may be thought-provoking to those who tend to believe that they're right more often than their spouses are! "For her, the sound of the two of you talking together is like the smell of books..."
Ramsay Campbell's "With the Angels" is a nightmarish tale of childish wishes and fears - very disturbing.
And Christopher Fowler's "Beautiful Men" presents a modern-day look at angels as messengers, beautiful and terrible...
Other stories feature very personal guardian angels, a personification of plague, a cult of terrorists who believe they're angelically inspired, an angel with a knack for taxidermy, a man who collects angels in his computer, and demons vs. angels in a post-Rapture world. Good collection!
It's a good collection, with many more hits than misses. In fact, it's one of those books with so many bits-I-wanted-to-cite that it's bristling with bookmarks! Among my favorites:
"Murder Mysteries" by Neil Gaiman, which I'd already read in its graphic-novel version, but which is equally fascinating in text.
"The Houses of the Favored" by Jay Lake is very short - barely more than a page - but packs quite a punch; it's the angel's-eye-view of the plague of the firstborn from Exodus, and it gave me chills...
Jane Yolen's "An Infestation of Angels" depicts them as winged humanoids rather than heavenly creatures, monstrous beings, "filthy things, dropping golden-hard wing feathers and turds as big and brown as camel dung," which prey on humans when they can catch them.
"Second Journey of the Magus" by Ian R. MacLeod deals with Biblical angels from the viewpoint of one of the three magi, who returns to the lands he'd traveled when following the star only to discover a mix of catastrophic destruction and surreal perfection. It speculates as to what might have happened had Jesus made a different choice during his temptation.
"Being Right" by Michael Marshall Smith deals with a man who longs to be able to prove to his wife that he's right, one of those niggling things that can cause marriages to sour even when everything else seems fine. The atmosphere here, from the rainy London weather to the tension between the couple to the dusty bookshop where the man finds the demonic book that he hopes will solve his problem, is really fine, and the way the plot unfolds is darkly humorous - and may be thought-provoking to those who tend to believe that they're right more often than their spouses are! "For her, the sound of the two of you talking together is like the smell of books..."
Ramsay Campbell's "With the Angels" is a nightmarish tale of childish wishes and fears - very disturbing.
And Christopher Fowler's "Beautiful Men" presents a modern-day look at angels as messengers, beautiful and terrible...
Other stories feature very personal guardian angels, a personification of plague, a cult of terrorists who believe they're angelically inspired, an angel with a knack for taxidermy, a man who collects angels in his computer, and demons vs. angels in a post-Rapture world. Good collection!
Journal Entry 3 by GoryDetails at Nashua Public Library (2 Court Street) in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Tuesday, September 25, 2012
GoryDetails at Nashua Public Library (2 Court Street) in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Released 11 yrs ago (9/25/2012 UTC) at Nashua Public Library (2 Court Street) in Nashua, New Hampshire USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I left this book on a bench in the garden next to the library at about 3:30; hope the finder enjoys it! *** Released as part of the 2012 Chills & Spills release challenge; the theme for September includes spirits. ***
*** Released for the 2012 You're Such an Animal" release challenge, for "angels" as well as the embedded "ants". ***
