Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories

Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories
by Elizabeth Hand



Here is the obligatory blurb from the publisher

"Widely praised and widely read, Elizabeth Hand is regarded as one of America's leading literary fantasists. This new collection (an expansion of the limited-release Bibliomancy, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2005) showcases a wildly inventive author at the height of her powers. Included in this collection are "The Least Trumps," in which a lonely women reaches out to the world through symbols, tattooing, and the Tarot, and "Pavane for a Prince of the Air," where neo-pagan rituals bring a recently departed soul to something very different than eternal rest. Written in the author's characteristic poetic prose and rich with the details of traumatic lives that are luminously transformed, Saffron and Brimstone is a worthy addition to an outstanding career."

We were down on state street. The first time this year that the evening wind has held a little bite. Ironicly, it was the first time this year that the cold blue LED Christmas lights seemed appropriate. We were on our way to a show. Jacob Marley's Christmas at the Bartell theater. We'd never been there before, and we weren't sure how the parking was going to be that night, so we left early.

We found a parking spot almost immediately. Oddly enough the spots around the Capitol that had big "Reserved" signs by them were all vacant.

"Resevred for who?" we wondered.
"Reserved for us maybe? Well that's offly kind of the state of Wisconsin. Imagine that.... They must have known we were going out to a play and thought 'Christopher and Sarah are going to need a place to park when they go out tonight'. Offly kind of them indeed."

But we were too early to go right to the theatre. So we walked down state street instead. And what's a walk down State Street without a stop by A Room of One's Own? Nothing I tell you, NOTHING!

Sarah had her list of specific books to look for. I was lamenting the fact that I just haven't found any good books lately. It's been a while since i've really been excited reading something. Probably Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things (Which I still haven't finished, I'm on the last story and I'm saving it for something special. Like the next time I get suckered in to a family vacation to someplace with a mall).

Sarah pointed out a few, but they just didn't interest me at all.

And then a book caught my eye. I've never really bought into the "don't judge a book by its cover" theory. Too many times it's been the cover of a book that first gets me to notice it. And too many times a book with a cover that gets my attention ends up being a good book.

The cover of Saffron and Brimstone is a big bug. ...so maybe it was the "Strange Stories" that caught my eye. i don't know... quit pestering me.

It's a good book either way. I'm 2 stories in and I love them. I've been searching for something. Looking for a story without knowing what it is. It's a true story, a story about everyday life, about you and me. Something in rich prose so thick with metaphor that when the first little tinges of something weird slip in you aren't sure if it's a metaphor gone astray, or truly a tinge of the supernatural.

And in the very first story (the collections namesake) Elizabeth Hand does just that. Perfectly.

Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin

Voicesby Ursula K. Le Guin
ISBN: 0152056785




From the Publisher

"Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools, and temples. But that was long ago, and the conquerors of this coastal city consider reading and writing to be acts punishable by death. And they believe the Oracle House, where the last few undestroyed books are hidden, is seething with demons. But to seventeen-year-old Memer, the house is a refuge, a place of family and learning, ritual and memory--the only place where she feels truly safe. Then an Uplands poet named Orrec and his wife, Gry, arrive, and everything in Memer's life begins to change. Will she and the people of Ansul at last be brave enough to rebel against their oppressors? A haunting and gripping coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence, intolerance, and magic, Voices is a novel that readers will not soon forget."

---

There are some basic things that have become a given with Ursula K Le Guin stories. They are easy to skip over because I take it for granted that when I read one of these stories these elements will be there. If they weren't I'd be confused and slightly out of sorts for days on end. But I need to excercise restraint. They are the very reasons that I keep coming back to Le Guin.

Thing #1. I read a quote somewhere that was something along the lines of "I don't read fantasy, I read Ursula K. Le Giun." That's the perfect review right there. Her stories are not about the fantasy elements. The same stories could exist, with a little tweaking, in any environment. They are just all the more beautiful for being told in a genre that is stiffled with cliches and paper thin machismo.

Thing #2. Her characters. They stick in the mind, like Rocky Rococo's stuffed crust motherload to my ribs. The main character in this story, Memer is so well developed that I fully expect to run into her sometime today or maybe tomorrow if I go down by the lake.

Thing #3. Resolution. Nearly every fantasy novel (not that I'dm trying to pidgeon hole Le Guin's novels as fantasy) ends with a battle between the champion of goodness against the epitome of evil. Usually a sword clash, sometimes a magical shoot out, battles on the backs of dragons are not unheard of. Le Guin's stories do not end this way. They end the way that things really end. With no clear winner and with the observer needing to re-examine what they thought was "evil".

Thing #4. Evil itself. Instead of being packaged nicely in one single person or the beast lurking in the darkness, evil is hard to pin down in Le Guin's stories. And even harder to fight. Most often, Evil is Ignorance.

All of those things were in this book. I won't rehash the plot, the publishers blurb above did a fine job of that. I'll just tell you about my expereince with the book.

I received it for Christmas. And Ursula K Le Guin book that I had never even heard of (not that I own them all, but I think I've heard about most of them) piqued my interest immediaetly. But it was closely followed by "why have I never heard of it?" A little research on the internets gave me my answer. This book is usually categorized in the Young Adults section. Ursula K Le Guin has written books across numerous genres, and as great as I'm sure they all are, I'll never be able to read them all. So I confess that I usually look in the fantasy / sci-fi section. Hence, this book was over looked. I also found out that there is another book in this series, Gifts .

I held off on reading the book until I could find the first book. Which I didn't. I did find out that they are "companion" novels rather than a series. So I went ahead and read Voices . I started it at the beginning of New Years vacation, and finished it the night before going back to work.

It was an easy quick and enjoyable read. Nothing too deep, but I do question the Young Adult Label. The language was simple, the story was relatively straightforward, but there were deeper underlying themes. Now that I actually write that out, maybe that's a perfect Young Adult novel. Young Adults are mid to late teens, right? And maybe this is the perfect vehicle to draw them into larger topics like the dynamic between an occupied people and the militant occupiers. Maybe this a good way to start exploring the questions of evil, and wether what we think is evil is really just our own ignorance. And A LOT about self identity. Maybe I've miscategorized Young Adult books as Harry Potterish or baby-sitters club.

That being said, this book is not dumbed down, or simplified for the Young Adult audience. What I'm going to carry away from it, what is going to stick with me longest is will be the relationships between the two vastly different types of peoples. There is a city with a people that are educated, cultured, spiritual, artistic people. But they aren't a military power. They are occupied by a foreign and ethicly different people who have a culture based on war, conquest and masculine power. This culture is driven by their belief in a one god, that books are evil, and that the gods of other cultures are demons.

Seems like a pretty cut and dried tension in the plot. Maybe not all that original. And with any other auther I think I could predict the ending. The occupied people discover a hero, or a chosen one. The chosen one is very powerful, in the set up above I'm guessing it's not a physical power. Probably some nearly unstoppable magical ability. There are a few twists and turns. At some point in the book we learn that the evil occupiers have a champion themselves. A mighty foe with a power similiar to, or that negates our heroes abilities. Some more stuff happens, and as the end of the book nears the heroes clash.

Le Guin isn't going to let you off that easy. She's going to make you wonder if the opposing culture isn't more ignorant than evil. More broken than blood thirsty. And even though no one is going to hurl fireballs, or weild a glowing sword, you're going to know who the hero is by the end.

I won't say this is Ursula K. Le Guin's best book. But I think it's in the top 10. If you like Ursula K. Le Guin, read this book. If you haven't read Le Guin, get The Lathe of Heavan or The Telling . Then you'll be hooked and work your way around to this book eventually.