Scary Magic

I mentioned Kelly Link’s collection of short stories: Magic for Beginners back in March. I should have made a note that I have now read it.

 

Despite what you may have concluded about me from my review of Cloud Atlas, I do appreciate spookiness in its place. And Kelly Lynn’s book doesn’t have "cheap spookiness", it has the real, genuine, gold-plated article. These stories are scary stuff. No outright blood and gore, but the more subtle kind of "what’s that lurking just out of sight" that will have you thinking "how on earth did she come up with that?" 

 

In particular, the story Stone Animals is suffocatingly strange, because it’s almost so ordinary, about an ordinary family moving into a house. But the tension and weirdness is racheted up until on the last page, I went "What?" and my brain exploded.

 

And I loved Catskin, which reads like The Brothers Grimm crossed with Kafka.

 

A highly recommended collection.