A good collection. I especially enjoyed “Pride and Prometheus” as a longtime Jane Austen fan. ( )

Short story collection.

The Baum Plan for Financial Independence - OK

Every Angel Is Terrifying - OK

The Red Phone read Good

The Invisible Empire - OK

A Lunar Quartet
—The Juniper Tree - good

—Stories for Men - quite good - Tiptree winner 2002
—Under the Lunchbox Tree - good

—Sunlight or Rock - OK
The Snake Girl - poor

It’s All True - OK

The Last American - OK

Downtown - quite good

Powerless OK
Pride and Prometheus - OK - Tiptree shortlist 2008

( )

This could easily have been a 4 star book, but a few of the stories just didn't go anywhere. I'm all for ambiguity, but I have to feel like it's serving some purpose other than getting the author out of the story as quickly as possible.Still, this book blends science fiction with "straight" fiction as well as anything I've read since Vonnegut. Like Vonnegut, the sci-fi elements of his work serve to satire contemporary society and culture. What was most intriguing about this book was the way many of the stories addressed gender and power. One story imagines a world where the women of the suffragette movement formed violent gangs, ala the KKK, to terrorize abusive men into changing their ways, even going so far as to assassinate Grover Cleveland. Several other stories take place in a colony on the moon run by a society of "matrons," a colony where men live with very little power and where fatherhood is intentionally unknown. As a trade-off, men have few responsibilities, and sex is plentiful and without taboo. Girls are encouraged (and in most cases, forced) to move out at the age of 14 while boys live at home indefinitely. The ramifications of such a society cut both ways for Kessel, as the men and women struggle with the pressures of such an arrangement. In one of the stories, a comedian named "Tyler Durden" challenges the matriarchy, and faces grave consequences as a result.Fascinating stuff, and well worth a read this summer. ( )

Have you read John Kessel? Sadly, I'd be surprised to hear that. Kessel doesn't have the largest audience, and that's too bad. I suspect much of that comes from the fact that his strongest work is his short fiction, and the longer I'm around, the more I find that people aren't reading a lot of short fiction.

It's too bad, really, particularly when you have such a talented short fiction writer as Kessel. He doesn't necessarily have a style that is instantly recognizable. And in fact, in this collection, Kessel works at donning the style and guise of another writer in many of its stories. He takes on writers from Flannery O'Connor to Karen Joy Fowler to Mary Shelley to Jane Austen. And it's hard to tell it's not the original author.

Kessel also tackles gender roles in a quartet of stories: "The Juniper Tree," "Stories for Men" (which won the Tiptree), "Under the Lunchbox Tree," and "Sunlight or Rock." The stories are set in a lunar colony that is run by women, but told from the point of view of a man struggling to find his identity.

It's been a while since I read this book, but when I go back through again, I remember how much I enjoyed reading it. It had been quite a while since Kessel's last collection, I hope we don't have to wait so long again. ( )

I got this as an Early Reviewers book, but forgot to read it for awhile. I finally downloaded the Creative Commons ebook to my kindle and really enjoyed reading it over the last few days. I wasn't familiar with Kessel but will definitely be seeking out his other works.

This book is a volume of short stories, several links, some unsettling. Several took place in an interesting matriarchal society on the Moon. The last story is a Pride and Prejudice / Frankenstein mashup.

Definitely recommended. ( )