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55 reviews for:
This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire and the Fantastic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
3.9 AVERAGE
55 reviews for:
This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire and the Fantastic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
3.9 AVERAGE
Every story was superb and all I want to do is read more of Silvia Moreno Garcia’s writing!
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I think my favorite was "Bed of Scorpions," but I really enjoyed them all.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've been enjoying Silvia Moreno-Garcia's work. The way they write is so intriguing and detailed. I think my favorite in this are the Strange way of Dying, Flash Frame, Death Collector, and Maquech.
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I really enjoyed MEXICAN GOTHIC so have been wanting to pick up more of her writing, so I chose this story collection for my #ReadTheWorld21 pick for May. The collection is subtitled “Stories of Magic, Desire & the Fantastic” which is an apt description. The stories are speculative with magical realism and fantasy mixed in. There is a good mix of stories in the collection with folklore and magic covering a variety of subjects.
As with any collection, some stories were more impactful than others, but I am appreciating her narrative voice throughout. There have been a few stories where I can especially pick up on the same atmospheric writing that I loved in Mexican Gothic.
As with any collection, some stories were more impactful than others, but I am appreciating her narrative voice throughout. There have been a few stories where I can especially pick up on the same atmospheric writing that I loved in Mexican Gothic.
dark
tense
fast-paced
I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of this little collection earlier this summer, and I was delighted. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a fantastic writer whose work has appeared quietly in a number of venues, but this is the first time that a large body of her work has been gathered in one place.
I don't want to spoil the tales in this collection, but a few facts might be useful to prospective readers.
One: most of the author's fiction is set in Mexico, and most of her characters are Hispanic and/or Native. The characters are not at all difficult to understand or identify with for this reason--they're just a welcome relief from the sameness of the relentlessly WASP characters and settings that are typical in a lot of genre fiction.
Because she writes about non-Anglo characters and settings south of the Rio Grande, Moreno-Garcia's writing will inevitably be compared to that of Borges, Márquez, and other male Hispanic authors; because of the similar settings and characters, I sometimes thought of Rudolfo Anaya, whose young adult novel "Bless Me, Ultima" was taught when I was in school.
There is little that I can say about the inevitable comparisons, except that Moreno-Garcia's writing compares WELL with those of other Latin American/Hispanic authors, male and female. She has no difficulty holding her own against Marquez, and for that reason alone I expect to see this collection on the ballot for more than one literary award next year.
Two: her stories often glide sinuously through more than one genre without committing to any of the cliches that nail them down. A typical Moreno-Garcia story can simultaneously contain elements of romance, magical realism, pure fantasy and horror--even humor or erotica. They are better and richer stories for this reason, and her guilty habit of creative freedom is shared by a lot of the great short story writers in genre fiction, notably Harlan Ellison.
Beyond that, I would note that most of these tales are set in the crossroads between Love and Death, Desire and Doubt, Self and Other. They are quite often tales of negotiation, of the moment when the nature of Reality is up for grabs and a new worldview--and the lives and loves that go with that epiphany--become possible.
The Strange Way of Dying is, at least on some occasions, strange because it is actually a way of being re-born.
Don't miss this one. It's that good.
I don't want to spoil the tales in this collection, but a few facts might be useful to prospective readers.
One: most of the author's fiction is set in Mexico, and most of her characters are Hispanic and/or Native. The characters are not at all difficult to understand or identify with for this reason--they're just a welcome relief from the sameness of the relentlessly WASP characters and settings that are typical in a lot of genre fiction.
Because she writes about non-Anglo characters and settings south of the Rio Grande, Moreno-Garcia's writing will inevitably be compared to that of Borges, Márquez, and other male Hispanic authors; because of the similar settings and characters, I sometimes thought of Rudolfo Anaya, whose young adult novel "Bless Me, Ultima" was taught when I was in school.
There is little that I can say about the inevitable comparisons, except that Moreno-Garcia's writing compares WELL with those of other Latin American/Hispanic authors, male and female. She has no difficulty holding her own against Marquez, and for that reason alone I expect to see this collection on the ballot for more than one literary award next year.
Two: her stories often glide sinuously through more than one genre without committing to any of the cliches that nail them down. A typical Moreno-Garcia story can simultaneously contain elements of romance, magical realism, pure fantasy and horror--even humor or erotica. They are better and richer stories for this reason, and her guilty habit of creative freedom is shared by a lot of the great short story writers in genre fiction, notably Harlan Ellison.
Beyond that, I would note that most of these tales are set in the crossroads between Love and Death, Desire and Doubt, Self and Other. They are quite often tales of negotiation, of the moment when the nature of Reality is up for grabs and a new worldview--and the lives and loves that go with that epiphany--become possible.
The Strange Way of Dying is, at least on some occasions, strange because it is actually a way of being re-born.
Don't miss this one. It's that good.
dark