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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
A great setting with a unique take on magic, this was the perfect mix of historical and sci fi.
I adored the setting, the characters (especially Helen) but then the love story is perhaps too instalove for me. I found myself in this marvelous setting with marvelous people, feeling bored. Then the whole Frida thing seemed too much like author wish fulfillment. And the ending relied on a deux ex machina rather than a solution built from anywhere else in the story.
Hot damn. Klages is on fire here! I loved the characters, and I'm counting San Francisco as a character in this book. The brief glimpse ("rhymes with ooze" indeed!) of a future friend made me laugh out loud. The conceit at the heart is beautiful, and so barely touched with words that it glows. Not forever, but long enough. This window into another time, another set of lives, touched me to the core.
I love me some Dewey, but my heart belongs to Haskell hereafter.
I love me some Dewey, but my heart belongs to Haskell hereafter.
1. The beginning didn’t immediately grab me, but the writing was so good I stuck with it.
2. The middle had almost no SFF so I was slightly baffled. And yet, it sped by because the historical setting and characters were delightfully vivid. I loved the relationships and kept reading.
3. The ending left me starry eyed and enchanted. Beautiful read.
2. The middle had almost no SFF so I was slightly baffled. And yet, it sped by because the historical setting and characters were delightfully vivid. I loved the relationships and kept reading.
3. The ending left me starry eyed and enchanted. Beautiful read.
Queer history is essential. All history is essential, of course, but queerness in history has been systematically closeted away from view, and so for history to be queer requires excavation. Digging down through the layers of the past to see what has been hidden is the only way to know how things really were; queering history reveals the truth of it.
That’s why my favorite character in this story is Jack, the piano player at Mona’s nightclub. Jack is an old-school butch dike who is arrested early in the story by a bigoted cop who sexually assaults her on the street during his search of her clothing. He’s searching to determine whether or not she’s wearing the legally-mandated three pieces of women’s clothing that would save her from an indecency charge as a cross-dresser. She isn’t; she goes to prison for ninety days. This sets up a major plot point later in the story, but for me the impact was more about Jack herself, her defiance in the face of a law she knew very well she was breaking, her anger, her self-destructive despair. Jack, fictional as she is, represents real people who really lived this reality. My ancestors are the dikes who wore men’s clothing during the time of the three-pieces law. I love her.
This was a character-driven read, for me. A couple years ago I reviewed Klages' short story collection, WICKED WONDERS, for Cascadia Subduction Zone Literary Quarterly, and was pleased to find several characters from various short stories appear together in this novella. Polly, the young British scientist working as a stage magician, is one of my favorites, and although I wish she got a little more page time in PASSING STRANGE I appreciate her contribution to the plot. Franny’s map-folding magic is one of my favorite speculative elements in Klages’ work, and I’m delighted to see it again.
Ellen Klages isn’t necessarily the first author who comes to mind when I think of my favorites, but the overwhelming feeling this novella left me with was that I want to write exactly like this. Lovely, vivid prose; striking, unique characters; realistic conversations that move the action; detailed grounding in real history alongside charming and ethereal magic; troubling dilemmas that are both personal and cosmic; clever, unusual solutions to those problems. I love everything about this.
That’s why my favorite character in this story is Jack, the piano player at Mona’s nightclub. Jack is an old-school butch dike who is arrested early in the story by a bigoted cop who sexually assaults her on the street during his search of her clothing. He’s searching to determine whether or not she’s wearing the legally-mandated three pieces of women’s clothing that would save her from an indecency charge as a cross-dresser. She isn’t; she goes to prison for ninety days. This sets up a major plot point later in the story, but for me the impact was more about Jack herself, her defiance in the face of a law she knew very well she was breaking, her anger, her self-destructive despair. Jack, fictional as she is, represents real people who really lived this reality. My ancestors are the dikes who wore men’s clothing during the time of the three-pieces law. I love her.
This was a character-driven read, for me. A couple years ago I reviewed Klages' short story collection, WICKED WONDERS, for Cascadia Subduction Zone Literary Quarterly, and was pleased to find several characters from various short stories appear together in this novella. Polly, the young British scientist working as a stage magician, is one of my favorites, and although I wish she got a little more page time in PASSING STRANGE I appreciate her contribution to the plot. Franny’s map-folding magic is one of my favorite speculative elements in Klages’ work, and I’m delighted to see it again.
Ellen Klages isn’t necessarily the first author who comes to mind when I think of my favorites, but the overwhelming feeling this novella left me with was that I want to write exactly like this. Lovely, vivid prose; striking, unique characters; realistic conversations that move the action; detailed grounding in real history alongside charming and ethereal magic; troubling dilemmas that are both personal and cosmic; clever, unusual solutions to those problems. I love everything about this.
This book was adooorable. I just wish it had been longer; the magic aspect seemed like an afterthought but it was cool and worth exploring. Still--1940s lesbian romance in San Francisco? Shut up and take my money. (Or, well, take my interlibrary loan request)
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated