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A review by reasie
At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories by Kij Johnson
5.0
Gorgeous, exquisite, and humbling writing. GAWGEOUS. I mean, like... wow. Read this book, read it now. I'll be over in a corner sobbing about my inability to ever write such breathtakingly beautiful short stories. K?
Um... details? Right. So there were a couple Japanese folk-tale-like things that were what I cared for least in the book, though I did like the one about The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles. It paired nicely with the last story in the book, which was about the stories dogs tell after they gain the ability to speak. The titular story, "At the Mouth of the River of Bees" is also gorgeous and about human-animal companionship. I would love to write a story like that, though I wouldn't be able to have it not have a scientific explanation. Maybe that's my big problem as a writer. I've got this snotty 12-year-old in the back of my mind shouting, "But what's the REAL reason this would happen?"
There are some more science-fictiony tales, and of course I liked those best. The longest is a novella about a man building a bridge on another world where a mysterious, caustic mist, peopled by man-eating ray-sharks, covers certain water bodies. I'm a total sucker for bridges, so they had me at the first use of the word "pylon". Though I kinda wish they'd had electricity and cars and stuff. It's oddly pre-modern engineering. Another story also had pre-modern humans on a strange world - a world where the day lasts years and Noon is boiling and Night a frozen waste and the people are nomads traveling forever in the habitable strip of Morning. Such wonderful worlds!
Johnson peoples her stories with strong, competent women and men of varying races and I like that a lot, too. Almost without exception, her stories end powerfully with a one-sentence climax/ending - the magic of unexpected yet inevitable.
Um... details? Right. So there were a couple Japanese folk-tale-like things that were what I cared for least in the book, though I did like the one about The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles. It paired nicely with the last story in the book, which was about the stories dogs tell after they gain the ability to speak. The titular story, "At the Mouth of the River of Bees" is also gorgeous and about human-animal companionship. I would love to write a story like that, though I wouldn't be able to have it not have a scientific explanation. Maybe that's my big problem as a writer. I've got this snotty 12-year-old in the back of my mind shouting, "But what's the REAL reason this would happen?"
There are some more science-fictiony tales, and of course I liked those best. The longest is a novella about a man building a bridge on another world where a mysterious, caustic mist, peopled by man-eating ray-sharks, covers certain water bodies. I'm a total sucker for bridges, so they had me at the first use of the word "pylon". Though I kinda wish they'd had electricity and cars and stuff. It's oddly pre-modern engineering. Another story also had pre-modern humans on a strange world - a world where the day lasts years and Noon is boiling and Night a frozen waste and the people are nomads traveling forever in the habitable strip of Morning. Such wonderful worlds!
Johnson peoples her stories with strong, competent women and men of varying races and I like that a lot, too. Almost without exception, her stories end powerfully with a one-sentence climax/ending - the magic of unexpected yet inevitable.