{Put This One on Your TBR List}
Review of Miscellaneous Selections by T. Kingfisher/Ursula
Vernon
by Karen S. Wiesner
T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. She has a page on her Red Wombat website labeled Short Stories that includes links to her short stories and articles, some of which are included in a variety of different anthologies. From this page, you can read them free on her website and/or from online magazines.
Nearly all of these freebies have won awards, too. The genres run the gamut. There's a little of everything, as you'll soon see in the reviews below. I went into this endeavor not entirely sure what I was getting into, but I was pleasantly surprised for the most part with the majority of these selections that are worth seeking out. As they'll cost you nothing, you have everything to gain, nothing to lose!
Beware: May contain unintended spoilers!
"Jackalope Wives" and "The Tomato Thief"
by Ursula Vernon:
Although these two, connected stories are contained in T. Kingfisher's
collection Jackalope Wives and Other
Stories, they were written under the author's real name. Go figure. The duo
features Grandma Harken, a clever old woman who is far more than who…and what… she seems. She lives in a house
with its back to the desert, and she understands this harsh environment much
better than most. Her biting humor and compelling way of looking at the world
around her make both stories irresistible.
In "Jackalope
Wives", Grandma Harken's daughter Eve has a very foolish son who's,
unfortunately, much beloved by the females. However, he's only attracted to a
jackalope wife. This shy being has the capability of removing her skin to dance
under moonbeams. The boy does something stupid to obtain one, and Grandma
Harken has to set things right. This very unusual folktale has an interesting
message: "You get over what you can't
have faster than you get over what you could.
And we shouldn't always get what we think we want." Strange things happen
in the desert, indeed!
In
"The Tomato Thief", Grandma Harken is determined to find out who's
daring to steal her famous, homegrown tomatoes. The answer surprises her and
forces her to act. If she doesn't, those living in the desert will be in grave
danger. It's very hard not to fall in love with a story with lines like these
two gems: "Sometimes the best cure for life was a ripe tomato" and
"…there was no telling how low a body would sink once they'd started down
the road of tomato theft."
I loved both of these stories. They were my favorites of all included on this webpage. I'm left wanting more of Grandma Harken and her hilarious wisdom.
"Metal Like Blood in the Dark" by T. Kingfisher: Artificial intelligence
identifying as a brother and sister lose their creator and have to fend for
themselves in a universe their Father has warned won't be kind to them. Soon, Brother
and Sister are discovered by an alien creature that kidnaps and forces them to
work for him.
What an unexpectedly moving tale. I've never read anything quite like this tale that postulates the idea that lying is something like an error code in formatting and computer processing. "Lying was to be deliberately in error, and to express that error in others. Error without correction. Error entered into by choice." Further: "What did a lie do, once you let it loose? Did it sit still…or did it go spinning off into a chain reaction…" In a computer, processes and subprocesses might learn to "lie", which would wreak falsehoods and cause them to report back that something was fixed when it was still broken and vice versa. More than this, once you lie, you realize others could lie as well. With this knowledge, could a person or even a computer go back to how they were before learning the truth? In this story, Sister learns that knowing others lie could very well be the only way to keep from falling into error. But, oh to be ignorant of such darkness!
"The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society" by T. Kingfisher: Be prepared for raucous hilarity! Fairy man, bull selkie, and horse fae--three paranormal paramours get their comeuppance in a human woman with a taste for exotic lovers. While each has treated human females badly, they've never been on the other end of such ruthless seduction. They take to meeting regularly around a campfire to discuss the state of lingering wounds to their pride. This was quite a twist on Casanova stories. I'll be darned if I didn't burst out laughing nearly every sentence while reading this brief but very vivid sojourn into unexpected territory. Talk about perspective.
"Sun, Moon, Dust" by Ursula Vernon: This story clearly came to T. Kingfisher as a precursor (or a lingering leftover) of the days when she was writing Swordheart (do a search for my recent review of it on this blog). A farmer boy gets a magic sword from his dying grandmother. She instructs him to call forth the magic--three warrior spirits that are bound inside the sword--who will teach him. But his grandmother is wrong about who will be teaching whom. Sometimes the learned ancient can discover something new from the young and simple. I enjoyed the twist in this story.
"Elegant and Fine": This one wasn't
ascribed to either T. Kingfisher or Ursula Vernon. It was probably the only one
I didn't love. The author puts Susan from C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles as
the main character and has her pining for a Dwarf lover she never knew the name
of when she has to return to the real world--and her life as a child. I don't
like it when a writer takes someone else's work and does things with it that
the original author probably would never have wanted. I wish this story had cast
a wholly unique character from the author's own imagination into the
thought-provoking scenario she presented here. Sigh. But enough said about
that.
"Godmother": Another entry not ascribed to either author name. According to the author, it was the catalyst for T. Kingfisher's Nettle & Bone (which I've already reviewed on this blog). There's something poetic about this flash-fiction that evoked lovely images cast in shadows and equal amounts of confusion for me.
"Bluebeard's Wife" also doesn't have an author listed but it was included in the T. Kingfisher Toad Words and Other Stories collection. Pirate Bluebeard's notorious, bloodthirsty reputation with women doesn't faze Althea. She believes the best of her new husband and no one can speak a bad word about him in her presence. I won't ruin it completely, beyond saying, sometimes rumors have a basis in truth. I enjoyed the story written very vividly in Althea's point of view--with her rose-colored glasses on…until they're rudely knocked clean off her face.
"Origin Story" by T. Kingfisher: This story was also included in the Jackalope Wives and Other Stories collection. In this disturbing tale, a fairy works in a charnel house, taking apart dead beasts and creating something new. Not surprisingly, the humans find her creepy. You'll need a strong stomach and solid backbone to get through this one. I would be surprised if you don't get a chill, as I did, at the end of the story.
"History, Discovery, and the Quiet Heroics of Gardening" by Ursula Vernon: Those who have read a lot of this author's stories know she's an avid gardener and her experiences have made into to many, many of her fiction projects. I'm a new convert to gardening, so I was fascinated. Whether or not you have any personal interest in gardening, this essay will teach you something new. I've never thought about how heirloom vegetables may have come back from the edge of extinction because of the aggressive actions of a few fearless and utterly tenacious gardeners. Kingfisher says that this has influenced her writing, as she's found herself writing about unlikely heroes intent on saving one small but important thing.
~*~
There's really no way to go wrong here. If you haven't previously read any of T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon's work, most everything included on this page would be a great introduction that won't cost you a penny. If you're a fan, you might find something here you haven't read before. In any case, I think you'll want to read more. This prolific author and extremely talented illustrator are well worth your time and money--I fully expect, as I have, you'll be happily willing to pay to read much more of her fine work.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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