I loved this book. I already love short stories, but these were excellent.
“That the Machine May Progress Eternally” by Carrie Ryan is inspired by “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster. It is the tale of a man who goes underground and gets stuck there. While reading the story, I had mixed feelings. At the beginning I thought I was going to like it, then around the middle I became unsure about it. I didn’t know if I liked it or not. I didn’t like the main character AT ALL and had no idea why he wouldn’t make more of an effort to get out (I would have been kicking walls, screaming, and throwing things at people). When I got to the end, I realized how awesome the story was and I was very glad I read it. I’m giving it four stars instead of five because even though I liked it, I didn’t like the middle as much.
“Losing Her Divinity” by Garth Nix is based on “The Man Who Would be King” by Rudyard Kipling. It is the story of a goddess seeking escape from her immortality. I’ve heard very good things about books that Garth Nix has written. I really hope that those books are better than this. I don’t know what to say other than I just didn’t like the story. I didn’t connect with any characters, I didn’t enjoy the writing style. I started to read it, but I just got bored. I had to force myself to finish it. One star.
“The Sleeper and the Spindle” by Neil Gaiman is a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty”. I can’t find the right words to describe this story. All I can say is READ IT! It will probably be one of the best Sleeping Beauty retellings that you will ever find. Five stars.
“The Cold Corner” by Tim Pratt was inspired by Henry James’s “The Jolly Corner”. This is about a man who encounters alternate versions of himself during a trip home. This story was okay. It was better than some of the others, but it wasn’t my favorite. I would probably appreciate this story more if I read the original. Two and a half stars.
“Millcara” by Holly Black is a retelling of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and it is about vampires. I LOVED THIS STORY!!! I love most things written by Holly Black, but I LOVE when she writes about vampires!!! This was the first story I read and it gave me very high expectations for all the other stories in here. Fifty-thousand stars.
“When First We Were Gods” by Rick Yancey is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”. This story is about a man who finds a way through technology to kill his wife and live with her maid. I like the idea of people’s minds being saved every day so if something happened to them they could still survive. In the right hands, that could make a really good sci-fi story. But this is NOT that story. I didn’t like the characters or the writing style or anything. One star.
Horace Walpole’s “Otranto” is the seed for “Sirocco” by Margaret Stohl. This is a tragic love story/murder mystery of sorts. I probably shouldn’t have read this when I did. I read this one after I read “New Chicago”, “The Soul Collector”, “Awakened”, and “Millcara”. After reading four really good stories, this one really fell flat. I kept telling myself it had to get better, but it didn’t. Ever. Not even a little bit. One star.
“Awakened” by Melissa Marr was inspired by Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”. It is a selkie story and I have been loving selkie stories since I was very little. I loved this one too. I remember listening to an audiobook when I was little about a selkie who lost her skin. My sister and I listened to that repeatedly (much to the annoyance of my father). I have no words to describe the awesomeness of this story. If you like mermaids, read this. Even if you don’t like mermaids, read it anyway. Five stars.
“New Chicago” by Kelley Armstrong is a retelling of the “Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs. I remember reading The Monkey’s Paw when I was younger (I also remember thinking it was really creepy). Looking back on it, I would like it a lot more now. But I probably won’t like it as much as I like “New Chicago”. I loved the characters and the story and how it didn’t say what he wished for at the end. Five stars.
“The Soul Collector” by Kami Garcia was inspired by “Rumplestiltskin”. I LOVED this short story. I will definitely read the original, and probably read this again. And again. And again. Five stars.
“Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy” by Saladin Ahmed is a take on Sir Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene”. This is the tale of three brothers captured by a fairy. I didn’t like anything about this one. Maybe I didn’t like it because I read so many great short stories before I read this and expected something better? Probably. One star.
“Uncaged” by Gene Wolfe is a retelling of William Seabrook’s the “The Caged White Werewolf of the Saraban”. I read this one right after reading “Awakened”, and it wasn’t even close to being as good as that one. I didn’t like any of it and it didn’t make the most sense. One star.
I averaged my ratings for each story to get my final rating and I got this: 4169.291666666667 stars. But Goodreads won’t let me rate anything that high, so I’ll pretend the rating for “Millcara” is five instead of fifty-thousand. Now I have 3.041666666666667 stars. But I’ll round it up to four stars.
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