Published By: Tor
Pages: 400
Released On: 17/10/2024
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, the spirit tethered to a magical bridge rapidly approaches burnout – and craves her freedom. Elsewhere, Congress enacts a complex auditing system designed to un-waste your youth. We also follow a banished fairy, as she answers a Craigslist ad. And we meet a Victorian orphan, who gains literacy for her occult situationship. In another time and place, a multiverse assassin contemplates the one who got away.
Escape the slow trudge of mortality with these magical ruminations on life, death and the love (or revenge) that outlasts both. This collection also features modified fairy tales, contemporary heists, absurdist poetry and at least one set of actual wedding vows.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This book has been on my wishlist for ages and so I’m really grateful to be able to read an early copy of it.
I have somehow got to this stage without having read any of Olivie’s books, but I am not immune to the hype around her. I’m also generally not a short story fan but here we are. I have high hopes.
These stories are fantastic and whimsical and magical. I could have read them all day. They’re all linked, in theme if not in story.
As in any collection of short stories, there are some I enjoyed more than others and some I enjoyed less, some that spoke to me more or were easier to read. But even so, I don’t think there’s a story amongst them that I wouldn’t’ wish was turned into a longer story. For enjoyment purposes, or because I think a longer story would have made it a bit better. Some felt a bit too short or a bit too abstract, and I think they’d work better in a longer form. And some were just so lovely to read that I wanted to red more of it.
I must admit thought, that some of the longer stories lost me a little bit, they went off into weird directions and so I got a bit confused as to what they were on about, but I suppose a positive spin on that is it adds to the whimsical nature of the stories.
A good and bad point is that she uses a lot of floaty language, a lot of metaphors and whatnot, whish is great as it adds to the magical feel, but then it can be difficult to actually stay with what she’s trying to say. Some are more prose heavy than others, some more conversations etc. so you get a mixture.
There are a number of illustrations in the book – I’m not sure if they’re by Olivie’s hand or someone else’s – that are beautiful and really help the stories. It’s split into sections dedicated to the seasons, but I wasn’t too sure why they were split as, for me, I couldn’t say the stories in the winter section for instance were overly wintery etc.
I know that a lot of people read short story collections by reading one or two and then going back to it. I read it like a novel, cover to cover. And so I was fully invested and drawn into this magical world of love and lust, betrayal and distrust, magic and wonder.
I think I’ll definitely jump on the hype train and be sourcing her other books, now I see what all the fuss was about.
Books By Your Bedside 