The Green Man Review

Death is the only god that comes when you call. — Roger Zelazny’s 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai 

I’ve been reading a lot of Zelazny this winter as he’s one of the writers I go to when I want to be absolutely sure of  a good read that’s interesting but not too challenging. He’s not a perfect SF writer by any means but his characters are interesting, his settings reasonably thought out and his stories generally well developed. Right now I’m reading Donnerjack which just perhaps was written mostly by Jane Lindskold whose relationship with him is uncertain. It certainly wasn’t completed before his much too early death since it consisted, or so it is said, largely of notes and story fragments.

There’s been ample reading time as no one’s been going outside on the Kinrowan Estate ground save essential staff as our most recent storm by the name of Freya brought dangerous amounts of snow and freezing ice this week here. The Kitchen staff has as always been making lots of soups and they gotten into serving American style biscuits with them which means that I can get those for breakfast when I want them. Ham, egg and cheddar cheese, Border strawberry jam and butter… I’m drooling now.

Denise dug into her almost toppling To Be Read pile and has three non-fiction reviews for us, Jen has two very yummy recipes, our What Not is a double dose of de Lint’s Crow Girls,  our music reviews include lots of interesting music and the Tim O’Brien Band sees us out this time. So let’s get started…

Denise digs into her stash of nonfiction this go-round, and reviews My Beer Year by Lucy Burningham, a memoir of Burningham’s studies for a Master Cicerone certification. ‘ [S]he tackles her year of living with beer just as dutifully as she did her beer studies, delivering a fun real-life tale.’

Ever wonder what it must be like to run a kitchen? Wonder how an award winning female chef does it? That’s all in Jen Agg’s I Hear She’s A Real Bitch. ‘Agg’s unflinching look at her life feels like a master class in the art of running a restaurant…’ Well, read Denise’s review to find out more!

And Denise finishes her hat-trick of nonfiction book reviews this edition with Reading Stephen King, a collection of essays from Cemetery Dance. ‘This collection has the vibe of King’s Danse Macabre – a feeling that you’re not really reading, you’re having a mind conversation.’ If you’re into Uncle Stevie – or just enjoy essays from very talented folks – check out the review to find out who’s got what to say about King’s oeuvre.

The Ides of Octember: A Pictorial Biblography of Roger Zelazny is, I’ll  note, ‘a bibliography which was prepared as part of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, a six volume undertaking, of which you’ll find the first volume, Threshold, reviewed here.’ Read my review on this bibliography which admittedly only diehard Zelazny fans or libraries with a strong  sf emphasis will consider buying, so quite naturally we have a copy here in the Kinrowan Estate Library.

If there is one essential work by Zelazny, it’s the The Great Books of Amber which Rebecca says of that ‘Zelazny has a distinctive and entertaining voice, and an easy way with a story. I highly recommend the Amber series.’ Read her detailed review to see why, despite some reservations, why she really likes this series. For a second take on the first five books which form the first story in the series, read Cat’s review of the audiobooks here.

For those who are still enjoying a winter refrigerated by frequent polar vortices and ornamented with snow, snow, snow, Jen cooks up a cold-weather stew of beef chunks with smoky dried guajillo peppers and fresh mushrooms, splashed with wine and served with beer.

Do you love the tastes of Thai? She also  brings us coconut milk, ginger, lime, garlic, cilantro, and mild curry together in a thick, hearty seafood chowder with shrimp, scallops, and … peanut butter? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak’s Brundibar gets a review from Rebecca: ‘Pepicek (very small) and Aninku (his sister, even smaller) have a problem: their mother is very sick. The doctor told them to go to town to get milk, but how can two children who have no money buy milk? And how can they get money when they have nothing to sell? They could sing for money … except that Brundibar (Czech slang for bumblebee) can sing much louder than two small children, and he chases them off. With the help of three talking animals, three hundred schoolchildren, and eventually the whole town, they chase off bullying Brundibar, get money and milk for their mommy, and so are happy again.’

Gary must’ve liked the self-titled debut by Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves, for he says ‘this is a highly entertaining album of old-time music drawn from a wide variety of sources, played by two very talented young people who sound like they’re having a great time.’

Kjell-Erik Arnesen’s Calls and Jrgen Larsen and Frydis Ree Wekre’s Ceros are recommended by Joel — ‘Both of these albums are horn-based. The horn is much less popular, it seems, than its cousins in the brass family. Most jazz bands have saxophone, trombone, and trumpet sections (in order of decreasing size), but no horns. I haven’t heard much where the horn was the primary instrument before now (nor as the only brass instrument), but two talented horn players demonstrate its versatility on these albums.’

Robert, as we’ve come to expect, has something a little out of the ordinary — or at least, ‘ordinary’ for GMR. The Dowland Project’s Romaria is a contemporary collection of early music: ‘I’ve remarked often enough on the relative importance of tradition and innovation in performance (which I consider variables) that I have no real need to repeat myself here, except to note that any performer who is working with material that he or she has not personally created is really negotiating with the past.’

He follows sup with Stephen Emmer’s Recitement, which — well, as Robert says: ‘I love it: pop culture invades the avant-garde. OK – now I’ve got that off my chest and am sitting here listening to Stephen Emmer’s Recitement. It’s really popular music, and Emmer has boosted it up a level in the “serious” vein by coupling it with spoken word segments from a wide range of speakers: actors, authors, artists, performers, many of whom are household names (at least in this household), and some of whom are total strangers.’

Our What Not is something that strictly speaking should’ve gone up over Christmas but it’s such a charming story that I decided to share it again now. So let’s start off  this time with a look at Charles de Lint’s Newford Stories: The Crow Girls. Of all the immortal shapeshifting beings that inhabit the Newford stories, the most charming, at least for me, are Maida and Zia, the two Crow Girls, who look like pinkish teenagers — all in black, naturally. After you read Cat’s review, you can experience them first hand in ‘A Crow Girls Christmas’ written by (obviously) the author and charmingly illustrated by his equally talented wife, MaryAnn Harris.

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up soon, we’re pleased to be able to feature a special track from American roots musician Tim O’Brien’s new release. Tim O’Brien Band‘s self-titled CD drops on St. Paddy’s day itself, Friday, March 15. It’s a sprightly cover of the tune set of “Hop Down Reel / Johnny Doherty’s Reel,” from Irish fiddlers Kevin Burke (The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, Celtic Fiddle Festival, and, well, Kevin Burke) and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh (Altan, String Sisters, T With the Maggies). It’s a lovely blending of Irish and bluegrass styles and traditions. More about the album at O’Brien’s website.

It’s a double celebration, too, because the day after St. Patrick’s Day, O’Brien will mark his 65th birthday! Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on March 16, 1954, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist first toured nationally with Colorado bluegrass band Hot Rize, which last year marked 40 years as a band. Over the years, Tim has collaborated with his sister Mollie O’Brien, songwriter Darrell Scott, and noted old-time musician Dirk Powell, as well as with Kevin Burke, Steve Earle, Mark Knopfler, Bill Frisell, and Steve Martin.

Without further ado, here’s Hop Down Reel / Johnny Doherty’s Reel with the Tim O’Brien Band. Sláinte!

I’ve always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking—by which time I’ve generally destroyed all basis for further conversation. — Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal, a novel that stated life as Call Me Conrad, a novella

It’s but three weeks until Spring officially arrives and I actually saw yellow crocuses up against the south side of Kinrowan Hall this past week! Which promptly got buried under a foot of snow several days later. Oh well. They’ll soon be back as the snow will soon melt away as the sun’s too strong for it to last that long.

One moment while I feed Hamish, one of our resident hedgehogs, his live grubs. I keep trying to convince him to try woodworms, but a hedgehog is not an innovator. Unfortunately. Ingrid, one of my Seveal Annies, is in charge of maintaining the supply of the grubs, not an easy task. Though I usually only note Hamish here, we’ve actually a half dozen ‘hedgies here as they’re social beasts.

The Library is its usual busy self this time on a Winter evening so I’ll need to turn to my duties so I’ll have to let you go. Now that means you can get to this Edition. You’ll find a visiting author on his favourite Tolkien work, Jen on a yummy recipe of hers,  Cat on a rather unique Doctor Who graphic novel, another author we adore sharing her hedge photos and other neat stuff as well. Oh and and live music from the Oysterband tonsee us out.

Book reviews aren’t the only source of opinions on literature here. Sometimes we ask authors questions like which of the Tolkien books is their favourite one. James Stoddard, author of The High House whose first chapter you can read here and The False House, when asked that question said ‘Is this a trick question? The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece in so many ways. I recently listened to a reading of the trilogy on CD. Despite having read the book five or six times, I was amazed at how it kept my attention. Only the Council of Elrond chapter flags a bit for me. I see the work differently every time I read it. I thought Sam a silly fellow when I read the book as a fifteen-year-old; now his constant loyalty invariably moves me. But the best part of many excellent scenes is at the Crossroads–the thrown down head of the statue of the ancient king, garlanded with flowers, a single ray of sunlight shining on the shattered visage. ‘They cannot conquer forever,’ Frodo says, and my eyes always unexpectedly mist over. It is the book’s theme, captured in four words. Brilliant.’

Donna R. White’s A Century of Welsh Myth in Children’s Literature is examined by Robert: ‘The prospect of an adult discussion of some of my favorite childhood authors has great appeal, if only because it legitimates my occasional re-reading of Alan Garner and Lloyd Alexander as an adult. Although my adult self wishes to quarrel with certain aspects of their interpretation of the Mabinogi (a series of Welsh tales told orally for centuries and then written down in various forms), their work undeniably had a great impact on how I came to view the world, at least the best parts of it. White delivers a very competent discussion of both Garner and Alexander, particularly the influence of poet Robert Graves‚ White Goddess on both authors, and includes enough interview material to satisfy adult fans looking for a reason to revisit these works.’

Scott has for us a review of Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings, a book that has some serious flaws. Michael Perry’s book is a mixed bag for him: ‘Perry intends the book to serve as a reference to The Lord of the Rings, enabling the reader to get a better sense of what events happened simultaneously in the story, where in Tolkien’s writings a particular event is described, and a deeper appreciation of the structural coherence of Tolkien’s work. Untangling Tolkien generally succeeds in these regards, especially the latter; this book is essentially an exposition on Tolkien’s attention to chronological detail. Unfortunately, the book also gives every appearance of having been put together in great haste, as though the publishers were more concerned with releasing the book by a certain date than with presenting the best possible book.’

Warner brings us a new take on an old fairy tale in Leife Shalcross’ The Beast’s Heart: ‘The retelling of fairy tales is a time honored tradition. As a result, Leife Shallcross’s The Beast’s Heart is in excellent company. This volume attempts to do a perspective flip, by focusing upon the Beast of Beauty and the Beast rather than a more usual view of following the young woman. It is a clever decision, as the character is not quite an antagonist and thus somewhat easier to make sympathetic, but it’s still an unexpected point of view for such a tale.’

Robert takes a look back at one of the ‘new’ James Bond films, Skyfall: ‘Full disclosure: I was an early James Bond fan, and saw all of the early films. Then, as happens sometimes with early enthusiasms, I lost track of them, but did give myself a treat one Christmas Eve and caught the remake of Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. After that, it was probably pretty much a given that I’d be up for Skyfall, the next release in the saga — Daniel Craig and Judi Dench: how could you go wrong?’

Jen revisits the Indiana Dunes home of an environmentalist family friend with a heartwarming dish of potatoes rough-cooked with chipotle peppers and garlic. Her ymmmy recipe can be found thisaway.

For all you Dr. Who fans out there — you know who you are — Cat has a look at what may be the ultimate Dr. Who comic: The Thirteenth Doctor, The Many Lives of Doctor Who: ‘So being interested in what they’d published, I purchased the one that appears to be the first in the series. What it turned out to be is a rather interesting way to bring delight to fans of the series by giving them a conversation that spanned all Thirteen Doctors and many of the Companions in a manner that was both fun and refreshingly well-done for this sort of comic.’

Nearly twenty years ago, Barb went to see Childsplay at the Street Church in Portland, Maine:‘Imagine anywhere from 21 to 28 fiddlers/violin players on one stage with a rhythm section, throw in a random banjo or wooden flute … sound like a party?’ Childsplay is still holding these annual concerts twenty years later,  this past year saw them undertake a Pacific Northwest tour.

Joe K. Walsh, a talented mandolinist, singer and songwriter in the progressive stringband vein, has released his debut solo CD. ‘Borderland is full of excellent ensemble music all around, with solid contributions from all involved,’ Gary says.

Iain looks at an opera based on a Grimm story:  ‘Philip Glass, one of my favourite composers, and his fellow composer Robert Moran, whom I had not encountered before, collaborated magnificently in equal measure on the composition of The Juniper Tree. Each Glass scene is followed by a Moran scene, with transitions composed by each. The result works a lot better than I expected, though the styles of each composer are quite different and neither surrenders anything of his own identity. If you like Glass, you’ll want to hear this opera.’

Let Kim calm the frisson of fear that might steal up your spine upon reading the words ’12th century chants, 21st century sounds.’ With her review of Garmarna’s Hildegard von Bingen, she assures you that you don’t have to worry about the commercial appropriation of Gregorian chants; rather, you can look forward to ‘a powerful interpretation of medieval music brought forward through astonishing vocals and accompaniment, that for the most part, really work.’

Lars finishes off his review of McDermott’s 2 Hours’ Besieged by saying ‘I could go through the record track by track, but just believe me, If you are looking for something powerful, with good singing and musicianship, variation, catching melody lines this could be for you. Highly enjoyable.’ Now go read his full review to see why he say this.

Vonnie finishes out our music reviews with a look at an album in which they returned to their roots with a collaborator: ‘June  Tabor has reunited with the Oysterband for a second album, Ragged Kingdom and the two suit each other better now than when the first album, Freedom and Rain, made in 1991. Considering that the first album was magnificent, many of us had high expectations for this album. It a very different creature, and very good.’

Our What Not comes courtesy of Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife, who had a charming essay back one May on a favourite subject around the Kinrowan Estate, as our in-house journal’s aptly named The Sleeping Hedgehog: ‘It’s Hedgehog Awareness Week, sponsored by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. I adore hedgehogs…’, so she shares some of her favourite hedgie photos and gives us a look at them in myth and folklore down the centuries. You can read it here.

Now what shall I leave you with for music? Let’s see what sounds cool… So how about the  ‘Red Barn Stomp’ which is  a traditional sounding tune by the Oysterband that was actually composed by band member John Jones? It was performed in Minneapolis in 1991.

Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give
all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.—  Henry V

Over the years, we’ve reviewed a lot of food and drink related material here, from novels that had food as an allegory for sex (and the subsequent movie was damn hot) to  SF authors that wrote amazing space operas, who sort of conned their publisher into financing  them in exploring the great whisky distilleries of Scotland. So we’ve decided without further ado to select many of those reviews to be showcased here.

Denise revisits her review of Anthony Bourdain’s The Nasty Bits for this special edition. ‘To keep things on the up-n-up, I must confess this is a re-print of the piece I wrote back in ’06. I could change tenses, and/or mention Bourdain’s passing, but I’m still in denial. So here ’tis, unsullied by the march of time. Rest ye well, Tony.’ Read her review for her look at this collection of essays by a master chef and traveler.

OK, I must offer up one of our favourite food reviews ever which is the Two Fat Ladies DVD set. If ever there was a series that felt like it was Autumn all the time, it is that one Kathleen and her sister Kage wrote up. The series documented that they were brilliant English cooks who rode a motorcycle with a sidecar, drank excessively, smoked whenever they pleased and cooked using bloody great hunks of meat, butter and anything else that isn’t ‘tall good for you. And funny as all Hell as well which indeed the review is too.

Richard has this book for us: ‘Admittedly, most consumers of ice cream wouldn’t care if the first ice cream cone sprang, fully formed, from the forehead of Zeus, but for those who are actually curious about where their double-dip hot fudge sundaes originated – and who don’t want to read a tome the size of a cinderblock – there’s Ivan Day’s slender Ice Cream.’

Kelly takes a look this week at Sara Perry’s The Tea Deck. She says, ‘As the now almost mythical door-to-door encyclopedia salesman knew, the opportunity to sell your product goes up exponentially once you’ve gotten it into the hands of a customer.’ How does this relate to a Tea Deck… and just what the hell is one?

Meanwhile Stephen has something more boozy he looks at: ‘And so I address myself to the matter in hand, the very pleasant task of reviewing Raw Spirit — In Search of The Perfect Dram by Iain Banks, “Uber-MAB” and (according to The Times) “the most imaginative British novelist of his generation.” The central premise of the book is that the author undertakes a mammoth road-trip around Scotland, tours its numerous distilleries, and recounts his adventures and experiences along the way. Given that Banks’ four principal passions appear to be writing, the driving of exotic four and two-wheeled machinery, whisky and his native land, this, as he cheerfully admits, is a “cushy” gig.’

Cat R. looks at some candy that is a favourite of hers: ‘Having recently discovered that my favorite gummi bears were possibly made with child labor, I went looking for a substitute recently and picked up a bag of Albanese Mini Gummi Butterflies.’  Now go read her insightful look at what makes for a great candy treat.

Sanchis Mira Turron de Alicante also gets reviewed by Cat R: ‘This candy is a Christmas delicacy in Spain, a dense honey and almond brittle with a generous helping of the latter (the label says at least 60% almond.) The company, based in Alicante, Spain, is well-established, having been turning out the product along with other sweet treats since 1863 and this candy will definitely have a nostalgic appeal for some folks with a Hispanic heritage.’

Chris has something to warm up with, and an extra treat as well, when he brings us a look at Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate and Ghirardelli’s Dark Twilight Delight and Peppermint Bark. Both, he thinks, are a bit decadent and maybe the least little bit self-indulgent, but you’re worth it.

Ahhh beer infused beef jerky.  Denise dives into a bag of Righteous Felon Jerky Cartel’s Victorious B.I.G. Beef Jerky, and in-between licking the bag for stray crumbs, managed to write a review. ‘…this collaboration is all PA, and it feels like a match made in beer and beef heaven.’ Want to know more? Read her review!

Gary reports back from the wilds of New Zealand on an exotic candy treat: RJ’s Licorice Choc Twists. ‘As soon as I bit into one, I was hooked. They’re fat little chunks of licorice twist, about 1.5 inches long, with milk chocolate filling the hole in the middle of the tube. Though soft, the licorice gives a very satisfying little “pop” when you bite into it. It’s very good licorice, though you wouldn’t call it “gourmet.” And the chocolate likewise is just good enough.’

Jen is without doubt a quite amazing baker as her offering this week demonstrates: ‘This cake is a real punch in the mouth—extreme chocolate and extreme lemon. Because I’m extremely lazy and because Ghirardelli makes that lovely brownie mix in a box, I use their mix, adding only an extra egg and using butter, but you can go nuts and use your own recipe. Remember that butter is your friend, beating the batter is a no-no, and flouring the pan with cocoa helps make it OMG. I serve it in very small slices with hot tea.’

Back at the dawnatime when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the Klingons were the enemy, Asian-style cooking became fashionable. Jen shares a recipe for Hot Pepper Chicken and Smoked Oysters that she came up with, using those fun ingredients we could barely pronounce back then.

Robert looks back to days of yore, and the ultimate Chicago-style pizza, now at your grocer’s frozen food section: Gino’s East Classic Sausage Patty Frozen Pizza: ‘Once upon a time, late in my college career and for some time therafter, one of the places we used to go for a good, relatively inexpensive meal was a restaurant called Gino’s, on Rush Street on Chicago’s Near North Side. It was down a short flight of stairs from the street, dimly lit, usually crowded, and sort of rough around the edges — a perfect student place. It also served what was arguably the best Chicago-style pizza ever: deep dish, loaded with toppings, and one pizza would feed a party of four, even in the hungry days of our youth.’

And from the other side of the world, but available nearby, is Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala Frozen Entree, for those who don’t always have time to cook: ‘I decided I had to check out Trader Joe’s, not without some misgivings — I had checked out Whole Foods a while back and left reeling at the prices. But an acquaintance works there, and he said I should give it a try. I got stopped at the frozen foods section when I ran across the Indian dinners, which were quite reasonably priced — about $3.50 each. They had three varieties in stock, so I grabbed a couple of the Chicken Tikka Masala entrees.’

And of course, there’s chocolate the top it all off. (Gotta have our chocolate.) Robert has some tasty treats: Green & Black’s Organic Milk Chocolate, Organic Maya Gold and Organic Bittersweet Dark Chocolate: ‘The provenance of the name, “Green & Black’s,” should be obvious: organic chocolate with a dark, rich color and flavor.’

Our single music review this outing is Randy Armstrong’s Dining On The Diner which has the dubious honour of being the first recording that got legal action threatened by the artist against us for defamation. Big Earl, a Canadian baker, just wasn’t pleased with either the music or the recipes in the booklet. And no, we didn’t get sued and so here’s the review for you to read!

Our What Not this time is our oft asked question about what a favored libation is. Kathleen Bartholomew, sister of the late sf writer Kage Baker and a fine writer as well,  waxes nostalgic:  ‘Nova Albion of blessed memory – a bright copper, richly hopped ale with an aftertaste of roses. But in the world of beers I can actually get my hands on … maybe Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale, full of fresh new Zealand hops. Or Lagunitas Censored Ale. Or even the venerable Bass Ale — served room temperature, of course. With straw floating on the top. I like hops…’

And for a Coda to this edition, what could be more fitting than a paean to “Food, Glorious Food!” From the film Oliver!:

Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.

Seanan McGuire’s Indexing

I’ve been reading Haunted England, which is the work of Jennifer Westwood, who notes in Albion: Guide to Legendary Britain that ‘legend-making is not something that took place in the dim and distant past but a continuing process.’ We’ve reviewed more books than I care to count where authors such as Jane Yolen (The Wild Hunt), Pamela Dean (Tam Lin), Charles de Lint (The Cats of Tanglewood Forest) and Terri Windling (The Wood Wife) use folkloric stories and give a fresh feel to them.

We all tell stories, too, as it’s an intrinsic aspect of we do. How we tell a Story is shaped by who we are and what we know, say that cup of Mexican cocoa your housemate made for you when you came in on a cold,  stormy evening because that’s how you like it, or that new novel sought out by you in hard cover because that’s how you wanted to read it, has a story behind that decision as well.

Those are some of the stories we all tell. Green Man is a set of stories told by everyone who has been a part of it down the many decades. If you decide to email us, your comments become of that story too. Now let’s see what we’ve got for you this edition…

Gary looks at a perennial favorite of lots of us: ‘The long and colorful publishing history of Tolkien’s The Hobbit continues with a new edition that seems to be aimed at reclaiming the written version of the story as a way to introduce it to young readers. It’s a handsome hardcover book with illustrations by the young Jemima Catlin, who was hand-picked for the assignment by the Tolkien Estate.’

Lory says of this mystery series: ‘Before there was Lyra Belacqua, there was Sally Lockhart. Prior to creating the unforgettable Lyra of The Golden Compass and its blockbuster sequels, Philip Pullman was perhaps best known for his trio of books featuring another kick-ass female: a pistol-packing, checkbook-balancing, mystery-solving Victorian orphan. I adored these books as a teenager (like Sally herself, I was sixteen when the first volume was published), but hadn’t read them in years when the chance came to review them for GMR. Would they still be as compelling as I remembered, half a lifetime later?’

Richard has this lead-in to a classic English work of fantasy: ‘The first fully fledged novel in the Robert Holdstock’s epic novel cycle is Mythago Wood. The book, which first saw print in 1984 (though part of it appeared earlier in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) is awash in both the Oedipal struggle and the Jungian subjective unconscious. At its heart, it’s a tale of family struggle. Sons war against each other for the love of a woman, and both struggle against their monstrous, inhuman father. Or so it seems.’ And though he’s doesn’t note it in that review, he does note in later reviews of other novels in the series that Mythago Wood is a character unto itself.

Desiring an engaging and lengthy fantasy for your Winter reading? Robert has the work for you: ‘I was surprised some while back to discover that Patricia A. McKillip’s Riddle-Master Trilogy was marketed as young-adult fantasy when it was first published. I don’t think I’m particularly backward in terms of understanding what I read, and I was in my thirties when I first read the books (which have earned an unchallengeable place on my “reread frequently” list), and I knew there were things I was missing. Even in a recent re-reading, the trilogy is a complex, subtle and evocative story that lends itself to much deeper examination than one might expect.

And something a little out of the ordinary for our film selection this week — but only a little. Robert has some comments on the Bleach Movie 2: The Diamond Dust Rebellion: ‘The Diamond Dust Rebellion is the second animated feature based on Tite Kubo’s very popular manga series, Bleach. It won’t leave you as completely at sea as did Memories of Nobody if you’re not familiar with the series, but the more you know, the more fun you’ll have.’

Robert brings us a look at several takes on a new series with the first being the writer’s own: ‘Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic — the original story, not the series — began when DC Comics approached Gaiman about doing a series that would bring together the “magic” characters of the DC Universe. Gaiman created the character of Timothy Hunter, a twelve-year-old boy who has the potential to become the greatest magician of the age — our age.’

And we continue with John Ney Rieber’s continuation of the series: ‘John Ney Rieber’s continuation of Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic is a complex, multilayered story that focuses not so much on Gaiman’s mythic connections (although they are there in full measure) as on Tim Hunter: finding his magic, and his bearings in the world(s) he inhabits is intimately tied in with growing up, which Tim does a lot of in this series.’

And finally, Robert brings us his take on the ‘update,” Si Spencer’s The Books of Magick: Life During Wartime: ‘Life During Wartime represents a distinct break with The Books of Magic as it had been developed by Neil Gaiman and John Ney Rieber. Si Spencer, working with Gaiman, “updated” the characters and took them into a new set of trials that speak strongly to a contemporary audience.’

April recommends Groove — ‘A sextet from Sweden, Hoven Droven live up to their name, which roughly translates to ”Helter Skelter.” To call their music merely sprightly would be an insult; to say they are just energetic, a gross understatement. The eighteen instrumental tracks on this compilation seem to quite literally pulse with vibrant life and energy, driven by Kjell-Erik Eriksson’s fierce (or one might say fearsome) fiddle playing, and embellished by instruments as diverse as flugelhorn, Harjedals-flute, saxophone and congas. Lest one assume though, that they are all sound and fury, with little or no talent, never fear, the music is never bombastic, but crisp, clean and well played.’

Brendan has a tasty recording from Finland for your consideration: ‘JPP — short for Järvelän Pikkupelimannit (” Little Folk Musicians of Järvelä”) — originally formed in 1983 as a local fiddle orchestra in the small town of Järvelä, Finland. Formed around the nucleus of 3 fiddlers, including leader Arto Järvelä, a harmonium player, and a bass player, they spent most of the Eighties and early Nineties gathering a devoted following in Finland and across the world and the reputation of being particularly inventive interpreters of Finland’s rich folk heritage. With the publication of Kaustinen Rhapsody, JPP proved itself to be excellent performers of contemporary music as well.’

Michael  looks at Karelia Visa — ‘A previous Hedningarna CD that I had the pleasure of hearing (Kaksi!) had far more of a folk-rock feel, which I believe is more typical of the band’s style. On this album, however, they have chosen to interpret the pieces in a more traditional, acoustic style. This may be due to the respect they afford the material, which is localised to the Karelia region, on the border between Finland and Russia.’

Scott has a look at two albums by a then young Nordic group, Frigg — namely, their Live album and a new studio album, Economy Class: ‘With their self-titled debut CD and their sophomore effort Oasis, Frigg have quickly established themselves as the best young band in Nordic folk music. . . . With an independently released live album from last year and a brand new CD called Economy Class released in Europe over the summer (Northside will release it in the U. S. in October), the core septet have been augmented by a number of frequently recurring guest musicians, including some vocalists. The basic concept of Frigg remains unchanged, though, as does their commitment to quality output.’

It’s several weeks past Candlemas so there’s definitely a feel that we’re headed towards Spring even if Winter is still holding us in Her grip. So let’s see I can find some spritely music to see out off this Edition. So how about ‘The Ginger Grouse Jigs’ recorded at the Shetland Folk Festival six years ago on a warm Summer evening by Skerryvore? This Scots band came together sixteen years ago and is quite splendid indeed.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

William Butler Yeats

Ahhhh, cinnamon buns. Yes that’s the heavenly smell coming from the Kitchen this cold Winter morning, when a tasty treat would warm both the body and spirit of just about anyone, I’d think. These cinnamon buns are courtesy of a Several Annie from Sweden by the name of Tindra who was apprenticed here under one of my predecessors nigh well over a century ago.

She claimed that the recipe has been handed down from mother to daughter for generations beyond counting, along with how to make proper cardamom coffee. Yes I know that’s a Turkish coffee tradition but family customs are oft times complicated, aren’t they?

So if you drop by here this morning by whatever means possible,  you’ll find those cinnamon buns and her cardamom coffee waiting for you. If a certain traveler can make it here from really distant shores, so can you.

Christopher Finch’s Jim Henson: The Works: The Art, The Magic, The Imagination gets a well- deserved review by Cat: ‘This is another authorised project by the Jim Henson Company making it akin to Imagination Illustrated which I reviewed here. It’s even copyrighted by Jim Henson Productions! Unlike that book, it actually covers the life of Jim from birth, in a nifty little laid-in booklet. That’s after not one but three introductions by Harry Belafonte, Frank Oz, and Candice Bergen. Belafonte and Bergen were just two of the many, many actors who appeared on The Muppet Show.’

Cat also has a review of Kage Baker’s Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen: ‘This volume collects what was obviously a labor of love by Kage (which I can confirm as we had ongoing email based conversations while she was writing these) and kept them up even as her health declined badly in her last months among us. Kathleen has done us a service by editing this collection of the Tor columns in a volume you can read with considerable enjoyment and actually learn something really interesting at the same time!’

Grey says of Medicine Road that ‘I suppose it’s fitting, for a story about twos, that the creators are two Charleses. Charles Vess’s illustrations make this not-so-simple fable deeper and richer. Vess combines line drawing and painting in a way that makes his pictures simultaneously vividly life-like and fairy tale-remote.’

There’s a bar in the above novel where the Dillard sisters play called A Hole in The Wall, which de Lint borrowed from Terri Windling’s The Wood Wife. It’s possible that The Wood Wife is the first novel  to take full advantage of the myths of Southwest USA and Mexican region. And Grey notes that it is ‘not only an expertly-crafted tale of suspense. It also stands squarely within the realm of modern fantasy. Windling’s Arizona desert comes alive with fey beings, shapeshifters small and great that are as mysterious and amoral as any European Fair Folk, yet practical and earthy and distinctively Native American in their coloration.’

Kage, author of The Company series featuring  time traveling cyborg immortals who love chocolate, was a great film fan as you can see from Cat’s review of her Ancient Rockets collection above and it’s no wonder she liked this film: ‘Blessed with a cast that included Sir Ralph Richardson as the Supreme Being, David Warner as Evil, and Sean Connery as King Agamemnon (and a fireman), Time Bandits is a classic magical adventure story in the mold of E. Nesbit’s books, but with an updated edge and a sharper sense of humor. Unlike most candy-coated parables handed out to kids, it tells no lies and ends in a brutal and surprisingly exhilarating way.’

Denise dives into Heavy Seas Brewing’s Blackbeard’s Breakfast Salted Caramel Porter, a limited edition brew that adds a touch of candy to their popular porter. What’d she think? ‘I can add one more to the very short list of barrel age-ers that I will definitely seek out. Salted Caramel (let’s just call it BBSC) is a delightful, complex and decidedly friendly porter that will please the palate of any dark beer lover.’ Read her review to find out why she’s a fan!

Robert brings us a light-hearted comic about what could be the end of humanity. Seriously: ‘The Griff, scripted by Christopher Moore and Ian Corson, and drawn by Jennyson Rosero, is a story of the Apocalypse, told while said Apocalypse is happening. It was developed, we are told, from the script for a film — Corson is a film director — that Moore and Corson realized was never going to be made. And here it turned out to be ideal for a comic.

Gary enjoyed a big new four-CD set of folk music from around the world from Smithsonian Folkways. ‘The theme of the set is revealed by its title The Social Power of Music as it looks at the way music affects the lives of individuals and social groups all over the world. It’s primarily drawn from American music but includes a generous sampling of music from other traditions worldwide.’

Mike sees a legendary group: ‘The Dubliners are true legends of folk music, having now performed together as a group for 44 years. Many of the stories they tell of Dublin, are of a city that has all but disappeared in this day and age, and they are now as much a part of folklore as the songs and tunes that they perform.’

Robert has a look at a master musician, Keith Jarrett, as revealed in Radiance: ‘Keith Jarrett is a remarkable example of the phenomenon of the performer/composer. Although he is generally considered a jazz pianist — one of the finest — I first became acquainted with his work through his recordings of the twentieth century repertoire, as soloist in works by composers such as Colin McPhee and Lou Harrison. I guess that just goes to show that Jarrett has small patience with categories.’

A Welsh band live once caught the ear of Vonnie: ‘Crasdant plays music to warm your heart and tells tales to tickle your funnybone. This Welsh band played on a wet windy night that, they said, reminded them of home. The two sets of instrumental music for flute, harp, fiddle, and guitar, with an impressive bit of clog dancing thrown in were varied and fascinating, and the evening was over too soon. The concert was part of the excellent Celtic music calendar put together by Music-For-Robin, in the same venue as Pipeline.’

Who doesn’t love a library? No matter how big or small, a place where books are housed is always a comfort. In Coeru d’Alene, Idaho, there’s a library that may not be big, but is most welcome in the world. Made from the still substantial stump of a black cottonwood tree, this library looks as if Celtic sprites met Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and decided to combine their design expertise and make a snug book bolt-hole. Atlas Obscura visited this ‘Little Free Library’, and the photos are simply stunning. I wish I lived there, if only to visit that library a few times a month. Oh who am I kidding; a few times a week.

So what shall I leave you with for music on this this Winter day? What does tickles my fancy? So how about ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ by Joni Mitchell as performed by her on the fifth of August twenty one years ago on Max Yasgur’s Farm In Bethel New York? Yes it’s the Yeats poem done rather tastefully.

She was the greatest American writer of her generation. Her work deepened, expanded and challenged my expectations of literature, awed me with the power of an unfettered imagination, and obliged me to sympathize with and understand  — and in some stunning measure belong to —cultures and societies far removed in space, time, and even biology from my own. — Michael Chabon on Ursula Le Guin

You can finally see the extra light during the day here which is nice as it’s still bloody fucking cold with temperatures below minus ten centigrade and nasty winds outside to boot. Several of the staff are suffering bad colds which have the Kitchen staff treating them to their special chicken soup (staff made noodles, heavy on garlic and Estate mushrooms) and Mrs. Ware swears by whiskey toddies so I’ve had to break out the bottle of not too expensive whiskey that serves just fine for that purpose.

Series like Doctor Who are interestng in cultural sense as they are generators of pop culture in a way that’s amazing. If you look behind the bar here in the Green Man Pub, you’ll see a TARDIS  and a Thirteenth Doctor figure on a shelf there along with the jelly babies I mentioned lastioned last week. All came courtesy of that visitor who stayed here with us recently. Nice lady, brilliant conversationalist.

Given we’ve got a quote about le Guin, we can hardly not have a review of some of her fiction, so Cat has a look at something truly awesome which is  The Selected Short Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin: ‘The Found and the Lost is a complete collection of all thirteen of her novellas, while The Unreal and the Real, being published for the first time in a single, hardcover volume, brings together thirty-nine of her best-regarded short stories.’

Chuck says ‘Various Internet sources define a gruagach as a creature similar to brownie. In these tales, however — and Robin Williamson claims to draw from traditional Irish and Highland Scottish sources — a gruagach is a wizard, long of hair and beard, often red-haired, and usually malevolent. Williamson shows of his storytelling and story-composing talents on this double CD set, Four Gruagach Tales, telling of these wizards and those who dare to go up against them.’

Elizabeth exclaims that ‘Liz Williams creates the perfect second book in a series. While maintaining the best elements of the first book, The Demon and the City also maintains a distinctiveness in character, plot, and focus that makes reading it a different, albeit no less enjoyable, experience than Snake Agent.

Lory’s review of Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy which is an in-depth academic study of the fantasy genre, and discovers that academia and genre literature aren’t natural enemies after all: ‘Farah Mendlesohn takes fantasy seriously. Other scholars may tend to skip over the genre, or feel the need to explain or excuse their focus on popular fiction, but she takes for granted the worthiness of a body of literature which relies on the creation of a sense of wonder.’

Robert brings us a look at a Pulitzer Prize winning collection from a distinguished American poet: ‘Jorie Graham has been honored in just about every way it is possible for America to honor a poet, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for The Dream of a Unified Field, a selection of poems from 1974 to 1994. . . . She has been called “a European poet transplanted to America,” and speaks in a manner “that is both lush and hauntingly other.”’

Chris has something to warm up with, and an extra treat as well, when he brings us a look at Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate and Ghirardelli’s Dark Twilight Delight and Peppermint Bark. Both, he thinks, are a bit decadent and maybe the least little bit self-indulgent, but you’re worth it.

Robert, with a little help, came across a comic collection that, believe it or not, won a Hugo for Best Graphic Story: ‘The very helpful and knowledgeable young man at my local comics store directed me to Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga, which is one of the more bizarre examples of graphic lit I’ve run across recently.’

Larry Grenadier is an in-demand jazz double-bass player releasing his first solo album, The Gleaners. Says Gary, ‘It doesn’t necessarily follow that even the best of bassists ought to record a solo album, but Grenadier seems to have loads of ideas that translate well to such a project.’

Gary also reviews the latest release by the prolific Americana act Mandolin Orange. ‘Tides of a Teardrop is their sixth since their debut in 2010 with Quiet Little Room, all featuring songs written by Andrew Marlin and sung by Marlin and Emily Frantz.’

Robert got hold of a recording of a live performance of music by one of our favorite composers, Philip Glass. Signal performed Glassworks and Music in Similar Motion — well, as Robert explains: ‘Philip Glass’ Glassworks had never been performed in New York until the contemporary ensemble Signal asked Michael Riesman, long-time music director of the Philip Glass Ensemble, to arrange it for live performance. (It was originally conceived for the recording studio.) It was performed at (le) Poisson Rouge on April 10, 2010, resulting in, among other things, this recording.’

And in a different vein, Robert has a look at two masterpieces of the Late Romantic repertoire, César Franck’s Symphony in D Minor and Igor Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka, conducted by Pierre Monteux: ‘Pierre Monteux brings magisterial authority to these recordings. Of course, if his reading of Pétrouchka satisfied Stravinsky, I’m certainly not going to argue. Equally intelligent and adept is his reading of the Franck; in spite of the Chicago Symphony’s strongly Germanic temperament at the time (1961), the Symphony in D Minor comes across as quintessentially French. Monteux himself was one of the most respected conductors of the twentieth century, and, thanks to sound recording, is still, among classical music buffs, a household word.’

Denise takes a gander at the thirteenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. No, not the real one. se7ven20’s Thirteenth Doctor Sonic Screwdriver. And she’s excited. ‘So, my cosplayers and collectors. Is this one for the shelf? Yes. Yes it is.’ Read her review for all the details!

Our Coda this week is another live performance of music by Philip Glass, this time by the maestro himself: Philip Glass, performing at the Maison Symphonique de Montréal. The piece is titled “Mad Rush”:

“She has her own glamour, Willy lad. All poets do, all the bards and artists, all the musicians who truly take the music into their own hearts. They all straddle the border of Faerie, and they see into both worlds. Not dependably into either, perhaps, but that uncertainty keeps them honest and at a distance.” ― Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks

The weather at this remote Scottish Estate turned nasty even for us last week with a steady freezing sleet and temperatures well below freezing bringing a need for the grounds crew to make sure that roofs particularly don’t getting overloaded with icy slush.

For those of us who don’t need to be outside, that means we get to help with the chores inside Kinrowan Hall. I’ve kept my hand in when I’m not working in the Pub, which I obviously do most days as Manager, by helping out in the Kitchen by playing music for them, something they very much appreciate. I’m a button box player, an instrument that as a busker I found appealing and easy to carry from place to place.

Oh those are jelly babies. A traveller with a multicoloured stripe across her T-shirt and the most interesting earrings left them behind when she left so help yourself to them. She said something rather odd I thought about previous incarnations of herself being fond of them. They’ve quite good. Now let’s see what we’ve got for you…

Chuck states that ‘When it comes to Shakespeare, everyone is entitled to an opinion. When it comes to Yale professor, MacArthur fellow, and self- confessed “Bardolater,” Harold Bloom, you’re entitled to his opinion, as well. And in the 700-plus pages of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, you definitely get the author’s opinion.’ Read his his detailed review to see if you should investigate Bloom’s tome.

Kathleen looks at an academic endeavour worth reading: ‘Charles Butler is the author of several fantasies for children (The Fetch of Mardy Watt, The Darkling, Death of A Ghost). Having recently switched genders, she also teaches English literature at the University of the West of England. In Four British Fantasists, he surveys juvenile fantasy through the lens of his professional scholarship, in a detailed analysis of the work of four acclaimed modern writers. He has chosen Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper and Penelope Lively as his subjects, identifying them — with good reason — as shining examples of the modern Golden Age of children’s fantasy: inheritors of the traditions of both E. Nesbitt and J.R.R. Tolkien.’

A fantastic look at London is reviewed by Kestrell: ‘Don’t let the tentacles fool you — yes, China Miéville’s Kraken takes as its starting point a tentacular god of the deep reminiscent of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, but then Miéville adds to it the baroque psychogeographies of Moore and Moorcock, the whimsy of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and American Gods, the surreal imagery of a Tim Powers novel, and a dizzying barrage of geeky pop culture references, not to mention what is probably the best use of a James T. Kirk action figure ever.’

Robert brings us a look at one of those works that is at the root of modern fantasy: Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer: ‘Volsungasaga is the Norse version of the pan-Germanic epic that shows its southern persona in Das Nieblungenlied. Like so many national epics, it is a series of stories linked by a folk hero, in this case Sigurd (Siegfried in the German version) and his ancestors. Sigurd comes complete with divine ancestry (the grandson of Odin himself), childhood as an orphan, and a doom-filled destiny. (Oops — almost forgot the magic ring, the reforged sword, and the dragon.) Astute observers will recognize not only the elements of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen but also J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.’

Stephen says of an Alan Garner work , which is definitely aimed at adults, that ‘These are only the questions which I find myself considering today. When I read Thursbitch again (and I will), they may be different, as they may be for you, when you read this book. The reasons for this are that Thursbitch is a book that casts the reader as an enthralled participant, rather than a passive recipient. It is, to repeat, a mystery. It may unsettle you (if not actually give you nightmares), but you’ll love it unequivocally nonetheless.’

Johnny Clegg and & Savuka‘s Live and More DVD gets these sage words from Scott: ‘As good as the concert performance on this DVD is, and as good as the live concert I saw from Clegg’s recent American tour was, those shows are forced to compete with the memory of a night whose legend grows with each retelling. Somehow, I get the feeling that anybody who caught Johnny Clegg & Savuka during 1990, when they were quite likely the best live act on the planet, will respond to this DVD similarly.’

For this edition, Denise takes a tipple. She tries Oskar Blues Brewery’s’ Death By Coconut Irish Style Porter, and is quite literally blown away by the brew. ‘Get ready y’all, because it’s coming in hot.’ What’s this? Hot beer? Not a bit – but you’ll have to read her review to see what she’s talking about. You might get thirsty after though, fair warning.

April says ‘Melinda is Neil Gaiman and Polish artist Dagmara Matuzak’s first collaboration, and the resulting illustrated poem is a unique literary work. According to the press notes accompanying this release, Gaiman wrote the text specifically for Matuzak to illustrate, hoping for a few drawings and perhaps a painting or two, and she responded with forty-eight stunning black and white drawings and eight colour plates that delineate the harsh world Gaiman’s seven year old Melinda inhabits.’

After the critical and popular success of their 2017 self-titled double release Deer Tick Vol. 1 and Deer Tick Vol. 2, the Rhode Island rockers are back with a beguiling compilation, Gary notes. Mayonnaise is a companion piece to those previous two records, with 13 songs altogether: alternate versions of four songs from Vol. 1, six originals and three choice covers.

Gary also liked Abigail Lapell’s latest, Getaway. ‘It is a remarkably mature record — both musically and emotionally — for a young musician cutting her third album.’

While listening to And Then Comes the Night by the Mats Eilertsen Trio, Gary found himself fondly recalling a high point on his recent travels: ‘… a visit to the Royal Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin, New Zealand.’

Lars looks at a recording from the Kathryn Tickell Band: ‘Air Dancing is an album full of great playing, both from the individuals and from the group as a whole. Its well produced, while at the same time the music on it has kept it freshness and shows a little roughness in its attitude. There is a nice balance between the traditional way of playing and a more modern approach to the music. It is firmly rooted in tradition, the way that tradition was portrayed on the very early Tickell albums from the 1980s, but it does not stay entirely within that tradition, but takes it further and widens the possibilities.’

Richard has high praise indeed for a Maddy Prior album; ‘Flesh & Blood is one of the finest CDs I’ve heard in years. Prior’s voice, always angelic, has never sounded better; and, with the able help of Nick Holland and Troy Donockley, she has picked material that does her vocal talents justice. Indeed, the collection is so captivating that I’ve had to take it out of my work rotation; after all, I don’t get paid to stand around and gawk dreamily to music.’

Robert seems to spend a lot of time at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History — “But there’s a lot to see,” he says.  His latest visit was to the exhibition Restoring Earth:  ‘We tend to think of museums as places that display artifacts, sometimes on the walls, sometimes in cases, with descriptions of varying degrees of completeness on labels next to the objects. . . .   The Field Museum has well gone beyond being a repository of objects, however, as evidenced by the exhibition “Restoring Earth”.’

Our Coda this Edition is  ’Reynardine’ as performed on an August night night in 2008 by Fairport Convention at their Cropredy Festival. Consider it a reminder that Summer will return for those of us in the in Northern Hemisphere!

Let the fairy tale begin on a winter’s morning, then, with one drop of blood newly-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as a single spot of claret on the lace cuff. ― Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint

It’s been quiet in the Library so I decided to read again one of my favourite novels, War for the Oaks, since my Several Annies are with Gus, our Estate Gardener sssisting him in disassembling the Winter decorations as we usually take the wreaths and such down just after we celebrate Little Christmas here as Ingrid, our Estate Steward and wife of Reynard, our Green Man Pub Manager, is Ukrainian. So she likes that it to be celebrated. You did hear the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is now superate from the Russian Orthodox Church? Interesting times are upon us.

Now where was I? Oh Emma.  Of all the novels she wrote I like Oaks best. It’s got characters in a real world setting, Minneapolis,  in a season, near midsummer, who are both strong and fragile at the same time. It’s long enough to keep me entertained for an entire evening and it’s unusually well-written for a first novel. All I want in a Winter read.

I’ve got a great Edition for you today featuring reviews of the Riverside fiction of Ellen Kushner which you haven’t read is definitely Winter treat waiting for you to be served up with cups of hot chocolate. Oh and Check out our Food and Drink section which is linked to her website where you’ll find recipies folks created of food they think would serve in the Riverside. It’s quite entertaining.

We promised you reviews and comments on Ellen Kushner’s Riverside novels, which, as it turns out, winds up being a lot of books. Where to start?

I suppose the best place is the beginning, with Swordspoint, of which Robert says “Call it “mannerpunk,” call it “fantasy,” call it what you will, it is still one of the best examples of speculative fiction I’ve ever read.’

Fast forward fifteen years or so, to The Privilege of the Sword, for further adventures of Alec, although the book is centered around his niece, Katherine Talbert, who, through no fault of her own, has become Alec’s ward. Robert says of this one ‘If Swordspoint is a perfect gem, The Privilege of the Sword is the gem in its full setting: elegant, wicked, funny, intelligent, and fluent.’

And a number of years farther along bring us to The Man With the Knives. Just to place it in the timeline, Robert notes: ‘The Man With the Knives takes us out of the City for a tale that takes place between The Privilege of the Sword and “The Death of the Duke.”’

And yet farther ahead, to a novel with a new cast of characters and a new set of complications, Kushner’s collaboration with Delia Sherman, The Fall of the Kings. Robert notes: ‘The blurbs for this book include references to Georgette Heyer, Dorothy Dunnet, Oscar Wilde – I would say, add in some of the bawdier comedies of the Elizabethans, perhaps a dose of Richard Sheridan’s brittle dialogue, and a good helping of the eroticism of Anne Bishop’s universe of the Blood (oh, and don’t forget Jane Austen’s merciless satire), and you are starting to get close – but only close.’

Just when you thought we were going to keep going ahead in time, we backtrack. Tremontaine is an anthology, of sorts, with a number of authors contributing to a collection that nonetheless maintains a coherent story line. Robert again: ‘One thing that deserves mention, given the number of people working on this story, is the stylistic consistency: if there are differences in style or diction, they are so subtle as to escape notice.’

It starts to look as though Robert was the only one to comment on Kushner’s work, but that’s not really the case. To start at the beginning once more, Vonnie gives us her thoughts on the audiobook version of Swordspoint: ‘A fantasy novel without overt fantasy elements, Swordspoint was written and now is narrated by Ellen Kushner. . . . It is a witty book, and an engaging audiobook, with a plot that plays out across the economic spectrum of a city in duels and parlor conversations, clandestine rendezvous’ of lovers or plotters, as well as lords and young ruffians jockey and maneuver for power.’

And Cat rounds off our reviews with The Swords of Riverside audiobook: ‘I discovered on Audible that [Swordspoint] was the start of forty-five hours of listening pleasure called The Swords of Riverside, which also contains, if anything so mundane can contain such superb novels, The Privilege of the Sword and The Fall of the Kings.’

Not at all well received among Neo-Pagans is a film reviewed by Michelle: ‘There’s no denying the negative stereotyping in Nicolas Roeg’s The Witches, based on Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name. It’s a guilty pleasure, watching sophisticated women degraded by a little boy whom they’ve turned into a mouse. Adults will have an easier time than the intended young audience in recognizing the satiric elements of the film, but for some viewers that may not make it more tolerable; works of art like this one contribute to the demonization of Pagans and practitioners of folk medicine historically and in our own era.’

In keeping with our book reviews this edition, Ellen Kushner has published a group of recipes that are more or less inspired by the Riverside novels.  She notes:  “On this page, you’ll find everything from recipes and menus created by fans of the series to delight the Mad Duke Tremontaine and his Riverside friends, to ones created by friends of the author to keep her at her desk.”  You can find them all here.

Gary listened to an album by the French-Israeli pianist Yonathan Avishai and his trio: ‘For such an economical package — at eight tracks and just 55 minutes, it’s practically an EP by today’s jazz CD standards — Yonathan Avishai’s Joys and Solitudes is brimming with musical riches.’

Gary also reviews Olympic Girls by New Zealand’s Tiny Ruins. Hollie Fullbrook, who fronts Tiny Ruins,’has an arresting, husky alto that makes her singing stand out immediately,’ he says.

Hedningarna’s Karelia Visa gets this comment from Kim: ‘It’s an odd thing — one of the words which keeps coming to mind when I listen to this CD is “evocative.” But that raises the question, what exactly does it evoke? And I can’t really give you an answer, as I am not of Nordic origin and have never visited the area. So, it is indeed an interesting phenomenon to listen to a CD of a Swedish band travelling to the now-Russian province of Karelia, collecting the songs from that region to include on this recording, and to find it both exotic and evocative at the same time. Ah, the mysteries of music…’

Stephen looks approvingly at Baba Yaga — ‘Annbjorg Lien is a Norwegian composer, arranger, instrumentalist, and singer, who occupies an artistic space where clumsy attempts at easy definition are irrelevant. With this CD she’s created a music in which traditional fiddle tunes are pop songs, string quartets are folk dances, electronic rhythms are an element of symphonic composition, and the sound of human breathing is both rhythm and melody.’

Our What Not this Edition is a video teaser for Snowflake Trio‘s new album. They will play a release concert for their first CD Sun Dogs January 24 at Drygate Brewery in Glasgow during Celtic Connections. The trio – flautist and singer Nuala Kennedy, genre-defying accordionist Froda Haltli and hardanger virtuoso Vegar Vårdal – combines the roots music of Ireland and Norway in unique and exciting ways. Gary’s been waiting eagerly for this release since he caught them on stage at Celtic Colours in Cape Breton Island in 2013.

For our Coda, Robert has one of his favorite, over-the-top pieces from the Romantic repertoire, and one that’s very, very Spanish: the Adagio from Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, with none other than the legendary John Wiliams on guitar:

But you must stop playing among his ghosts — it’s stupid and dangerous and completely pointless. He’s trying to lay them to rest here, not stir them up, and you seem eager to drag out all the sad old bones of his history and make them dance again. It’s not nice, and it’s not fair. ― Patricia A. McKillip’s Winter Rose

Britain is getting one of its snowiest, most troublesome Winters in generations and that means this Scottish Estate is pretty much centred on Kinrowan Hall as the condition outside it aren’t terribly safe. So except for those folk who live in the cottages around the Estate such as Gus and his wife, most of the thirty or so residents here live in Kinrowan Hall, that ancient but throughly updated living space that’s the centre of all things here. So  you’ll see folks reading, conversing, eating and just enjoying each other as they watch the storm outside.

This edition has such things as classics like The Three Musketeers, reviews some tasty Nordic music and Americana jazz, a recipe for yummy ham hocks, yet another Thirteenth Doctor Who figure and a whole lot more. So while I go see what the Bar patrons want, why don’t you give it a look-see?

Denise digs into another of the Titan DC Comics novelizations with her look at Batman: The Killing Joke. She’s not particularly thrilled. ‘Sadly, unlike Tritan’s excellent work with Harley Quinn: Mad Love, Joke is a padded tome that does too much digging into characters we never see in the graphic novel, while paying lip-service to the electric confrontation between Batman and the clown prince of crime.’ 

Not a book review as such, but a loving look at a book instead, so let’s have  Christopher tell us his love: ‘As much as I love The Hobbit , the trilogy always appealed to me more, even as a child. There’s a terrible wisdom that hangs over The Lord of the Rings, a thematic undercurrent that is all about mortality and acceptance of the limits of humanity. In so many ways, it’s about twilight. Yes, there’s love and magic and the brotherhood of human society that we must embrace and relish, but the joy that brings is a wistful joy, draped with melancholy. In the midst of orcs and songs and grand battles and fellowships, those are the things that have always spoken most intimately to me, and what make The Lord of the Rings, in my heart and mind, Tolkien’s greatest achievement.’

Down the decades, we’ve reviewed most everything Patricia McKillip has published, so it’s only fitting we have a review by Richard of her latest book: ‘With Dreams of Distant Shores, Patricia A. McKillip delivers something that is not quite your typical short story collection. While the point of entry is a series of shorter pieces, the collection builds to and is anchored by the lengthy novella “Something Rich and Strange”, with an essay on writing high fantasy orthogonal to the usual tropes. The book then ends with appreciation of McKillip’s work (and the stories in the collection) by Peter S. Beagle, an elegant coda to a warm, thought-provoking collection.’

Robert takes a look at a classic, in the ‘rollicking adventure’ category, Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers: ‘Alexandre Dumas père was, in real life, a character as colorful as his heroes. He was the son of Napoleon’s famous mulatto general, Dumas, became a successful playwright, had numerous mistresses, took part in the revolution of 1830, spent extravagantly, built the Chateau de Monte-Cristo, and fled to Belgium to escape his creditors.’

Robert has a look at a film that’s fun, if not all that substantial: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: ‘Percy Jackson is a special guy. Maybe it’s the dyslexia. Maybe it’s the ADHD. Or maybe it’s that his father is the god Poseidon.’

Jen has a recipe for some down-home, down-to-earth hearty fare: Black-eyed peas and ham hocks: ‘Long ago and far away in one of the grimier neighborhoods of New Haven, Connecticut there was a food co-op, the New Haven Food Co-op. . . . One of the benefits of shopping there was that some zealous members created leaflets with recipes for cheap but hearty fare, all themed. These were given away free at the check-out counter. One leaflet gave classic recipes for beans. That’s how I discovered black-eyed peas, and this recipe, somewhat modified over the years, but recognizable to its original author if s/he lives.’

Gary reviews a new album of jazzy Americana, or is that Americana-flavored jazz, from fiddler John Mailander. Of Forecast he says ‘Mailander is more about breaking down barriers than setting them up.’

‘Memorable tunes, superb musicianship, lyrics that are darkly hilarious or deeply dramatic, all in a loud, twangy, rocking package.’ That’s how Gary describes They Made Her a Criminal by Texas Noir rockers The Transgressors.

Kjell-Erik Arnesen and Jørgen Larsen’s Calls and Frydis Ree Wekre’s Ceros are recommended by Joel — ‘Both of these albums are horn-based. The horn is much less popular, it seems, than its cousins in the brass family. Most jazz bands have saxophone, trombone, and trumpet sections (in order of decreasing size), but no horns. I haven’t heard much where the horn was the primary instrument before now (nor as the only brass instrument), but two talented horn players demonstrate its versatility on these albums.’

Robert has some thoughts on some music that will liven up these long winter evenings, namely Johannes Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major and his Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra in A Minor: ‘There are certain artists whose work becomes an inextricable part of one’s life, whether it be a writer, a painter, or a composer. One develops a sense of the work, sometimes to the point where it all becomes one great work. Brahms is one of those artists in my life — my first experience with Brahms was a scratchy, hand-me-down 78 rpm of the great Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor, when I was about eight or nine — I fell in love. I’ve heard more Brahms than I can sometimes remember until a phrase drifts past and I think, “I know that one.” And sometimes, no matter how well I think I know the artist or a particular piece, I run across a new interpretation that opens new doors for me.’

Robert brings us up to date on the doings of the world’s most famous dinosaur, Sue the T. rex: ‘Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found, has been a big draw at the Field Museum for seventeen years. Last year, she was taken off display and her place taken by Maximo, a replica of the skeleton of the largest dinosaur ever found. But, Sue is back, in her very own new quarters on the second floor in a side gallery in the “Evolving Planet” exhibition.’

Still hungry for more Who? Denise has you covered with her review of seven20’s SuperBitz Doctor Who Thirteenth Doctor Plush. ‘I’ve seen SuperBitz items here and there, but this is the first time I’ve ever been able to get a really good look. And it’s a well made plushie with great attention to detail.’ Read her review for a deeper dive into this Doctor!

I think some Irish music would be appropriate this time, so let me see what I can find on the Infinite Jukebox, our Media Server.  Ahhhh that’ll do… ‘A Tune For Mairéad And Anna’  by Altan, one of my favourite Irish trad groups, which was recorded at the Folkadelphia Session on the 7th of March four year ago. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!

Don’t be scared. All of this is new to you, and new can be scary. Now we all want answers. Stick with me — you might get some. — Thirteenth Doctor

I always enjoy this time in the Pub, as it’s really quiet since we don’t allow anyone except a handful of guests here this month and we don’t do any concerts save the ones done by staff, so it’s very restful. It’s just a place for conversation, drinking and the Neverending Session playing whatever they want, which is what they always do anyways. If you drop by here during the holiday season, first drink is on us.

We’ve a new Thirteenth Doctor Who just now, a talented performer by the name of Jodie Whittaker. Despite a lot of bile from fanboys, the series has its best ratings ever and that’s due in no small part to younger women now watching the show in very impressive numbers. We’ve never reviewed an entire series before though we certainly have reviewed an episode here and there, so it’s a great honour for me to note that long-time Whovian Denise is doing just that. You’ll also see a review by her of the Funko Pop Thirteenth Doctor figure as well.

The Whovian Universe is vast and has grown increasingly complex over the fifty years that it’s been evolving. Torchwood was one of its spinoffs, the secret agency that fought alien invasions from its Cardiff base. Cat reviewed their Torchwood India audio adventure and had this to say about it: ‘Golden Age is the story of Torchwood India and what happened to it. It is my belief that the best of all the Torchwood were the audio dramas made by BBC during the run of the series. Please note that it was BBC and not Big Finish that produced these despite the fact that latter produces most of the Doctor Who and spinoff dramas. This is so because the new Doctor Who audio dramas was kept in-house and these productions were kept there as well though Big Finish is now producing the new Doctor Who adventures as well.’

Not surprisingly, perhaps, there have been non-fiction books focusing on various aspects of the Doctor and his adventures. April brings us a look at a not-so-reverent example, The Discontinuity Guide: The Definitive Guide to the Worlds & Times of Doctor Who: ‘Remembered by many for its wobbly paper-mache Pinewood Studios effects, frequently changing casts and cheesy incidental music, Doctor Who is, nonetheless, a unique experiment in television, and one that has been frequently engaging and entertaining, despite the production quality. There have been numerous books about the show, some more serious than others; here’s one that refuses to take itself seriously, and fans will love it.’

Gereg, not to be outdone, brings us a tome that does take itself seriously — perhaps too seriously: ‘With essays covering the entire span of the various Doctor Who television series from 1963 onward, The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who addresses various ideas of The Doctor as a mythic figure. Unfortunately, the central premise — the idea that he is in fact mythic — is one that is never successfully supported.’

Denise as promised has her review of the just concluded season of Doctor Who, and enjoyed almost every moment of Season Eleven. ‘The new Doctor loves bobbing for apples candy floss, purple sofas, and fast talking…. I love it. Yes, I’ve said that I love things several times here. I’m not sorry.’ Why is Denise so enraptured? Only one way to find out; give her full review a look!

Cat now first looks at an adventure beloved by many fans of the series: ‘The Talons of Weng Chiang featured Tom Baker, one of the most liked of all the actors who’ve played The Doctor, and Leela, the archetypal savage that British Empire both adored and despised, played by Louise Jameson. That it is set during the Victorian Era is something that British have been fond of setting dramas in, well, since a few years after the era ended. Doctor Who has had stories set in this era myriad times.’

Cat also looks at Doctor Who‘s The Unicorn and The Wasp episode which I think had one of the better companions in Donna Noble: ‘One of my favourite episodes of the newer episodes of this series was a country house mystery featuring a number of murders and, to add an aspect of metanarrative to the story, writer Agatha Christie at the beginning of her career. It would riff off her disappearance for ten days which occurred just after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Her disappearance is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily answered to this day.’

And Robert is very enthusiastic about the Dr. Who spin-off, Torchwood, as you can see in his reviews of Season One and Season Three: Children of Earth: ‘The basic set-up is related in John Barrowman’s voice-over for the opening theme: “Torchwood: Outside the government, beyond the police. Fighting for the future on behalf of the human race.” In practical terms, that means dealing with alien threats, and other things that might come through the time/space rift, before they become threats.’

Cat was somewhat taken (but only somewhat) by two Doctor Who cookbooks: ‘This review is really an acknowledgement that there’s a nearly inifinite number of writings about Doctor Who done by the fans of the show over the past fifty years. Yes there’s fanfic where they’ve created their own stories, some using existing characters in new stories, some creating new characters in new situations. And then there are, err, cookbooks. Seriously you can’t be surprised that someone did did this, as I’m sure that there’s a Harry Potter cookbook or two out there.’

Denise takes a look at one of the many collectible tributes to our new Doctor, Funko’s Rock Candy‘s Thirteenth Doctor Vinyl Collectible. (No, it’s not actual candy, but a type of collectible from Funko.) She’s rather fond of her new Doctor. ‘She’s here! And she’s fantastic.’ Read Denise’s review for more information, and why she’s a fan of this collectible.

Our Coda is a just bit different this time though still with music in it. Doctor Who is fifty years old and has had obviously opening sequences that whole time. Until now, BBC has never compiled them together so we could experience how they’ve changed down the years. (And yes, there’s entire sites devoted to complaining about about how the new series has ruined these title sequences.) So for your considerable entertainment, go here and be delighted by what you see and hear as the music has been changed and not changed.

And now we welcome the new year. Full of
things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

From Winter Solstice to the end of January, only guests that have been invited by staff, usually no more than a half dozen in total at any given time, are allowed to stay here as we like the quietude of Kinrowan Hall and the Estate at this time of year. There’s more than enough room here to host that many souls without it feeling uncomfortable, but the extra folk do add a sense of liveliness to our small community that’s rather nice.

It’s amusing for me as Head Publican to watch the shift that Winter brings to our Pub. With many fewer visitors, it once again becomes a more low-key affair, with even the music played by visiting bands kinder and more restrained, and the Neverending Session being noticeably smaller and leaning towards the quieter end of the Nordic, Breton and Celtic traditions, which is something staff and those visitors here are quite fond of. Now let’s see what I’ve selected for this time …

It’s Winter and we all dream of Spring I think, so Marta McDowell’s Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life is naturallly a work much liked by Gus: ‘Like many serious gardeners, I collect books about gardens and those who created them. This one is a recent acquisition of mine that ranks among the best I’ve encountered! Subtitled ‘The plants and places that inspired the classic children’s tales’, it is just what it says it is: a look at the gardens (and botanical things) that inspired her children’s writings.’

Iain has a look this time at Rex Stout’s Fer-de-lance. Iain says of Nero Wolfe, the brains here, that he ‘is an eighth-of-a-ton recluse who rarely leaves the Manhattan brownstone he owns, so he raises rare orchids, enjoys gourmet meals prepared by Fritz, reads a lot of books, and solves mysteries.’ Archie Goodwin, his dogsbody, is the first-person narrator for the series.

Kathleen looks at an academic work with a rather long title, to wit, Charles Butler’s Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones & Susan Cooper. Her superbly written in-depth review looks at both the strengths and weaknesses of this work.

Kathleen also has a look at a book she’s treasured since her childhood, Tolkien’s Smith of Wooten Major & Farmer Giles of Ham. She says, ‘Smith and Farmer Giles have the advantage of being completed by Tolkien himself, and are lovely, polished tales. . . . They are the work of a very modern and well-educated scholar — but like all Professor Tolkien’s work, they feel like an echo of the sunlit fields and shadowed woods of the British mythic landscape that he so loved.’ Read her charming review here.

Denise continues her Feast of the Seven Fishes theme with a review of DeLallo Flat Fillets of Anchovies. She’s a fan of the much maligned fish, and these seem to have her pleased indeed. “…for pizza-fish lovers like me, opening this tin was like heaven.” Read her review for more info, and for a few ways to try anchovies if you’ve never taken the plunge (or are looking for more ways to enjoy them if you’ve already dived in.)

After a few weeks of fish, Denise cleansed her palate by indulging in Carletti’s Jakobsen Coffee Time chocolate collection. ‘Coffee time? Yes please! And while these chocolates  would go great with coffee, I had mine with a stout, and then a mug of green tea.’ But what’d she think? On to her review!

April has a choice recording for us: ‘As an integral part of the band Frifot (with Ale Moller and Per Gudmundson) and the Nordan project (with Ale Moller and others), as well as numerous other side projects, Lena Willemark has been a fixture on the Swedish folk scene since the late 1970s. Windogur, a set of ten original compositions commissioned by the city of Stockholm (in its role of Cultural Capital of Europe ’98), was first performed live as part of a series of concerts entitled “Ladies Next,” and only later translated to CD.’

For a sampler, nothing beats the three CDs in the Nordic Roots series put out by Northside.  Kim says ‘There’s a pleasing dissonance in Nordic traditions, often a restraint that hints of something without ever going there, that’s found much more in Nordic music than is often the case with music from the Irish and Celtic traditions.’ We recommend you read her review for why this set is a must listen for anyone interested in this music!

Lars has what we at GMR consider to be the definitive look at the definitive collection of folk music in Sweden ever done. — ‘During the 1950s and 1960s there was a lot of field recording taking place in Sweden and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland. A generation of source singers and musicians were growing very old and the effort was directed at preserving as much of their music as possible. Many of the recordings are hidden away in the vaults of Svenskt Visarkiv (a society dedicated to preserving songs), the Swedish Radio and other establishments, where they can be accessed for singers and musicians. But quite a few have resurfaced on various LPs and in radio programmes. In the middle of the 1990s the Swedish National Radio together with Caprice, a record company owned by Rikskonserter, a government agency aimed at supporting live music, started a project with the aims to present a broad selection of these recordings, arranged thematically, on CD. Up to date 28 CDs have been released, sometimes in boxes with two or three CDs in each. The box with Yoiks is no longer available but the rest are reviewed briefly here.’ His very detailed review of the aptly named Folk Music in Sweden is well worth your time to read in full.

Robert has a review for us of a live recording from the String Sisters: ‘There seems to be something magical about the number “6” when you’re talking about fiddles. Maybe that many fiddlers reaches a kind of critical mass that sets off a chain reaction of some sort. At any rate, when the six fiddlers in question are six star-caliber women from across the Britanno-Nordic musical realm, what you wind up with is some really, really good music.’ As a delightful bonus, You can hear them perform The Champagne Jig Goes To Columbia/ Pat & Al’s Jig.

Thinking of adding new items to your household for the coming year? Denise tried Liv With Roz Lemongrass Soap, and that’s now something she may add to her resolutions. ‘It’s not often a body wash and hand gel gal like myself gets stoked over bar soap. But stoked I am.’ See why she’s writing like Yoda in her review!

So let’s end this Edition and see the Year out with ‘Drive the Cold Winter Away’ as performed by the Horslips at The Spectrum in Philadelphia on the 24th of March 1979. It’s an old tune, written by London composer John Playford and published in The English Dancing Master he first published in 1651. Yes most musos now think it’s Irish trad.

The storyteller in me asks: what if? And when I
try to answer that, a story begins.

 Jane Yolen, author of The Wild Hunt

Let me set my blue chai and breakfast curry with roti and poached egg aside for a minute. Yes, it’s an unusual breakfast but I got to like it travelling in Southwest Asia some decades past and the Kitchen here is quite used to offbeat whims when it comes to culinary desires among the staff here. Getting in fresh coconut was they said somewhat difficult but not impossible …

Chris has a review this edition of LeGuin’s The Books of Earthsea which Saga Press just published this past month. It got me thinking about her being around for as long as most of us have been reading fantasy, and yes I think of her as a fantasy writer primarily, and she more than many writers shaped how we think about the genre by making us actively think about what we’re reading. And that enriches all of us immeasurably.

So let’s turn to this Edition…

As promised above, Chris has a review of The Books of Earthsea. We of course got several copies for the Kinrowan Library as it’s going to be very popular reading this winter. So what did he think about it? ‘In October, Saga Press released Ursula LeGuin’s collected Earthsea works, beautifully illustrated by Charles Vess. This collection includes the original trilogy: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971 ) and The Farthest Shore (1972), as well as the novels in which LeGuin revisited the trilogy, Tehanu (1990) and The Other Wind (2001), which conclude the saga many years after the events of the originals. Also included are Tales from Earthsea, LeGuin’s 2001 collection, and four other stories, including the never before published “Daughter of Odren.” Her illuminating essay, “Earthsea Revisioned,” which she delivered as a lecture in Oxford in 1992, is also here, along with an introduction from the author. In short, this giant of a volume includes everything you need to know about Earthsea, and it’s a delight to see it all collected in one place.’

Jo says that ‘Folk legend merges with Jane Yolen’s creative world to create a work of pure magic in The Wild Hunt, which should be destined to become a classic in the world of children’s literature. Pitting the forces of light and dark against one another is a common theme, but it is rare for those forces to acknowledge the other as essential to their own existence, as done in this delightful tale. Yolen’s use of time and words have woven a masterpiece from the ancient threads of an old tale together with the modern threads of something totally new and different. The resulting tapestry is beautiful to behold.’

Grey looks at Susan Cooper’s award-winning The Dark is Rising series; ‘When I was a teenager I often repeated these lines to myself as a kind of charm. It wasn’t that I expected them to make something happen; the words were a “happening” in and of themselves, and just saying them put me into the middle of it. They were a door into Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising cycle, one of the most compelling stories I had ever read. The story compels me to this day, and I continue to re-read it every few years.’

Robert brings us sequel that fits the season. Really, it does — it even has an angel: ‘Tanya Huff’s The Second Summoning is, as might be expected, a sequel to Summon the Keeper. It is just as wryly funny, with the attitude we’ve come to expect from Huff, and is sometimes surprisingly insightful about the trials and tribulations of growing up.’

We didn’t have anything on reindeer, but we have something even better. Our newest reviewer Warner bring us The Unicorn Anthology: ‘An anthology is always an interesting read, filled with multiple narratives and styles and as a result uneven by nature. The Unicorn Anthology, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman, is one which comes with a plainly stated theme.’

Cat loves an offbeat Christmas film: ‘I don’t do movie theatres for various reasons, including audiences that chatter too much and the smell of that weird stuff that’s not really butter. And so it is that I’m watching an animated film released several Christmas seasons past called Rise of The Guardians which features a Russian Father Christmas, an Australian Easter Bunny (complete with boomerang), The Sandman, and a really cute (in a fey way) female Tooth Fairy. All Guardians of the hopes, wishes and dreams of children everywhere.’

Despite the untimely death of its lead actor Heath Ledger, I think this film review by Liz points to one of the feel-good films of all time: ‘Oyez, Dudes! The Renaissance Rockz! This film is not for the literal minded, nor for students looking for an easy way to do research on the Renaissance. A Knights Tale is writer/director Brian Helgeland’s attempt to create a sort of early-Renaissance Rocky, only with jousting, not boxing, as the central sport and metaphor. Oh, and the soundtrack is a mix of Early Music and 1970’s pop tunes.’

Hey all, and Happy Merry! Denise here, taking over the Food & Drink section yet again. This time I’m adding to my Feast of Seven Fishes with two more fishy reviews. I’ll continue with four more scattered through the next few issues, so’s not to overwhelm you. But for now? Dig in to these!

First, I’m taking a look at Specially Selected’s Cold Smoked Salmon. Store-brand salmon? From low-price wonderland Aldi? Yep yep. And before you turn your nose up, read my review. Here’s a taste (pun intended); ‘…I wasn’t able to stop myself with this salmon.’ Why not? Well now, you know what to do next.

To balance things out, I also devoured some Specially Selected’s Hot Smoked Cajun Flavored Salmon. Because why not? ‘This salmon was a tough to review, because the moment I opened the packet the delicious smell of smoked fish and cajun spice I wanted to devour the entire thing in one go. Willpower and I have never had more than a passing acquaintance.’ Read my full review to find out exactly why I’m now a fan of smoking (edibles) however I can get ’em!

And for those of you who are done with fish, how about cakes? Soulmass-cake, aka Soul Cakes, are a medieval tradition that The British Bake Off has resurrected. These cakes were typically baked for All Hallows Eve and Christmastide, to pass out to the poor. But how does one make these things? A quick Google search shows that there are more recipes for this classic cake than you can shake a candy cane at. So if the tradition of handing out food to those less fortunate than you appeals – and at this festive season it should – feel free to hand out whatever type of cake, bread or item you feel would best help those in need. Donate to your local charity. Clean out your closet and drop off your unwanted pieces to a shelter. Whatever you decide, if it comes from the heart, you’ll be in keeping with the soul cake tradition. Joyeux Noël, one and all.

Richard has a choice few words for us about a DC series: ‘To read Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers as a straight narrative, or to take it at face value, is really to miss the point of the series. It is a deconstruction of the classic superhero team-up comic, done with malice aforethought and the intent of ripping down every cliché and classic trope of the genre. Which is to say that if you actually like that sort of world-spanning super-smorgasbord, you’re probably going to think Seven Soldiers is awful. If, on the other hand, you think that anyone at DC who even mentions the word “Crisis” needs to be put on six months’ sabbatical, this might be more your cup of tea.’

Gary, who says he’s not usually one for holiday music, enjoys the new Valse de Noël, An Acadian-Cajun Christmas Revels. In addition to some carols from those traditions, it features Acadian dance tunes and ballads, some Cajun two-steps, and some songs and tunes shared by French-Canadian and Cajun cultures.

Jayme looks at what I’d say is essential listening for Celtic music fans: ‘There’s no gloss and polish here like you’d find on, say, an Altan disc, no studio jiggery and double-tracked harmonies that are so commonplace on a Clannad release. Not that those are necessarily bad things, mind you, but every one of the 11 tracks on The Best of Silly Wizard sound like they were recorded in one take in the studio, with the entire band playing at once, rather than the more common practice of laying down each instrument separately and mixing later. Now, I don’t know if that’s actually the way Silly Wizard recorded the music here, but the end result.’

Maddy Prior’s Arthur The King draws this note from No’am: ‘This disk tries primarily to separate the fact from the fiction. “The historical Arthur is a highly controversial figure. Theories abound as to his region of activity and his ancestry.” are the first two sentences in the well written sleeve notes. Arthur also tries to provide in music a feeling of what it was like to have been alive in time of Arthur. Thus we have songs written from the point of view of Arthur himself: “The poet and the troubadour have stolen my name” are the opening words from “The Name Of Arthur,” from what constituted the aristocracy of the time — people who were more Roman than British, from the warriors, and also from more artistic and legendary viewpoints. “The Hallows” begins with the words “From my name has come a dream, a fable, a myth.”

If you’d like something different this season — not the standard Nutcracker or Messiah — see if your local opera company is performing Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel. Robert says: ‘It’s one of those Christmas things that people do, like The Nutcracker and Handel’s Messiah. It also happens to be a lot of fun. Humperdinck made extensive use of folk melodies in the score, which certainly adds to the opera’s charm (I don’t think anyone would not recognize the music to “Ra-la-la,” the dance song in the first act), and the story, of course, is well-known.’

OK, you do know that we have a resident hedgehog at this Scottish Estate by the name of Hamish MacBeth? If you did,  it wouldn’t surprise you that Robert reviewed this puppet: ‘Well, I finally got my first Folkmanis puppet to review, and appropriately enough, it’s the Little Hedgehog — and let me tell you, he’s a real charmer.’

Denise mentioned soul cakes in our Food & Drink section, so I’d be remiss to not mention that Kage once pondered upon them as well: ‘Barm Brack is a soul cake — traditional Scots recipe calls for a bean or silver coin or some other token to be baked into it and the person getting the winning slice gets fame or good luck or sacrificed or whatever, deciding on how much of The Wicker Man you take seriously.’

I’m feeling generous this time so I’m going finish Our What Not this time with a look at something that was very special to Vonnie: ‘The Christmas Revels is a special event, an annual tradition on par with performances of the Nutcracker, only tailored to lovers of folk traditions. After 42 years, it has accreted tradition of its own, which helps audience members to feel like part of the holiday community — which is the point of the Revels. The culture on which the performance focuses changes from year to year but the basic shape of the performance — and its professionalism — remains constant.’ Her look at the Irish Christmas Revels is here, and her review of Strike The the Harp: An Irish Christmas Revels can be found thisaway.

The only choice to leave you on is Jennifer Stevenson reading her ‘Solstice’ tale of a small town musician who gets dumped by her boyfriend in apparently the middle of nowhere who had the most magical night one could hope for. If you prefer to read it, it’s one of our offerings in the Words menu on the top left side of this site.

Have a drink and listen to the music. — Charles de Lint’s Forests Of The Heart

I always think of de Lint as being one of those writers fit for reading a cold winter’s night. So when I was looking through the Archives that I decided that it was well-worth sharing with you some of the wealth of material concerning him that we’ve done.

So we’re devoting this issue entirely to Charles de Lint and his writings — Paul Brandon, a friend of Charles and a well-known author in his own right, has penned an appreciation of Charles which follows these short notes; Cat Eldridge offers us an interview with him; Robert Tilendis has a career retrospective regarding his writings; and various writers such as Terri Windling, OR Melling, James Hetley and so forth pay homage to him. Oh, and there are two goodies for you to hear by Charles — one performed by him, another performed by a superb Celtic group! Might there be even additional offerings to tickle your fancy? See for yourself!

Greeting I’m Paul Brandon. I’m glad that there’s no lectern.

When the folks at Green Man asked me to do the introductory kind of speech thing for Charles de Lint, my first thought was ‘I hope there’s not a lectern.’ I dislike public speaking at the best of times, and if I’m coerced into doing it at a festival or a workshop, I nearly always do it from behind a desk or nested in a nice comfy chair. I’m tall, and lecterns come in some kind of standardised ‘normal’ (I’m assuming) height, so I either have to stand upright and not be heard because the microphone is a foot below me, or I slouch and assume a posture that is halfway between casual author arrogance and a severe curvature of the spine. So there you go. I hate lecterns.

So as I shrug out of my heavy coat and cross to the bar, I’m already feeling a bit better. I love the Green Man pub. It’s almost as if it’s a room that’s slipped free from Tamson House, and it knows just what you like. For me, it’s the oak panelling, the low ceilings and beams (though remind me I said that in a few hours after a couple of ales. Tall, remember), the throbbing fire and the truly astonishing array of drink. This is the one place I know where I can still get my beloved Fremlins Kentish Ale and Tasmanian Pepperberry vodka. It’s kind of a shame that Charles doesn’t drink, although I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere under the bar there’ll be a bag mixed with his own concoction of Starbucks coffees. Probably guarded by Hamish, the resident hedgehog here. Someone’s gone to a lot of effort for this evening. All the of the usual amazing artwork has been taken down and replaced with wonderful framed prints of Charles’s book covers, although the one just to my right of Forests of the Heart looks like it may well be the John Jude Palencar original. There’s also a whole bunch of his own watercolours, and some by his partner, MaryAnn.

It’s almost like being at an Ani diFranco concert here — you swear you can see some of Charles’s characters walking around, drinks in in hand, peeking over shoulders, listening in to conversations with sly smiles on their faces. Charles’s appearances are often like that.

Yep, that’s him over in the corner singing the Fred Eaglesmith song. Impressive isn’t it. The first time I heard him sing was in a hotel room in Montreal, not long after we’d met face to face for the first time, and he damn near blew me off my chair. For such a quiet person he sure can let fly. There are a couple of tracks on the Infinite Jukebox here at Green Man if you’re interested — one of him playing a song, one of him conversing on a radio programme about the relationship between two of his passions, music and writing.

That’s MaryAnn on the right, no, the other right. You can’t miss that beautiful wild hair and the sound of the sweet little Gibson mandolin. Out of all the people I’ve ever met, Charles and MaryAnn are the most complete of couples. Partnership doesn’t go far enough to describe their relationship.

I’m just going to lean here a while, sip my beer and soak in the music and memories.

I can clearly recall my first encounter with Charles’s work.

.It was in a small bookshop in Bromley, England, in the days when fantasy and science fiction had their own departments, rather than just a few shelves. My dates are sketchy, but it must’ve been sometime around 1984, and I would have been . . . well, younger. The book, of course, was Moonheart, and I clearly remember standing there looking at the beautiful cover (this would have been the Pan edition, with the tall trees, shafting light and the two little chaps standing by the trunk. The print is over . . . there. The frame directly above Don, the fiddler). I know the old adage about a book and its cover, but sometimes the old sayings are wrong. I devoured it.

I was a precocious reader as a young wan, always with a book on the go, and something within Moonheart really got to me. Looking back, I guess it was the beautiful blend of myth and reality, set in a very appealing city (and Ottawa didn’t disappoint when I finally got there many years later), but it was also a little more than that, and I think as I became a writer myself, I understood what it was. Moonheart was written with love, passion, and it rubs off onto you with every page. I think that’s why so many readers list it as their favourite of Charles’s considerable library.

After that came Greenmantle, Yarrow and The Little Country (which is still my favourite, because I know Cornwall and the music so well), then came my Life Upheaval in the form of a move to Australia, and I hit the wall that most fans of Charles would have come across at that time. The mysterious Back Catalogue. This was back in the mid ’90s, before the Internet really took off, and one had to get bibliographical information from books or those extremely limited off-line catalogues in bookstores! I remember somehow getting very lucky and finding an import of Jack of Kinrowan (Jack the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon) in a local store, and then getting set on the breadcrumb trail of Charles’s myriad shorts and other ‘hidden’ works such as the mysteries he originally wrote under the pseudonym of Samuel. M. Key such as Angel of Darkness.

I did a quick check on ‘urban fantasy’ on Wikipedia just before I walked over here, and Charles’s name is listed as one of the key pioneers, along with the likes of John Crowley, Emma Bull and Jonathan Carroll. Mythic Fiction is probably more of an appropriately broad term, as Charles quite often steps away from his beloved streets of Newford, and over the past number of books, the still of the desert has featured alongside the cathedralling trees of the wildwood.

The explosion of the Internet opened up the ability to find these out of print books, and also brought me in contact with the man himself. I found an online mailing list called Tamson House, and promptly, a bunch of new friends. Mostly it was just general talk, life, love, magic, books, music, but there was also a fair bit of trading and exchanging of Charles’s stuff. Luckily there’s no such problem these days, with most of Charles’s work available online, and the shorts gathered into the two Triskell Tales volumes, Triskell Tales and Triskell Tales Two. I found a bunch of copies of The Wild Wood that were illustrated by Froud, and asked if anyone would like to swap one for something else I didn’t have, and I was quite surprised to find an email from Charles asking about them himself. Well from there we began corresponding, with me sending him musical tidbits from Australia (he’s a big fan of Divinyls, not to mention a bunch of other lesser-known Australian performers) and he’d send me books, CDs, knick-knacks. Over the course of the years we kept up a constant dialogue, until we finally managed to be in the same country at the same time and we could meet. That was the World Fantasy Convention in 2001, and my partner Julie and I were going to be in Montreal. Luckily, the meeting went well. We spent time with them in Ottawa, and Charles and MaryAnn stayed with us in Australia a couple of years ago, despite MaryAnn’s worries about the snakes and spiders.

One thing that has always staggered me about Charles is his amazing workload. Besides being a novelist, he puts out a amazing number of short stories (and I’m including in that simple description all the novellas, novelettes, verse, et al), writes the Books to Look For column for the magazine of F&SF, plays music in a local pub on Thursday nights (and he plays a number of instruments very well), does book tours, listens to an amazing amount of music in every genre known to an iPod, and corresponds with countless people all over the world. I do about a quarter of that and I still moan about the speed of the days. Secretly, a few of us thinks he has one of those little reality folds into the UnderEarth, somewhere in his crowded attic room, a little like the ones described in Someplace to be Flying, and that he nips away for days at a time, only to emerge back in Ottawa five minutes after he finished his last coffee.

So, the future. Well as always there are a lot of people holding out for a movie of one of Charles’s stories (an episode, The Sacred Fire, of The Hunger was made a few years ago from the Dreams Underfoot tale, which was very good), and there are a lot of us holding our breath for an album of some sorts. The musical little tasters we’ve been given over the years at various conventions and signings point to something well worth waiting for. And of course, new stories. I have the new novel, Widdershins and Triskell Tales, Volume 2 sitting on the bedside table back home, positively hollering to be read.

On a personal note, I just want this speech to be over so I can sit and play some tunes with a pair of old friends.

Needless to say, it wasn’t hard to find people willing to comment on de Lint, his writing, and his other endeavors. To start, what might be considered, for the most part, a few blurbs, we might call them, by other writers, editors, and even an illustrator.

Author and editor Terri Windling tells us a story about transformation, one of de Lint’s major themes. Yes, stories can make a difference.

James Hetley, also an author and a friend of de Lint, has some observations on de Lint’s role in the creation of what we now call “urban fantasy.”

And finally, author (another author? Must be the company he keeps) OR Melling has words of praise for Charles de Lint the writer and the person.

And to sum it up, Robert, who has been reading de Lint’s fiction for more years than he’s willing to admit brings us a quasi-critical history of de Lint’s writing.

We did mention that de Lint is a musician, didn’t we? Well, he is, as witnessed first by his album Old Blue Truck. And in this context, given her contribution to that album, it’s only meet that we introduce you to the music of MaryAnn Harris, as evidence on her EP, Crow Girls. And as additional testimony of de Lint’s abilities as a composer, Zahatar recorded an album of tunes from his novel The Little Country.

And finally, a word from the man himself, written originally on the occasion of his having been named Oak King at Green Man Review.

So how can you laugh when your own mother’s hungry,
And how can you smile when the reasons for smiling are wrong?
And if I just messed up your thoughtless pleasures,
Remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas song.

Jetho Tull’s ‘A Christmas Song’

In our hearts, we all want to hear those three little words: “pie for breakfast”. Well hand pies, anyways. Mrs. Ware and our ever-so-skilled Kitchen staff are keenly aware that a working Estate doesn’t mean staff can always take the time out of their busy schedules to sit down and eat a meal, hence breakfast hand pies.  Ham, egg and cheddar; apple and yet more cheddar; sausage, egg and cheese — something to please any hearty appetite, no matter what time of day.

I’ve been helping Gus, our Estate Head Gardener, decorate Kinrowan Hall for the Holidays so I’ve been up early for me, around nine in the morning, and I grabbed a ham, apple and cheddar hand pie before heading out to string more wreathing around the Hall. It was warm and oh, so tasty.

I’m back in the Pub now, so let’s turn to this Edition. Oh and be advised that next week is an updating of our Charles de Lint Edition, which is full of wonderful looks at books he’s done (rather obviously as he’s an author) and music as well (bet you didn’t know he and his wife MaryAnn Harris have albums out).  So do come back next week to see what we have by him and her!

Camille says that ‘In The Moon and the Face, Patricia McKillip revisits Kyreol and Terje from her lovely Young Adult novel Moon-Flash. Kyreol and Terje, having followed the river to the Dome in book one of this duology, now push beyond the new boundaries of their expanded world: Terje back into the culture they left behind, though as a ghostly observer; and Kyreol outward, into the stars. When Terje discovers the Healer (Kyreol’s father) is dying and Kyreol barely survives a crash landing on a distant desert moon, both of them must find inner resources to meet challenges they never anticipated.’

Denise takes a look at the new DC Comics novels with Harley Quinn: Mad Love. ‘Who can say where this new series of books may take Daddy’s Little Monster? It’s too early to even guess, but with a starter like Love, I’m game for wherever she’ll lead me.’ Sounds promising, no? Read her review for the full story!

Jane Yolen, Shulamith Oppenheim and Stefan Czernecki’s The Sea King is appreciated by Grey: ‘This lovely folk tale has many old friends in it: Vasilisa the Wise, a beautiful princess who is also a bird; Baba Yaga the witch in her house that runs by itself on chicken legs; the King of the Sea in his underwater palace of crystal; and the innocently wise boy who finds his way because he’s generous and observant. And it has one of the most poignant story lines of all: the father who promises to sacrifice the first thing he sees when he returns home — only to find out that he’s just been borne a son.’

Robert says the poetry of Billy Collins is a delight, as is readily apparent in Questions About Angels: ‘Born in 1942 in New York City, Collins has published numerous collections and garnered, among other recognition, fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is possibly one of the most widely exposed of living poets. Questions About Angels, originally published in 1991, was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series.’

An English country house murder mystery gets reviewed by David: ‘As traditional as the genres he chose might have been, in Altman’s hand they were turned upside-down, and sideways. Warren Beatty and Julie Christie became anti-hero and opium addict in Altman’s “western” McCabe & Mrs. Miller, set to the music of Leonard Cohen! A laconic Elliott Gould became Raymond Chandler’s private dick Phillip Marlowe in an updated LA for Altman’s “detective” classic The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman has been the most American of directors, and now, in Gosford Park, he takes on the English country house murder mystery. Altman’s Agatha Christie film? What could this mean?’

As cold weather comes to stay, warm beverages take center stage around here. So Denise looks into Smashmallow’s Cinnamon Churro marshmallows to see if they’d be a welcome addition to our stores. She’s happy with what she found: ‘I have a love-hate relationship with marshmallows. I love how they bob on the top of my drink, but hate that most of the time I’m left with a soggy bit of ‘mallow bloof (it’s a word because I just used it) as I empty my mug. However, that’s about to change, thanks to Smashmallow.’ See why she’s pleased in her review.

Gary notes that ‘There are memoirs, and there are cookbooks. A few authors have combined the two, but none that I’ve read have been so successful at it as Diana Abu-Jaber with her delightful The Language of Baklava’. Read the rest of his equally delightful review for the details on this book.

I noted last week that the DC Universe streaming service in the States was doing a live action Doom Patrol series (and Netflix will be having it here in the UK and Europe we’re told),  and we’re also being being told that they’re also doing the same with Swamp Thing! So let’s turn to April’s look at this tasty offering: ‘For the first time, Moore’s early work on Saga of the Swamp Thing — the first eight issues — has been released in hardback format. This edition includes issue 20, which has not previously been available outside the original single issue. Original creator Len Wein provides the introduction, while author Ramsey Campbell add a foreword.’ It is not the first live action series for this DC being as this review by Debbie shows.

Brendan has a tasty recording from Finland for your consideration: ‘JPP — short for Järvelän Pikkupelimannit (” Little Folk Musicians of Järvelä”) — originally formed in 1983 as a local fiddle orchestra in the small town of Järvelä, Finland. Formed around the nucleus of 3 fiddlers, including leader Arto Järvelä, a harmonium player, and a bass player, they spent most of the Eighties and early Nineties gathering a devoted following in Finland and across the world and the reputation of being particularly inventive interpreters of Finland’s rich folk heritage. With the publication of Kaustinen Rhapsody, JPP proved itself to be excellent performers of contemporary music as well.’

Got a Tull fan on your Christmas shopping list? Oh does Chris have a suggestion for you: ‘Over the past several years, many classic rock bands have been re-releasing their backlist, and Jethro Tull is no exception. Like most Tull fans, I already have these albums, in some cases in multiple formats, so I was initially skeptical of the new releases. Did I really need a box set of an album, when I already had an LP, cassette tape, and, as in the case of Aqualung, the 25th anniversary CD? However, I found myself tempted by Songs from the Wood, a personal favorite album of mine, and decided to take my chances with it, and the reissue of Heavy Horses. I wasn’t disappointed.’

Gary reviews a digital release of recordings from the New York Ragas Live program, an annual festival in which musicians play ragas for a live audience and live radio broadcast for 24 hours straight. The Ragas Live Retrospective gathers performances from 2012 through 2017, and Gary says ‘It’s a rich, creative and infinitely rewarding exposition of the current state of the New York raga renaissance.’

Robert brings us a review of music that’s fit for all seasons, namely Joseph Haydn’s Die Jahreszeit: ‘I’m always delighted and amused by what the eighteenth century — one of the most mannered and formal periods in Western history — considered “lacking in artifice.” However, whatever my personal opinion (coming, as it does, from a casual and fairly spontaneous contemporary American Midwesterner), that was one of the major points of praise by his contemporaries for Joseph Haydn’s oratorio, The Seasons.’

Krampus, that dark side of Christmas folklore doesn’t get always get the recognition he deserves but writer Elizabeth Hand who is familiar to many of of you has a book to recommend: ‘The Devil in Design: The Krampus Postcards, edited by Monte Beauchamp, on Fantagraphics. Beautifully reproduced artwork from 19th and early 20th century Austrian, German, and Czech postcards featuring the diabolical Krampus, St. Nicholas’s demonic sidekick. Perverse and a nice, dark, folkloric alternative to Christmas kitsch.’

We started off with lyrics from Tull so let’s finish off with them as well. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ has no apparent entry in the Infinite Jukebox database which I admit is rather odd but it’s fine sounding none- the-less. It was, as Ian notes in the brief intro to it, done in the lead-up to the release of the Jethro Tull Christmas Album which means it was recorded in the summer of fifteen years ago.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ― Edith Sitwell

No, it is not Winter yet but I like that quote a lot and the forecast is for a harsh Winter here so we’ll all be looking for the small pleasures ones takes when that happens.

That is a muffin filled with a hard boiled egg at its centre and with smoked crumbled bacon and dried onion in the batter. Quite ymmmy. Oh and cheddar cheese as well. It and a thermos of tea with cream make for a rather nice and filling breakfast for me to toss in my mackinaw pocket before I go for a ramble towards The Wild Wood just after dawn breaks on this unusually pleasantly warm very late Autumn day which I’ll be doing as soon as I finish off this edition for your reading pleasure.

It’s not surprising food and drink on this remote Scottish Estate play a crucial role in the life of the small year-round community that swells significantly with visitors for music festivals and conferences in the warmer months but folds in on itself by late Autumn for the most part.

Now let’s turn to this Edition…

Of Brian Attebery’s The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin Grey says that while ‘it’s clear that this book is written for a primarily academic readership, the writing style is smooth and not ponderous. It’s a little dry, but dry like a pleasant white wine, not like a mouthful of saltine crackers. Attebery gives plenty of examples to illustrate his points, but not too many examples. Occasional readers of fantasy could give it a miss, but those who read fantasy devotedly or have an interest in the genre as a whole will want it for their reference shelf.’

Kelly gives us a look at a book by someone who we might not have expected to be an accomplished writer: ‘Evenings with the Orchestra gives not just a fine example of critical writing in nineteenth century Paris, nor even just a good illustration of the cultural life in that time and place. It does all that, to be sure, but most importantly it gives us a personal look at the inner world of one of Romanticism’s greatest composers. It’s a book that is full of humor, fire, and love of music. So it should be, having been written by Hector Berlioz.’

Some books we’ve reviewed more than once, as they had multiple editions. So it is with the classic book Marian has for us this time: ‘This is a strongly recommended edition of Peter Pan. It is faithful to the original text and is complemented very well by the imaginative illustrations of Greg Becker, which bring to life the story by J.M. Barrie.’

Richard says that ‘Elizabeth Hand’s Winterlong is not an easy book. It challenges the reader from the first page – really, the first sentence. It sprawls across genre boundaries as if they weren’t there, effortlessly mixing mythopoeic fantasy with horror with post-apocalyptic science fiction with Shakespeare. It is rich, filled to bursting with ideas that are so integral to the world and yet so thoroughly understood by the characters that there’s never a moment of slam-on-the-brakes exposition. ’

As a break from bleak winter skies, Robert brings us a collection from a Greek poet in exotic Alexandria, The Complete Poems of Cavafy: ‘Modern Greece has produced an amazing body of literature including works by such luminaries as Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, and others. One of the most significant members of this select community is the poet Constantine Cavafy. The Complete Poems of Cavafy as translated by Rae Dalven presents the body of his work for the non-Greek speaking reader, and has the added grace of including an Introduction by W. H. Auden.’

Denise checked out Swamp Thing: The Series, and while she loves the title character, she felt there was  more that could have been done for ol’ Swampy. ‘It’s a completist’s treasure, but a well thought out “Best Of” set with the lesser episodes removed would have been a better crafted, more enjoyable collection.’ Read her review to find out more!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Second Season, says Will, is very satisfying and ‘The general reason this season is great is because it’s about love in many forms. A specific reason it’s great is the Spike and Drusilla romance. They’re the first ongoing villains who touch Buffy’s personal life. In their case, it’s initially through Angel: Angel sired Dru, Dru sired Spike, and when Angel turns bad, he’d like some fun with Dru again, though his obsession with Buffy doesn’t abate.’

Denise starts prepping for her yearly ‘Feast of the Seven Fishes’ with a review of Bay Harbor All Natural Smoked Wild Kippers. She’s pleased with what she’s found. ‘These kips are strong with the smoke, but slight on the salt. It’s fantastic.’ She promises a full seven fishy reviews by the time Christmas rolls around. So read this one and keep coming back for more!

It’s definitely that time when that if you’re like me, that you’re craving extra carbs and Cheesy hash brown casserole is a recipe on which Jen has an open riff that’s delightful and makes the dish sound warm: ‘Here is a tump recipe I got off the back of a bag of hash browns and then messed with. There are no rules with tump recipes. Change the ingredients, the proportions, the oven temperature—this is your recipe now.’

Given that the DC Universe streaming service is launching a live Doom Patrol series next year (and the teaser on the Titans series there was fucking awesome!), it’s an excellent time to read Richard’s review of Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage graphic novel: ‘The Doom Patrol had always teetered on the lunatic fringe of super-groups, due in large part to the fact that many of the characters were gimmicky, unlikable, or just plain strange. Wheelchair-bound genius Niles Caulder was Charles Xavier with Doctor Doom’s people skills, manipulative and megalomaniacal. Of his team, the most human and sympathetic was the orange-plated Robotman, and things went rapidly downhill from there. And did I mention the fact that the entire team had been killed off at least once?’

Chris says ‘Forty years after the groundbreaking progressive rock classic Thick as a Brick, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull brings us Thick as A Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? Is he Too Old to Rock n’ Roll? Hardly. This album is all the proof you need.’

Gary takes a look at a new version of an old favorite: ‘Well here we are again, celebrating another 50th anniversary of a ground-breaking Beatles LP with a deluxe, remastered reissue. This time it is the double LP The Beatles, otherwise known as The White Album…’

Kathryn Tickell & Ensemble Mystical’s Ensemble Mystical gets reviewed by Naomi: ‘For those of you not familiar with Kathryn Tickell, she is an ultimate listening delight. Kathryn is an accomplished piper and fiddler. She comes from Northumberland, which is one of England’s largest counties, and has put out a number of CDs. Kathryn actually picked up the Northumberland pipes at the age of nine for the first time, and I’m happy to say she didn’t put them back down but kept at it.’ Oh and there’s a carynx involved as well!’

Robert rediscovers Depeche Mode — again: ‘Somewhere along the line, I rediscovered Depeche Mode. I pretty much had everything available up through Depeche Mode 101 (which I didn’t think much of — it’s one of the worst live albums I’ve heard), but on a whim I picked up a copy of Songs of Faith and Devotion and finally got around to listening to it. The die was cast. I then got a copy of Playing the Angel.’

Our What Not this week is yet another highlight from Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History: The Labs (Well, says Robert, it’s a big place — there’s lots to see): ‘As you wander around the upper level gallery at the Field Museum, you will run across several large glass-fronted rooms in which people are doing mysterious things. These are several of the laboratories where technicians are working, and you can watch.’ Prepared to be amazed.

Something lively, something trad I think should be our parting music this Sunday, so let me have a few minutes to see what I like… ‘Black Crows and Ravens’ from Iron Horse, a sort of trad Scottish band I think is no more, recorded this at Gosport Easter Festival in April of 1996, is my choice this time. I say I think as many of those groups, provided all of their members are alive unlike say Nightnoise have a tendency to show up for one-offs pretty much without notice.

The roasting, the feasting and the hours of horseplay helped to create a special warmth on this cold, hard day. Then the fire was stoked and fed to make a warm place where there could be dancing until darkfall. Martin was very drunk. Rebecca danced alone, wide skirts swirling, hair flowing as the accordion wheezed out its jig, and feet stamped on the stone flags at the edge of the field, where the pit had been dug. — Robert Holdstock’s Merlin’s Wood

It smells this afternoon, if you venture outside, like Autumn should: tannin from the ancient oaks and wood smoke, thick with resin from the spruce scarps being burned in the fire pit near this Hall. It’s got a bite on the air, but not enough to be unpleasant. And I’ve got enough readers in the Library for it to pleasantly busy without being hectic as it is if the weather turns too nasty.

I’ve already dressed warmly and taken my long walk for the day, a morning sojourn with the Estate wolfhounds, complete with a thermos of tea and a breakfast ham and cheese biscuit in a pocket of my mackinaw, out towards one of the Standing Stones and back. Now I’m quite content to tackle my paperwork and assist folks here as need be. Let’s turn to this Edition while I see what Irish trad music I’ll see you off with on this Autumn day…

Grey has a fairy tale collection for us: ‘So what does Iona and Peter Opie’s The Classic Fairy Tales have to offer that makes it worth being reprinted numerous times since its first publication in 1974? Chiefly this: collected here are twenty-four of the best-known traditional fairy tales as they were first published in English. The earliest is “The History of Tom Thumbe, the Little, for his small stature surnamed, King Arthvrs Dwarfe: Whose Life and aduentures containe many strange and wonderfull accidents, published for the delight of merry Time-spenders,” dated 1621. The text from which “Hansel and Gretel” — the last tale in the collection — is taken was published in 1853.’

Susan Gaber did the illustrations for The Princess and the Lord of Night, which Marian notes was written By Emma Bull, who ‘is best-known to readers as a writer of urban fantasy novels, including War for the Oaks, Bone Dance, and Finder. She is also a musician involved with the bands Cats Laughing and the Flash Girls. However, in this book she turns her hand to writing fairy tales, and is, in my humble opinion, very successful.’

Robert brings a look at, of all things, a museum catalogue, but one that’s quite out of the ordinary: ‘William Eggleston is one of a small group of people who created color photography as a viable medium in art. William Eggleston’s Guide, the catalogue for an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, is a group of approximately 50 images that served to establish Eggleston’s reputation as a major figure in American photography. In addition to Eggleston’s astonishing photographs, the book is graced by a brilliant essay by John Szarkowski, the legendary Curator of Photographs at MOMA.’

Stephen says of an Alan Garner work, which is definitely aimed at adults, that ‘These are only the questions which I find myself considering today. When I read Thursbitch again (and I will), they may be different, as they may be for you, when you read this book. The reasons for this are that Thursbitch is a book that casts the reader as an enthralled participant, rather than a passive recipient. It is, to repeat, a mystery. It may unsettle you (if not actually give you nightmares), but you’ll love it unequivocally nonetheless.’

Our Editor looks at a Doctor Who adventure beloved by many fans of the series: ‘The Talons of Weng Chiang which featured Tom Baker, one of the most loved of all the actors who’ve played The Doctor, and Leela, the archetypal savage that British Empire both adored and despised, played by Louise Jameson. That it is set during the Victorian Era is something that British have been fond of setting dramas in, well, since a few years after the era ended. Doctor Who has had stories set in this era myriad times.’

Kage says ‘With The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, alas, the malign gods were paying attention and behaving not unlike Terry Pratchett’s Auditors, practically warping time and space to mess with Terry Gilliam. They failed to ruin the film — Munchausen is magnificent, and a fitting conclusion to the Trilogy of the Imagination — but they ruined everything they could, to such an extent that Munchausen is unfairly and incorrectly called one of the most expensive disasters in cinema history.’

There’s Jiffy Corn Bread (25¢ a box when I was a bride, and a great help) and then there’s scratch corn bread, such as the bride makes from good old Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook (with the faux red-and-white-check tablecloth cover), and then there’s real scratch cornbread. That’s what you get when you do all the right things to make the chymical magick of corn bread happen perfectly. Do it Jennifer’s way and you’ll amaze them all.

Remember Abe Sapien? Well, if you don’t, Robert has a look at three stories about him: ‘Among the many spin-offs from Mike Mignola’s Hellboy is the series Abe Sapien, relating the exploits of the eponymous hero, the amphibious man introduced as part of the B.P.R.D. This collection, The Devil Does Not Jest, is the second Abe Sapien collection and contains three stories.’

Ian Anderson at the Beacon Theater a decade ago says Chris was wonderful: ‘This show was billed as an acoustic performance, and fans of the band were not disappointed. For years we hoped Anderson would do an acoustic album– The Secret Language of Birds (2000) and Rupi’s Dance (2004) albums filled that need, and his solo performances work from that mindset.’

Judith looks at at something strictly Irish trad: ‘Natural Bridge is a delight for session musicians and traditionalists. More progressive Irish music enthusiasts should keep in mind that it is a record of earlier 20th century styles and thatLennon and his friends are making little attempt at innovation.’

Play Each Morning Wild Queen gets praised by Michael: ‘The Flash Girls were the musical equivalent of Thelma and Louise, a pair of wild women musicians who’d taken their songs on the road, spreading chaos behind them merrily. They’re what happens when you throw in the Celtic rock talent of Cats Laughing or Boiled in Lead, the peculiar English sentiments of Neil Gaiman, the urban phantasms of one “Colonel” Emma Bull, and the genius of “The Fabulous” Lorraine Garland, self-styled Duchess of Hazard, into a blender and serve chilled with a twist of lime. Or, to put it another way, it’s what happens when some really creative, talented people got together and decided to have some serious fun.’

Robert brings us some holiday music of a different sort: he calls them ‘warhorses’, the concert-hall staples guaranteed to please an audience, presented in Hi-Fi Fiedler, a recording by the master of ‘light classical’: ‘Arthur Fiedler has the distinction of being the best-selling classical conductor of all time, due in no small part to his immense popularity as the musical director of the Boston Pops, a post he held for fifty years. His recordings of so-called ‘light’ classics and orchestral settings of show tunes, jazz, and popular songs sold 50 million copies during his lifetime. After listening to this collection, it’s not hard to see why.’

Our What Not this week is yet another trip to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, this time to take a tour of the Nature Walk: ‘About halfway down the west side of the Field Museum’s Stanley Field Hall, the three-story central atrium of the Museum, there is the beginning of a boardwalk with a sign announcing the “Nature Walk” (not to be confused with Lincoln Park Zoo’s Nature Board Walk, although there are some similarities). The entrance is between two dioramas depicting birds at the potholes that dot the Great Plains of North America (or used to: 90% of them are gone).’

Ahhh now that’s a rather fine piece of music! ‘Toys, Not Ties’  which was recorded by Nightnoise at Teatro Calderon, Spain on the 23th of April, 1991. Now I admit it is not strictly speaking an Irish trad band by any stretch though the band did include siblings of the late Ó Domhnaill and  Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill who were was raised in Kells, County Meath in it.  The band also included the late Scottish fiddler Johnny Cunningham who was honoured here in in a memorial concert.

Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all. — William Goldman, August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018, author and screenwriter of The Princess Bride

I’m sitting in the corner nook of the Estate Kitchen with my iPad resting nearby and a large mug of cinnamon spiced hot chocolate in hand listening to the always pleasant  conversation of the crew as they go about their task of feeding the Estate residents. It being late afternoon and my Several Annies are off getting a lesson in Jewish culinary traditions from Rebbeka, a former Several Annie of mine who now works here for the Estate in this very Kitchen, I decided to ensconce myself hefre for the afternoon.

They’ve been discussing the German-style sausages that Gus, our Estate Head Gardener (and butcher as well) just made that they’re frying up. His usual seasonings include salt, white but never black pepper and mace, and then depending on his inclination, they might contain cumin, coriander, cardamom, thyme, sage, caraway, lots of garlic, and cloves. All I know is if they taste as good as they smell cooking right now, they’ll be delicious!

So now let me finish this Edition off so you can read it…

Camille says that sometimes ‘It’s quite gratifying to revisit books from one’s childhood. Actually, it can be gratifying or disastrous. I’m pleased to say it was the former for me with Patricia A. McKillip’s Moon-Flash. Originally published by Argo Books in 1984, Moon-Flash is one of a duology, though this first book is absolutely readable as a stand-alone novel.’

Chris says ‘Ursula K. LeGuin seems to be getting better as the years go by. Her newest novel, Lavinia, is a historical fantasy that is in some ways even more ambitious than her previous work. First, some background: in book VII of the Aeneid, we learn that Lavinia, daughter of the King of Latium, became Aeneas’ wife, but her role in the poem is almost an afterthought. LeGuin’s novel lets us know what was on Lavinia’s mind.’

Autumn’s often a time of passages so it’s apt that Richard has a look at this work: ‘Even before the untimely passing of author Robert Holdstock, it would have been impossible to read Avilion as anything other than a tale of partings, a resolution to many of the threads woven through the Ryhope Wood cycle. Now, it reads as a fond and graceful farewell to Ryhope and the Huxley family, an affectionate gift of endings to characters who, in their own ways, have all earned peace.’

Lars shares his comments on a man who is, to many, the embodiment of English folk rock: ‘In Off the Pegg Dave tells his story to Nigel Schofield, who has written a number of books about Fairport and past members. Basically the books consists of Dave Pegg talking to Schofield’s recording machine, with the co-author putting in comments to bridge any gaps in the narrative.’

William Goldman died yesterday so let’s have L.G. tell us about one of his films: ‘Envision a film with Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Peter Falk, and Peter Cook that is absolutely hilarious, yet none of them appear in the lead roles. “Inconceivable!,” you cry and I reply, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.” Yes, indeed, we are talking about The Princess Bride — the wildly successful movie based on the wildly successful book of the same title. Both book and screenplay were written by William Goldman which explains two things; 1) why they match up so well, and 2) why they’re both so very, very good.’

Chewy grains and sausage casserole is something offered up for a late Autumn day by Jen: ‘Well, that didn’t work. I tried adapting a recipe yesterday and it was a total frost. The right way to cook this recipe creates a great side dish for a pot luck, or a solid meal for two with leftovers. The grains are chewy and smoky and savory and salty, with just enough sausage grease mixed in to flavor them, and there’s just enough meat to make you feel virtuous about your protein intake.’

Raspberry Creme and a Buttermilk Lemon are the two flavours in chocolate bars Robert looks at this time: ‘As you will remember, Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG is a major German chocolatier and candy manufacturer. I happen to have recently received two of their Limited Edition candies for review — which means, sadly, that I wasn’t allowed to just snarf them down. These are part of a series of candies made with yogurt and flavorings and covered in chocolate. Strangely enough, I wasn’t able to find information on the Ritter Sport website. I guess when they say “Limited Edition,” that’s just what they mean.’

Our Graphic Lit offering this week features more Korean manwha, courtesy of Robert: ‘Yeo and Park’s first collection of Chronicles of the Cursed Sword contains the first three volumes of the original manhwa series. Like King of Hell, it’s a Korean action/adventure story with heavy supernatural overtones, this time involving not one but two magical swords, demons, spirits, and heroes.’

Barb has a look at a rather unusual album from a rather unusual trio (plus guests): ‘ First indication of their sense of humor was the name of the group and album title: Folk Underground and Buried Things respectively. Right there I detect a smirk (a mischievous one, not a criminal one). I love musicians who smirk a bit. It’s a good indication that they don’t take themselves too seriously.’

Chris has some comments on a concert that was a bit of nostalgia and a bit of right now, which is to say Jethro Tull live at Jones Beach, NY, June 11, 2010: ‘After more than four decades of making music, Jethro Tull still has the kind of magic that defines rock ‘n roll. Ian Anderson’s wild onstage antics may have mellowed somewhat over the years, but he is still shockingly agile and energetic for a man in his sixties, even taking to his one-legged flute pose from time to time. Tull are the kind of group that inspire dogged devotion – the guys sitting near me had been to more than three hundred Jethro Tull shows (yes, you read that correctly.) And I thought I was a little obsessed.’

Chicago indie-rocker Ryley Walker just released his own version of a legendary unreleased album by the Dave Matthews Band, called The Lillywhite Sessions. Gary says, ‘There’s nothing in these Lillywhite Sessions that’s going to make me a Dave Matthews fan, but plenty to keep me singing the praises of Ryley Walker.’

Judith says that ‘Emma Bull is a science fiction and fantasy writer, having published a number of sometimes odd works including War for the Oaks, Territory, and Bone Dance: A Fantasy For Technophiles. Lorraine Garland is a “comic book assistant.” Emma and Lorraine perform together as The Flash Girls; they both sang and Lorraine fiddled. Take the Nields, Boiled In Lead (literally), Susan Voeltz, Cordelia’s Dad, and Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh of Altan, add sometimes bizarre lyrics and voila! a vague approximation of The Flash Girls.’ Now go read her review of their Maurice and I album.

And now for something completely different. Robert shares his thoughts on a recording of Terry Riley’s legendary Lisbon Concert: ‘One of the high points of my music-listening career, right up there with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Irwin Hoffman performing the perfect Brahms Symphony No, 1, was the chance to hear Terry Riley in concert. For those who haven’t had that opportunity, the recording of his Lisbon Concert is the next best thing.’

Our What Not this time is about a library that has the habit of — oh, let’s let Atlas Obscura tell the tale: ‘In the reading room of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., researchers might spend hours carefully paging through a 16th-century pamphlet or the only surviving quarto edition of Titus Andronicus. (“If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.”) But they also have access to another unusual—if more informal—collection. Behind the reading room desk there is a vault where the staff keeps a small lending library of handmade shawls.’  You can read the rest of this delightful tale here.

Hmmm… ‘Take This Waltz’ by Leonard Cohen as performed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on the 19th of Feb 2009 seems properly Autumnal to me. Cohen took his version from Pequeño Vals Vienès  (“Little Viennese Waltz”), a poem written in Spanish by Federico Garcia Lorca and the poem itself is definitely not upbeat, but it fits my mood oft times.

She knew this music — knew it down to the very core of her being — but she had never heard it before. Unfamiliar, it had still always been there inside her, waiting to be woken. It grew from the core of mystery that gives a secret its special delight, religion its awe. It demanded to be accepted by simple faith, not dissected or questioned, and at the same time, it begged to be doubted and probed. –– smallpiper Janey Little in Charles de Lint’s The Little Country

Nasty weather today, isn’t it? Don’t  believe it’ll get above minus five centigrade today which is damn cold so near everyone’s staying inside Kinrowan Hall save the Estate staff tending the livestock and checking on the grounds as need be as there’s also a gale force wind blowing and a freezing rain, too.

I was asking a question that pops up frequently around here and Peter Beagle said ‘You mean my favorite writing by Tolkien? Probably the story of Beren and Luthien, which I’ve always loved – or maybe the one now published as The Children of Hurin. One or the other.’  He’s been a guest off and on for decades and I’ve absolutely no idea he gets here from the San Francisco area, but I swear he’s magical in nature — which probably explains his fiction.

Now let’s turn to our Edition…

Welsh mythology in the guise of a well-loved novel gets looked at by Iain: ‘I must have first read Alan Garner’s The Owl Service some forty years ago when I was interested in all things concerning Welsh mythology. I wanted a hardcover first edition which cost a pretty penny at the time. I mention this because it’s now been at least twenty years since I last read this novel, which is long enough that when Naxos kindly sent the audiobook, I had pretty much forgotten the story beyond remembering that I was very impressed by the story Garner told.’

Speaking of Welsh mythology, Jo looks at two versions of a Welsh collection of myths: ‘Grand quests, swords, sorcery, gods, mortals, love, war, and a healthy sense of mystery can all be found in The Mabinogion. These eleven ancient Welsh tales date back to somewhere around 1200 in written form and are classics of the folk tale genre. There are few places where you can find so many archetypal folk themes, presented within such a short space. Celtic lineage, culture, and heritage are presented with grace and passion within the framework of a group of stories. These tales are a must for anyone interested in Celtic folklore or in Arthurian legend, for Arthur plays a minor role in many of the tales.’

Kim has a bit of Irish cultural history for us: ‘Helen Brennan’s The Story of Irish Dance is an engaging, personal, informative, and opinionated look at the reclamation and revival of traditional Irish Dance in the past 40 years — it’s the sort of story that one imagines could be heard in conversation at a congenial pub, sitting by the fire with a pint, or in someone’s living room with a cup of tea. That said, it’s also well organized and gives a succinct history of the decline of Irish dancing in the 20th century, the victim of commercial zoning laws and clerical vendettas.’

A treat for the forthcoming Winter Holidays comes in the guise of a short novel from one of our favourite writers and Richard says ‘one can look at the book as a companion piece to Beagle’s Summerlong, a bookend to the story that one tells. If Summerlong tells the story of a mature romance torn apart by the intrusion of the supernatural, In Calabria is a tale of a May-September romance that happens precisely because of the intrusion of the supernatural into everyday life. One door closes, another one opens, and the cycle goes on.’

Glenn Yeffeth’s Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Show, says Denise, has ‘something of interest in almost every essay in this book. It’s a fine volume for the smallest room in the house. Most of the writers I disagree with are still interesting — Lawrence Watt-Evans has a solution to Buffy’s love life that would never please me, but I understand how he got there.’

Tim looks at The Adventures of Robin Hood: ‘While numerous Robin Hood movies have been made, my dad steadfastly refuses to watch them. “There’s only one Robin Hood,” he says. He’s talking about Errol Flynn, of course, and this 1938 classic.’

Robert, our resident chocolate purist, has three offerings from a fairly new chocolate maker, TCHO: ‘TCHO is an American chocolate maker (and they differentiate between “chocolate maker” and “chocoatier”) that is, according to their website, determined to make the best chocolate possible. Like so many others, they are focused on fair trade organic chocolate. . . .Three of their offerings wound up on my desk recently, and I have to admit, they are all excellent. Where to start?’

Robert brings us something a little out of the ordinary for this week’s graphic literature: the beginning of a Korean manhwa series, King of Hell: ‘King of Hell is manhwa from Korea, a medium that, along with Chinese man hua, fits within the overall manga model. It’s what I’ve taken to calling a supernatural adventure, based on the exploits of one Majeh, an envoy for the King of Hell.’

Celtic music has long been bastardised, errr, blended with other traditions, as Chuck notes in this review: ‘Many forms of music have been fused with Celtic — hard rock, new age, jazz, and South American, just to name a few — with varying success. With Born Tired, Burach fuses with several styles, most unusually, attempting to merge Celtic with ’70s era funk with mixed results.’

Gary tells us about a new four-song EP from Rachel Baiman that has a holiday theme. ‘Thanksgiving packs a big emotional wallop for such a little thing. Rather like the emotions lurking behind this family-centered, uniquely American holiday.’

Naomi looks at album called Solstice: ‘Duchas, pronounced “du-kuss,” is an Irish Gaelic word meaning “heritage.” And this is what this high energy group from Connemara is playing: their musical heritage. This is their second release, and it is filled with traditional and original pieces, all played with a wonderful energy and passion.’

Robert brings us a collection that of music that often starts with the traditional and goes on from there — to wit, Vaughan Williams’s Orchestral Works: ‘Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) is certainly one of the foremost English composers of the twentieth century. Like many of his contemporaries – Bartók and Copeland come immediately to mind – he drew a great deal of his inspiration from folk songs and traditional melodies. In addition to his symphonies and choral works, he left behind a rich legacy of shorter orchestral works, many of which are remarkable, orchestral jewels.’

This week’s What Not almost wound up in Food and Drink. How can that be? you ask. Well, let Robert guide you through a rather unusual exhibition at Chicago’s Field Museum: ‘If you happen to be in Chicago before January 5, 2020, be sure to catch a small gem of an exhibition at the Field Museum: the Chicago Brewseum’s Brewing Up Chicago, their first exhibition, hosted by the Field Museum. It’s a combination of history, politics, and the brewer’s art.’

Now let’s have some music to finish out this edition. It’s Northumbrian piper and fiddler Kathryn Tickell performing   ‘The Pipes Lament’, a tune written by her, which was recorded at the Shoreditch Church, London on the 15th of June 2010, and it should do quite nicely.

Tickell, by the way, connects indirectly to The Little Country novel as smallpiper Janey Little in the novel lists Northumbrian piper Billy Pigg as one of her inspirations to become a musician, something that Tickell also claims.

Nothing warms my heart and body as much as a bonfire does. Other than my wife that is. Oh I know that I could be inside with my wife Catherine enjoying the warmth of one of the many fireplaces in this old building, but I love, particularly as Autumn gives way to Winter, being outside when a roaring bonfire’s been built.

We build bonfires often in the courtyard here at the Kinrowan Estate. Sometimes we have contradances deep into the night with bloody big mugs of hot chocolate fortified with brandy, spiced cider or tea to aid in keeping everyone warm, and sometimes the Neverending Session treats those who care to come out in the cold to music by fire and moonlight. There’s something rather amazing to hear those musos play long into the night with the stars overhead.

Now building a proper bonfire is not something most folks know how to do. They think just throwing anything wooden into a pile and lighting is all there is to it. And we won’t even dwell on the idiots who use petrol to ignite their bonfires which is a sure way to get someone hurt badly.

A proper bonfire first of all needs a pit, preferably made out of stone. Ours is twelve feet across and three feet deep — need I say that it’s set a safe distance from anything that could catch fire? The wood for the bonfire should be a mix of softwoods like spruce and pine for both its quick burning and its lovely crackling sound; the hardwoods we use are maple and oak as they’ll burn a long time.

Our fire pit has a six foot wide flat lip — perfect for sitting on as the fire dies down. As the courtyard has a nice stone tile surface perfect for dancing (at least ’til it gets really cold), we often use the bonfire as a light source for those dances. And we’ve actually roasted whole pigs in the pit over a custom iron rack that fits into grooves in the sides of it — really good eating that makes!

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot. 

Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta

As Manager and thereby self-assigned evening Barkeep in the Estate Pub, breakfast for me is around three in the afternoon as I rarely stir before two in the afternoon. (Ingrid, my wife, who’s the Estate Steward, keeps roughly the same hours, arising about noon as RHIP and her work has no set hours.) Fortunately I work nights so I don’t notice the shortening days.

When the weather turns nasty, as certainly has it this November afternoon,  I’ll always go with an old favourite of mine — huevos rancheros, which for me are eggs and chorizo wrapped in warm tortillas, then covered with a green chili sauce. That and strong black coffee served with real cream will do nicely, provided all of this is served ’round noon, when I’m, more or less, ready to be awake. If I don’t ‘ave that, I’ll settle for a full Welsh breakfast of three thick Welsh bacon rashers, pork sausage and two lovely eggs. And strong tea.

Our Edition time is our usual mix of old material from the Archives, such as the review of de lint’s Dreams Underfoot collection which we strongly recommend for Autumnal reading, along with such material as a newly penned look at Halloween candy, a recent DVD release of  a Joni Mitchell performance almost fifty years ago, and of course we’ve got music in the form this time of  The Men They Couldn’t Hang’s ‘Homefires’, their take on Guy Fawkes Day to see us out.

Elizabeth has a Big Dumb Object SF Novel for us: ‘Helix is one of the few science fiction books that manages to make the future of humanity look both bleak and hopeful at the same time, and that’s a testament to Eric Brown’s skill with characterization, description, and narrative.’

Richard has this lead-in to a classic English work of fantasy: ‘The first fully fledged novel in the Robert Holdstock’s epic novel cycle is Mythago Wood. The book, which first saw print in 1984 (though part of it appeared earlier in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) is awash in both the Oedipal struggle and the Jungian subjective unconscious. At its heart, it’s a tale of family struggle. Sons war against each other for the love of a woman, and both struggle against their monstrous, inhuman father. Or so it seems.’ And though he’s doesn’t note it in that review, he does note in later reviews of other novels in the series that Mythago Wood is a character unto itself.

Robert has a wonderful fantasy collection for us: ‘Charles de Lint’s Dreams Underfoot is another collection of Newford stories, rather different in feel than those in The Ivory and the Horn. While that collection leaned more toward the “ghost stories” category, this one is much more inclined toward what we’ve come to know as de Lint’s own brand of fantasy: urban, contemporary, drawing on mythic traditions from both Europe and North America, and not quite like anything anyone else is writing. These stories are also what I’ve come to think of as “mature de Lint”: the boundaries between the worlds have become not only intangible, but largely irrelevant, the here-and-now is not irrevocably here or now, and magic is where you find it – if it doesn’t find you first.’

Equally wonderful, in Robert’s view, is a collection of two collections of works by Robert Frost: ‘A Boy’s Will was Robert Frost’s first published collection, seeing print when he was nearly forty, in 1913. North of Boston, published in 1914, was his second collection. Published together, they provide a good signpost at the point where 19th-century poetry became 20th-century poetry.’

Kelly joyfully exclaims that ‘Joni Mitchell’s 1970 Isle of Wight performance is captured in Both Sides Now, a stunning historical document of an artist at the peak of her powers amid the chaos of this iconic festival.’

Denise here, taking over the Food & Drink section with more candy reviews. Why? It’s the Season of the Witch, is it not? Donovan says so, and I will not argue. So go take a gander at my reviews for Reese’s Snack-Size Peanut Butter Pumpkins, Treat Street’s Zombie Hand Gummy Lollipops, Jelly Belly’s The Original Gourmet Candy Corn, Wonka’s Halloween Fright-Tins, and Sour Patch Kids’ Zombie Candy! Of course I have a quote for you. I’d never forget. But this time, you’ll have to figure out exactly which review it’s from. (Spoiler: it’s not chocolate…) ‘Perhaps I’m not cool enough, but…there’s only so much I can take.’ It’s a tough job, reviewing candies, but someone’s gotta do it. And on that note, I’ll be off to the kitchen, where I hear that the Cook has whipped up a batch of sugar-hangover cure. 

Denise has a look at the film version of V for Vendetta: ‘It’s been said that Guy Fawkes was the only person who ever entered the Houses of Parliament with honest intentions. He honestly meant to blow the place to smithereens, and though he was foiled in his attempt, at least his motives were easy to understand. . . . the titular hero of V for Vendetta has a similar plan, but his intentions are darkened by involved self-interest.’

David looks back at the original V for Vendetta: ‘It was Dickens who said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” but by the time it rolled ’round to Alan Moore and David Lloyd, it was worse: nuclear holocaust, fascist dictatorships, concentration camps for the disenfranchised. And who is disenfranchised? Just about anyone who doesn’t toe the party line. It’s not a pretty sight this England imagined by Moore and Lloyd in their 10 month comic series from two decades ago.’

Gary saw Jakob Bro recently live: ‘The beautifully restored Presbyterian Church in downtown Portland that is The Old Church Concert Hall  was a perfect spot for this music. It’s a warm, acoustically gorgeous and intimate venue that made this gig feel more like a house concert.’

Jayme looks at what I’d say is essential listening for Celtic music fans: ‘There’s no gloss and polish here like you’d find on, say, an Altan disc, no studio jiggery and double-tracked harmonies that are so commonplace on a Clannad release. Not that those are necessarily bad things, mind you, but every one of the 11 tracks on The Best of Silly Wizard sound like they were recorded in one take in the studio, with the entire band playing at once, rather than the more common practice of laying down each instrument separately and mixing later. Now, I don’t know if that’s actually the way Silly Wizard recorded the music here, but the end result.’

A debut recording  that turned out to be the only recording by a Scottish group caught the ear of Naomi: ‘The sound of the CD really does reflect this large cast of musicians, revealing a broad spectrum of styles and influences with forays into country and pop music. However, the overall feel of this recording is remarkably unified and thoroughly Scottish at its core, although the members of Cantychiels clearly have the knack for injecting a pleasant modern sensibility into their music. Fans of early ’80s Clannad will not be disappointed with this CD.’

Robert has a look at music from Merrie Old England, the England of Elizabeth and James — and Guy Fawkes. It’s a twofer review of Seven Teares: Music of John Dowland and The York Waits’ Fortune My Foe: Popular Music from the Period of the Gunpowder Plot: ‘Guy Fawkes made the mistake of getting caught with the barrels of gunpowder intended to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605; he was neither the instigator nor the leader of the plot, just the fall guy. He has the somewhat thin consolation of giving his name to the English holiday on which things explode. (Every country has one, you know.)’ (I know, the titles don’t sound so merrie, but that’s just the way it was.)

While Guy Fawkes Day is still on our minds around here, there’s another tale that I can’t help but come back to when November begins. With a yearly masquerade to attend, I can’t help but think of Poe’s ‘Masque of the Red Death’. This tale blends the chills of the recently departed Halloween with the horrors of what I like to call The Sickness Season. While we can hopefully count ourselves lucky enough to avoid Prospero’s fate this season, this time of year raises goosebumps for more reasons than one. Let’s hope ‘Darkness and Decay and the Red Death’ bypasses us all. (Save for the tale itself, of course.) Shall I fetch us all hearty cups of soup? I feel the need for one right now.

Our music for you quite naturally is The Men They Couldn’t Hang’s ‘Homefires’, their look at Guy Fawkes Day and what it means to British culture. Where and when they recorded it seems to have been lost right now though I’ll add in if I find out that information.

I forbid you maidens all that wear gold in your hair
To travel to Carterhaugh for young Tam Lin is there
None that go by Carterhaugh but they leave him a pledge
Either their mantles of green or else their maidenhead

Fairport Convention’s ‘Tam Lin’

 It’s quite cold and blustery here on this Scottish Estate so we’re all thankful that  the Fey provide the lighting for the exterior pumpkins as candles of a conventional nature wouldn’t stay lit at all. But the lighting of a supernatural nature is perfect. We here on the Estate and invited guests will be celebrating by attending a concert by the Neverending Session  in which they perform Halloween music, both classical such as ‘Danse Macabre’ and  more contemporary tunes such as ’The Great Pumpkin’ and even one by the Red Clay Ramblers, ‘The Pumpkin Dance’.

Roast pumpkin soup, sourdough rolls shaped like skulls, cinnamon-spiced pork hand pies and nutmeg-spiced pumpkin ice cream will be our eventide meal tonight which will be perfect for working off when we have a midnight contradance by Chasing Fireflies which tonight is Ingrid, our Steward, on hand drums, Bela, our Hungarian violinist, Finch, one of our barkeeps, on Border smallpipes and Iain, our Librarian on violin.

Now let’s turn to our more or less Halloween-centric edition. To start things off, how about a lovely reading of ‘Halloween’ by Robert Burns? It’s a poem perfect for the season, and read by David Hart with just a wee touch o’ the brogue. As for the rest of the haunts in this issue? I think you’ll find much to check out later. I think there’s even going to be some food and drink of a Halloween nature courtesy of, well, let’s keep that a secret …

Cat starts off our book reviews with Smoking Mirror Blues, a novel by Ernest Hogan. Cat says of it that ‘In the very near future, the citizens of Los Angeles are preparing to celebrate Dead Daze, a bacchanalian rave of a holiday that’s an over-the-top merging of All Hallows Eve, the Mexican Day of the Dead, and Mardi Gras. The reawakened Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, riding the body of a human, is feeling quite well, thank you! And let’s not forget that the Day of the Dead, which forms part of Dead Daze, is at its heart a time when the barriers between the dead and the still-living are all but completely erased. So maybe the gods do walk again … And this holiday, not dissimilar to the one in the Strange Days movie, needs National Guard troops to prevent rioting!’

So how about a Day of The Dead set story that involves a small town mechanic called Grace who discovers the man she loves is dead? And that she can cross over when the veils are thin to see him? Such is the premise of Charles de Lint’s The Mystery of Grace which Cat notes that ‘It is a perfect introduction to de Lint, as it doesn’t requite you to have read anything else by him at all, but gives you a good feel for what he is like as a writer, as it has well-crafted characters, believable settings, and a story that will hold your interest. And it is a novel that you will read again to get some of the nuances that get missed in the first reading.’

Craig has a review of a horror novel set on a closely related holiday: ‘Brian A. Hopkins is an acclaimed writer and editor (he has won Bram Stoker Awards under both guises) who also operates an innovative publishing company (Lone Wolf Publications, which produced the multimedia anthology Tooth and Claw, Volume One and another Stoker winner, The Imagination Box), yet who still has time to crank out terrific work for other smaller houses like Earthling Publications. El Dia de los Muertos (“the Day of the Dead”) is his most recent Stoker recipient, winning the 2002 award for best novella.’

Halloween is the time for vampires, and so Denise takes a look at Gross and Altman’s Slayers & Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy and Angel. She found an detailed “oral history” that is sure to please fans of both shows.  ‘I can feel the authors’ love for their subject, and their excitement is contagious.  … [A] fun read that’ll keep you in party anecdotes for this coming holiday season, and into the next one.’

One of our Garys has a look at Christopher Golden and James A. Moore’s Bloodstained Oz: ‘If you like lots of violence and gore, and you’re a fan of The Wizard of Oz, then you’ll like this book. The evil manifestations of Baum’s characters are one of the highlights of the book. If you like a book with an ending, prepare yourself to write your own, as the authors apparently intended.’

Jack looks at a Diane Wynne Jones novel that befits this holiday: ‘It’s a good solid book with memorable characters and an engrossing plot which got read in one rather long sitting on a cold, rainy afternoon late in October. Several pots of Earl Grey tea and a number of the tHe Kitchen’s excellent scones were devoured in the reading of Fire & Hemlock.’

Love, hate, or baffled by The Wicker Man, there’s no denying it’s a horror classic.  No, not the horrendous 2006 remake, but the original 1973 film starring Christopher Lee.  The original film has caught the eye of many, including many academics. Kestrell takes a look at Benjamin Franks’ The Quest for The Wicker Man: History, Folklore, and Pagan Perspectives, a collection of articles from a conference that focused on the film.  ‘The Quest for The Wicker Man is highly recommended for any dedicated Wicker Man fan and especially for academics writing about this classic cult film.’  Read more about this collection in her review!

Nellie looks at The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: ‘Through Jean Markale’s book we can find the real legitimacy for Halloween as a holiday. It is not simply about children traipsing from door to door looking for candy (or else! Trick or Treat!). It is not simply about a reverence for ancestors, or a time to let go of all inhibition. There is a reality to it that gives it a deeper presence, and which beckons us to seek its true meaning, in addition to its true history.’

A fine version of the Tam Lin story is reviewed by Richard as he looks at a Pamela Dean novel: ‘An early part of Terri Windling’s Fairy Tale series, Tam Lin is by far the most ambitious project on the line. The story of Tam Lin is one of the better known ones to escape folklore for the fringes of the mainstream; you’ll find references scuttling about everywhere from old Fairport Convention discs to Christopher Stasheff novels. There’s danger inherent in mucking about with a story that a great many people know and love in its original form; a single misstep and the hard-core devotees of the classic start howling for blood. Moreover, Dean is not content simply to take the ballad of Tam Lin and transplant it bodily into another setting.’

We next look at Ray Bradbury’s quintessential Autumn novel and film which gets an appreciative review by the previous reviewer: ‘By right and nature, all October babies should love Something Wicked This Way Comes. It is a love letter to autumn, and to the Halloween season in particular, a gorgeous take on maturity and self-acceptance and all the dark temptations that come crawling ‘round when the calendar creeps close to October 31st.’

Just in time for the festivities a couple of nights from now, Robert has a look at Alex Irvine’s The “Supernatural” Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls: ‘I seem to be faced with another one of those television spin-offs, this time from the series Supernatural, about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, who hunt demons and other nasty customers not entirely of this world …. Alex Irvine has taken this basis, and the various creatures the brothers encounter, drawn from myths, urban legends, and folklore, and turned it into a “bestiary of the unnatural”.’

Thomas has a guide to this holiday for us: ‘Halloween, an unofficial holiday, is nonetheless celebrated by millions of people in North America and the British Isles, rivaling only Christmas in popularity. In the heavily illustrated Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, York University professor of history Nicholas Rogers traces the history of this holiday from its alleged beginnings as a Celtic festival, Samhain, marking the end of summer, to its many and various manifestations today. ’

Horror films have been part of the Halloween experience in the States for a very long time now. And we’ve had our share of wonderful seasonal treats, as well as time-wasting tricks.

Craig looks at the 1941 The Wolf Man: ‘After 18 years in America, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) returns home to his father (Claude Rains) upon the death of his brother. He meets Gwen (Evelyn Ankers), the daughter of a local shopkeeper, and falls in love. That night, they accompany a friend of hers, Jenny (Fay Helm), to a gypsy fortune-teller to have her fortune told. Unfortunately, the fortune-teller, Bela (Bela Lugosi), is a werewolf who sees the sign of the pentagram in Jenny’s hand. He sends her away, but attacks her in the foggy moors later that evening. (These things always seem to happen in foggy moors. See, for example, An American Werewolf in London.)’

Denise takes a look at a ‘trick’ of a tale with her review of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. She doesn’t hold back on her distaste: ‘If the folks responsible for this garbage really wanted to depart from the first two films and create something authentic, this basic story could have been an interesting movie …. Happy Halloween? Not with this clunker.’  Read her review for exactly why she’s nonplussed.

Another trick-y tale is The Haunted Mansion, a film based on a ride at the Disney resorts. Denise thinks that all the beautiful set design can’t make up for a film that can’t quite figure itself out.  ‘This is a lovely film to look at, but there’s not a lot of substance. Just double-check to make sure any young children you take are up for a pretty good scare.’

A choice bit of British horror is next.  Jekyll is ably reviewed for us by Kestrell who says that ‘this version is not so much a remake as a retelling of the Jekyll/Hyde story. The story is relocated from Victorian Edinburgh to contemporary London and follows one of Jekyll’s descendents, a research scientist named Tom Jackman (James Nesbitt).’ Kestrell concludes that ‘While I found this re-telling of a traditional story exciting and exceptionally well done, I would suggest that this series is not for everyone. Viewers looking for a remake of the original story will not find it here; those viewers who prefer American Hollywood effects may also be disappointed.’

Festive Samhain, everyone! Denise here, and I’ve stolen away the food and drink section this issue. Why? Because ghoulish delights abound! I’ve stuffed my face with all sorts of seasonal delights … though not everything was particularly delightful. Come along and see, won’t you?

First off, in a nod to the spirit of the season, Dunkin’ Donuts released a slew of themed donuts. I tried their Spider Donut, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. ‘It’s a mess. Somewhere, Mary Berry is sobbing.’ Read on to learn more!

Then there’s something that’s near and dear to my heart; black licorice. Oh now stop with that face. It’s delicious stuff.  In fact, I’ve got two Halva Licorice Bars that’ll tempt you I’m sure. Why? Because ‘…you’re getting the real deal here. No anise posing. No mutton dressed as lamb.’

Want something savory instead?  How about Transylvanian cheese?  Happy Farms Preferred Transylvanian-Romanian Cave Cheese, to be exact. Let’s just say that if you’re able to get your hands on some, you should. There’s more to be had in the review, but for now let’s just leave it at this; ‘Thank you, Transylvania.’

Greenbriar’s Halloween Candy Bracelets are ‘These strange, Fruit-Loops looking candies strung on a bit of elastic string, with or without a “pendant” or “charm” made of the same kind of candy were a must when I was a kid. They were fun, they were cheap – very important when you’re dealing with a weekly allowance that had to be stretched as much as possible – and they doubled as an accessory. An accessory that melted on your neck or arm and left you with stripes that you had to soap off once you got home.’ So read my review of this modern take on an old favorite!

Robert has a look at a suitably scary graphic novel from a story originally penned by Robert E. Howard: ‘Pigeons from Hell is an adaptation by Joe R. Lansdale of a story by Robert E. Howard, with art by Nathan Fox and color by Dave Stewart. Lansdale is at pains to point out, in his “Notes from the Writer,” that it is really an “adaptation” — updated, exploring some new facets of Howard’s story, and not to be confused with the original, all of which leads me to treat it as its own creature.’

And what would Halloween be without demons and ghosties and that sort of thing? Well, that’s what we get with the latest incarnation of John Constantine, in Hellblazer, Vol. 1: The Poison Truth. Says Robert: ‘I’ll be honest: John Constantine is not a comic book hero who has ever really grabbed me. I can’t think of any particular reason for that, unless it’s his rapid-fire delivery and glib personality. Maybe it’s because he’s a sociopath, and I’ve learned to be wary of those — even comics. (It’s a wonder how many of the characters in this collection really don’t like Constantine very much, but they go along with him.)’

Gary tells us about an album of what’s called ‘dark polar ambient’ music by a Russian musician who performs under the name Ugansie: ‘If you like drone or ambient or dark experimental music, Border of Worlds is for you. If you just want something spooky to play in your haunted house at Halloween, ditto.’

‘There’s nothing very pretty about this record,’ Gary says of Jeffrey Martin’s One Go Around. ‘It’s all as real as the hard roads traveled by the people in his songs.’

Robert has a look at a fairy tale full of goblins, ghosts, and witches — it’s Philip Glass’ The Witches of Venice, based on the book by Beni Montresor: ‘The King and Queen of Venice are bemoaning the lack of an heir. Sure enough, two fairies appear from the Lagoon with a plant: if the King plants it in his garden, a child will be born. The King is not impressed and throws the plant out the window.’ You can guess what happens after that, but read the review anyway.

I’ll admit I love our pumpkin graphic that we’ve been using these past few weeks. But as Halloween is fast approaching, I think of Jack-o-Lanterns, and how living in the modern world is a good thing this time of year. Oh, not because of scientific progress, technological marvels, or anything like that, though all these things are wonderful and much appreciated. No, it’s because now we carve pumpkins rather than turnips for our Jack-o-Lanterns. I just don’t have the patience, nor the skill, to whittle a turnip into a candle holder. Though the turnip is trying to make a comeback, this year I’ll be marveling at – and being especially grateful for – our gourd-y seasonal visitors.

Very long after the band recorded Liege and Lief, which Deborah plays proper homage to in, “Trad Boys, Trad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do….?” Liege & Lief remembered, Fairport Convention played the entire album live at their own summer bash, the ‘07 Cropredy Festival. Everyone who was on the 1969 recording save Sandy Denny who had passed on was on stage so with Chris While doing the vocals for this epic experience. The soundboard recording is stellar, so here’s ‘Tam Lin’ as performed on a warm summer night.

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. — George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones

October some years here on a Scottish Estate sharing the Border with the Fey are rather  quite pleasant feeling more like Summer than Autumn despite the lateness of the year,  but late October really is more often than not is truly the beginning of the cold season for us. And this year is decidedly one of those years. Ingrid and I have had the fire going in our fourth floor quarters in Kinrowan Hall both for warmth and for the cheeriness it provides. Not to mention that our feline companions are very fond of laying right in front of it for long periods instead of prowling the Hall.

I’ve been looking through the Archives of The Sleeping Hedgehog, our informal newsletter for staff and friends of the Estate, when I noticed we’d asked some writers about what their favourite Tolkien work was, not a surprise give his fiction’s a perennial favourite here. For  Jane Yolen, it’s The Hobbit: ‘While it’s true that The Lord of the Rings is his masterwork and The Hobbit his first attempt at writing (and that, some say witheringly, for children) I have to admit I adore The Hobbit. It has adventure, wonderful characters, fine pacing and spacing, some really scary bits (my daughter ran screaming from the room when the trolls grabbed the ponies, and she refused to hear the rest of it.) And if I could ever write a chapter as good as the Riddles in the Dark chapter I would never have to write again.’

Ok I’m off to the Kitchen as I’m feeling a bit peckish and I’ve heard they’ve made pumpkin and cheddar cheese tarts that are being kept warm along with hot spiced cider , a favoured autumnal drink on this Estate. So here’s this Edition for your reading pleasure…

J.L. offers up a review of a audiobook from an author not known for work being presented in that format: ‘Ray Bradbury used to write tales in the Twilight-Zone-meets-sci-fi vein, but with the publication of One More For the Road it appears that he has ballasted the scientific and kept the fantastic. In place of space-age dystopia we have present-day disillusionment, usually delivered with a “Tales of the Unexplained” twist. These eighteen short stories are performed by actor Campbell Scott, whose film credits include The Spanish Prisoner, Longtime Companion, and Dying Young.’

Richard offers us a novel that I think makes for fine reading on a chilly Autumn afternoon: ‘Seven Wild Sisters, a collaboration between Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, holds no surprises, and that’s a very good thing. The companion-cum-sequel to their earlier collaboration The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, the book delivers exactly what it promises: Gorgeous illustration and an encounter with the otherworld that’s ultimately more about wonder than it is about peril.’

Robert’s been going through the Library shelves again and has some up with another old favorite, and one that fits the season: ‘Summon the Keeper is quite possibly the first of Tanya Huff’s books that I read – she’s another one of those writers who has a long history in my library. This one is a contemporary urban fantasy that is hilariously funny, original, and captivating.’

Denise says that ‘When Charmed first aired, it was dismissed by many as a poor-wiccan’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer knock-off. Which, considering Buffy was only in its first season, wasn’t intended to be kind. But viewers took to the three Halliwell sisters, and even embraced such story-altering changes as the death of a sister and the discovery of a new one. In the eight seasons Charmed was on the air, love came and went, children entered the picture, and powers were lost and regained too many times to count. But in the end, good always triumphed over evil.’

Robert looks at the Justice League Dark film: ‘Once I got started on the Justice League Dark comic, I had to go back and check out the 2017 animated film. If anyone is expecting a film version of the new comic series, guess again: the film was released before the new series was even announced, and while there are similarities, they are very different sorts of critters.’

Sweets of a Halloween nature are up this time as Denise has been gorging herself with such candy on our behalf, so let’s see what she’s got for us. Other than possible indigestion. And a sugar high of truly epic status.

Cheetos’ Bag of Bones is a suitably spooky entry into the holiday snack aisle. And Denise seems pleased: ‘When you queue up a spooky movie this season, grab some of these to really get into the spirit.’ Read her review for more details.

And what better way to wash things down this spooky season with a Harry Potter themed drink? Flying Cauldron’s Butterscotch Beer is just the thing, Denise says. ‘A nice quaff when you’re feeling Potterish. And this time of year, especially with #HarryPotter20, who isn’t?’

Denise says that ‘If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer like I am, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Volume One: The Long Way Home is something you’ve been looking forward to for a few years now. If you’re only generally aware of this series –or only know the title from the so-so practically unrelated movie that preceded it — this collection of the first five comic books that takes Buffy’s story past the ending of the TV series is a good place to get into the mix. Also called “Buffy Season Eight” (and officially subtitled “Joss Whedon’s Season Eight” starting with comic book #6), it’s intended to be the offical follow-up to the series. The first collection of this Dark Horse collection serves as evidence that Joss still has it in spades.’

Robert has a review of of the new Justice League Dark series — or at least, the first two issues: ‘First, a disclaimer: I almost never read single-issue comics, for reasons that will become clear. Secondly, I haven’t been following DC’s Justice League Dark, a series first introduced in 2011. In fact, I have to confess to not being a big fan of the DC Universe as a whole. That said, I was persuaded to take a look at the new series, written by James Tynion IV.’

Barb exclaims that ‘If there are superstars to be named on the Swedish music scene, I would like this opportunity to nominate Lena Willemark (vocal, fiddle, viola, whistle, drone whistle), Per Gudmundson (fiddle, viola, bagpipes, vocal), and Ale Möller (octave mandola, overtone flute, cow’s horn, drone whistle, folk harp, shawm, harmonica, vocal), otherwise known as Frifot. The group’s CD Sluring is most certainly a masterpiece.’

David as a look at Aqualung Live: ‘This new recording of Jethro Tull’s classic rock album Aqualung was produced for XM Radio’s “Then Again Live” programme. This is a show that aims to “re-create the most important albums of all time . . . offering total creative freedom for artists to re-visit their milestone recordings [in order not to] rival the original, but to re-experience it.” Well, I haven’t experienced Aqualung for many years, apart from a few songs heard on the radio; but the recent book by Allan Moore which provided a track by track analysis and this new recording have brought me back to the album with new ears.‘

Aaron Copland’s A Copland Celebration gets looked at by Gary who notes that ‘Sony Classical disgorged a cornucopia of Copland works. This three volume, six-CD set gives a good overview of the career of this quintessential American composer. It includes the best-known works — chamber, orchestral and choral — as well as a smattering of some of Copland’s lesser-known works, and some alternate versions and rarities previously unreleased on CD; and even a few never before released at all.’

Robert is already fed up with autumn and turns to the southern hemisphere for some music — namely, Icehouse’s Great Southern Land: ‘Icehouse is an Australian band formed by Iva Davies in 1977, under the name Flowers. In ’81 he changed the name to Icehouse, as the group started to get some international air play and actually hit the charts in the U.S. and UK. Davies is a classically trained musician who created one of the more musically literate groups in the history of rock. Icehouse early on moved into synthesizers and CMIs (computerized musical instruments), although they never went to the lengths of another of my favorites, Depeche Mode.’

As leaves turn from emerald to shades of yellow, orange and tan, our minds wander to all the delicious treats this season has in store. Chocolate, most especially. While we love the stuff any way we can get it, a number of ads from Lacta 5Star Chocolates has given us a new way to love cocoa. These humorously dark videos show a world made of chocolate, which is constantly being attacked by ‘outside influences’. Mostly cookie crunches, caramel and the like. The blend of hilarious and hairy seems tailor made for October.

We’re entering the season when we celebrate things that scare us, and what’s scarier these days than the future? With that in mind, here’s Leonard Cohen in Zurich, on May 21, 2005, with his take on ’The Future’

One should never mistake pattern for meaning. — Iain Banks’ The Hydrogen Sonata

Québécois Style pork pies, spiced with nutmeg, are the main entree for the eventide meal on the Autumn day along with roasted carrots, beets and onions as the weather turned decidedly nippy over the past week with even some nasty periods of freezing rain and sleet. Before heading into the Pub for my evening shift, I was assisting Gus, our Estate Head Gardener and all around groundskeeper, with the  harvesting of the fall squashes which had to be harvested before a hard frost harmed them beyond them being usable. And I so look forward to squash and smoked pork soup with pickled ginger on a cold Winter evening!

Autumn more than any other season is when you’ll find lots of reviews themed to that time of year. Oh Bradbury is fairly obvious as an Autumnal creator but some of the content and where it came from I expect will surprise you such as our look at The Call of Cthulhu, a 1920 silent film in this edition, or our look at the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which ran last edition. So grab your favourite Halloween candy, say those skull shaped dark chocolates with those oh so soft centres, and settle in for some delicious reading…

Carter looks at a Ray Bradbury that is indeed a classic of fantasy literature: ‘The Illustrated Man is a short tale wrapped around eighteen short stories. The framing story is of a tattooed man whom the narrator meets, and whose tattoos foretell the future. The eighteen short stories inside the frame give Ray Bradbury’s visions of our future and, in the process, let us see ourselves as we are in the past and present. Bradbury always asks probing questions in his work, but seldom provides definitive answers. He leaves it to the reader to find his or her own answers inside.’

Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart, says Rebecca, requires that you take ‘Take a deep breath before you start this book. It’s a heavy 701 pages of adventure and sex. It’s also one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in a long time. I recommend it highly.’

Robert came up with a treasure while going through the Library: Wisława Szymborska’s View With a Grain of Sand: ‘Wisława Szymborska is a highly regarded Polish poet who has a long and distinguished career. Born in 1923 in Kornik, in western Poland, she studied Polish Literature and Sociology at Jagiellon University in Krakow, and has published sixteen collections; her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. In 1996 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.”’

Sara looks at Clive Barker’s Abarat: Book One of the Books of Abarat quartet: ‘Candy herself is a mild but very likeable heroine, just a bit spunky, just a bit bewildered. She is the perfect Alice for a new Wonderland. And, of course, the veritable cornucopia of strange and delightful denizens of the Abarat boggles the mind. Barker’s dry humor sparkles throughout the book, and lends a needed jaunty air to a book otherwise filled with danger and a delightful creepiness. This is, after all, Clive Barker and not some sweet-minded YA author of happy rabbit tales. Barker knows creepy, and there’s plenty of it.’

James says that ‘The works of H.P. Lovecraft have enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the cinema. While his writings have influenced movies from the Evil Dead trilogy to Creepshow to In The Mouth of Madness, full-length adaptations such as Dagon and From Beyond tend to lose the mythology and focus on sensationalistic gore. (For a great look at Lovecraft and movies, I recommend the book The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft by John Strysik and Andrew Milgiore.) And Lovecraft’s most seminal story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” has not been filmed — until now. The good people at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society have tackled this tale by giving it the silent treatment: Their movie The Call of Cthulhu is a 1920s-style silent movie.’

Denise looks at some very tasty chocolate: ‘There are lots of tastes that taste great together. Peanut butter and jelly. Buttered popcorn and champagne. (Seriously, try it.) And, of course, chocolate and licorice. But there’s one that doesn’t get enough love here in the States, and that’s chilies and chocolate. But we need to fix that right now. Taza’s Guajillo Chili chocolate is just the thing to make converts out of all chocolate lovers.’

Stork’s Toffifay really delighted Denise as well: ‘I remember being a kid and seeing Toffifay. It looked so elegant, so grown-up. Now this was a classy candy, obviously made for ADULTS, thought Little Me. Naturally, I had to try it. And I loved it. But I seldom wander the candy aisle anymore, so when I got a box in for review, I snapped it up.’

As a warm-up for the coming festivities, Robert brings us a look at an old favorite, Tite Kubo’s Bleach: Strawberry and the Soul Reapers: ‘Tite Kubo’s Bleach is a wildly popular manga and anime series (which was initially rejected when Kubo offered it to his publisher) that went on for 74 volumes of the collected manga and 300 episodes of the anime before Kubo finally called it quits. It’s also one of the most imaginative series I’ve seen.’

Gary reviews a new archival release by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. Sing Me Back Home, he says, ‘is a compilation of home recordings by Hazel & Alice from the mid to late 1960s, when they were a rarity – a female duo in the nascent bluegrass world.’

Kjell-Erik Arnesen’s Calls and Jrgen Larsen and Frydis Ree Wekre’s Ceros are recommended by Joel: ‘Both of these albums are horn-based. The horn is much less popular, it seems, than its cousins in the brass family. Most jazz bands have saxophone, trombone, and trumpet sections (in order of decreasing size), but no horns. I haven’t heard much where the horn was the primary instrument before now (nor as the only brass instrument), but two talented horn players demonstrate its versatility on these albums.’

Richard has high praise indeed for a Maddy Prior album; ‘Flesh & Blood is one of the finest CDs I’ve heard in years. Prior’s voice, always angelic, has never sounded better; and, with the able help of Nick Holland and Troy Donockley, she has picked material that does her vocal talents justice. Indeed, the collection is so captivating that I’ve had to take it out of my work rotation; after all, I don’t get paid to stand around and gawk dreamily to music.’

Robert has a look at an opera that is, perhaps, more relevant than we might want to acknowledge, Philip Glass’ In the Penal Colony: ‘Philip Glass, bless his heart, keeps turning out operas, and with a couple of near-misses, they’re among the best in the contemporary canon. In the Penal Colony takes as its foundation Franz Kafka’s chilling short story of the same title.’

And another opera, which Robert notes is usually performed at Christmas but is equally appropriate heading into Halloween, wicked witch and all: Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretal: ‘The idea of making an opera out of a fairy tale was not unique to Engelbert Humperdinck (this is the nineteenth-century composer I’m talking about, not the mid-twentieth century crooner). Actually, in the case of Hansel und Gretel, it wasn’t even really his idea.’

As thoughts turn to mulling spices, apple-picking and all things pumpkin, there’s another seasonal tradition that we here at GMR are fans of; Renaissance Festivals. In Maryland, their ‘RenFest‘ has been going strong for over forty years, and people come from miles around (and even nearby states) to get their garb on.  Shakespeare in the open air, aerial silk performers, crafts that take the breath away (and have parted many a happy customer from a dollar or three), and of course those smoked turkey legs. It feels like coming home, but with more velvet and tapestry.

Our coda is Aaron Copland’s ‘A Fanfare for The Common Man’ as performed by the Rolling Stones. Yes the Rolling Stones! A number of bands including Styx and Emerson Lake and Palmer have also adapted it for use. So here’s their decidedly offbeat version.

To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due. — Hob Gadling, toasting upon Dream’s journey as told in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: Season of Mists

It’s very truly Autumn now, my favourite time of the year, and Steeleye Span to me is an Autumnal band, so we’ll finish off with something from them. If you’re at all interested in the history of the band which I think is quite fascinating, I recommend you go read our review of Ashley Hutchings: The Guv’nor & the Rise of Folk Rock which covers how he helped create  that  group along with the Albion Band and Fairport Convention as well!

Autumn means lots of all things fruits and Mrs. Ware in the Kinrowan Hall kitchen has been definitely noting that the ending of Summer and and the arrival of Autumn is upon us. That means changing leaf colours, cooler temps and comfort food. So do sample the plum apple tarts she’s fond of baking if you’re visiting us anytime soon.

Cat has a look at a short book that comes to us via digital technology, Charles de Lint’s Somewhere in My Mind There Is A Painting Box: ‘One of the great joys of the digital publishing age is that it allows authors like Charles de Lint to offer up their back list of short stories and novels to us on their own terms.’

Denise revisits a cult classic television show with Totally Charmed: Demons, Whitelighters  And The Power of Three.  This collection of essays…charmed her. ‘Overall, this group of essays doesn’t give one solid viewpoint, and it’s all the better for it.’ Read her full review for more insight.

Kelly says that ‘Poul Anderson, who died in 2001, was one of the grand old voices of science fiction right up until his death, winning the Hugo Award seven times, the Nebula Award three times, and being named in 1997 as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. His was a long and prolific career. In the middle of that career, he created a character named Dominic Flandry, whose adventures had eluded me as a reader until my review copy of Ensign Flandry arrived on my desk. Now I’m wondering why.’

Mia says ‘In 1946 Ray Bradbury gave us “Homecoming,” and From The Dust Returned was born. More than 50 years later, the finished product consists of six previously published short stories, including “Homecoming,” which have become chapters of a larger work. These stories, plus new material, are woven together with Bradbury’s characteristically engaging style into a novel that should delight any fan of Bradbury’s dark fantasy.’

Robert got first dibs on Glen Cook’s newest book, Port of Shadows: ‘Glen Cook’s Port of Shadows is another installment in the saga of the Black Company, once again narrated by Croaker. Cook has given us two story lines in this one: The first takes place in the distant past, in the waning days of the Domination. The second takes place in the “present day”, sometime between the battle at Charm and the confrontation with the Dominator at Juniper; the Company is on garrison duty in the town of Aloe, which seems almost like a vacation. Of course, you know things are going to go to hell.’

Will gives us a look at a classic of tv horror in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Season One: ‘To anyone who has never seen an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I won’t give away any major plot points in the first season. But I warn you, in my reviews of the next seasons, all’s fair. Read this, decide if you want to try the show, and if you like it as much as I do, watch the first five seasons. They form a coherent unit, building in quality through the first three seasons, then sliding slightly in seasons four and five, though those seasons include many of BtVS‘s finest moments.’

One of our Kellys has a hard to find beer suitable for Autumn drinking for us as you’ll see when you read his delightful review of it: ‘Considering I generally dislike the hoppy bitterness of IPA’s, I’m astonished I enjoyed Pliny the Elder. I shouldn’t be, as the only other hoppy beer I’ve actually liked was another Russian River Brewery IPA, Blind Pig, which displays the same grapefruity character. I’ll certainly order this again, probably on a crisp autumn afternoon.‘

Robert has a rather strange graphic novel for us in The Green Woman, courtesy of Peter Straub and Michael Easton: ‘The Green Woman, written by Peter Straub and Michael Easton, is a hallucination in full color — the latter thanks to John Bolton’s art. Reality gets severely warped here — if we can figure out whose reality we’re seeing.’

Gary has a look at some Danish jazz, a new album called Bay of Rainbows by a trio headed by guitarist Jakob Bro. ‘It’s a quiet but deeply felt recording, its long passages of subtle and introspective playing revolving around an equally subtle melodicism.’

Another Gary says of Quake, a  sort of trad Nordic recording from Den Fule that: ‘When I was trying to find something that my good friend, a Breton girl of 22 who loves nu-metal music, would like, I pulled out Den Fule. Her assessment: “That’s really fun, kinda’ like Irish music, but it rocks.” This accomplishes in ten words what will take me at least 300 to re-iterate.’

Jayme looks at what I’d say is essential listening for Celtic music fans: ‘There’s no gloss and polish here like you’d find on, say, an Altan disc, no studio jiggery and double-tracked harmonies that are so commonplace on a Clannad release. Not that those are necessarily bad things, mind you, but every one of the 11 tracks on The Best of Silly Wizard sound like they were recorded in one take in the studio, with the entire band playing at once, rather than the more common practice of laying down each instrument separately and mixing later. Now, I don’t know if that’s actually the way Silly Wizard recorded the music here, but the end result.’

Robert went back to the Berlin club scene for Qntal’s Qntal III: Tristan und Isolde: ‘Qntal is one of the pleasant surprises. I knew nothing about the group when I saw the subtitle “Tristan und Isolde” on the list, but I figured, being a confirmed Wagner freak, that it should be interesting. It’s much better than that. . . . They’ve been called an “electro-medieval” band and compared to Estampie, Dead Can Dance, and Loreena McKennit.’

Our What Not this time is that quite some time back we asked Kage Baker, author of many delightful novels such as Or Else My Lady Keeps The Key and companion to Harry the Space Pirate, Errr, Space raptor in the years before her Passing just what was her favourite folk song and why so. She had a Grateful Dead-ish answer:

Probably ‘The Rambling Sailor’. The lyrics are sort of heartless, but it makes a helluva dance tune, especially a morris dance. I was once at a morris-ale held in an oak forest one summer night in northern California. Kate and I were providing the ale. The conditions were perfect — a full moon, thunder rumbling around the sky, there was a big turnout of dancers, we had a fairly full band– two fiddlers, a concertina, a standing bass, a couple of pennywhistles and a shawm.

There was a lantern strung up in the branches of this one big oak tree that must have been about 400 years old, and the dancing was done in the open space underneath. The different sides did the usual tunes, with the sword dances and the sticks, but then everyone got out the white handkerchiefs and the band struck up ‘Rambling Sailor’. There must have been fifty or sixty dancers moving in perfect time, and my memory insists the boys were all as beautiful as young satyrs and the girls all looked like wood nymphs. The white cloths flashed like seagull wings. The little gold bells rang. The ground shook. It was one of the most perfect moments of my life.

So ‘Tam Lin’ as performed by Steeleye Span at Fairport Convention’s ‘06 Cropredy Convention is our music coda this time. It was first released in a studio form on their Time CD though it appears on Tonight’s the Night…Live as taken from a concert recording.

Nothing happened. We stitched in silence. At least we stitched without words. Having nothing else to listen to, I began to hear needle points puncturing cloth, threads drawn through, again and again, as rhythmically as breathing. Our breaths mingled with the sound, as though breath became thread, air became fabric. I stitched another corner carefully, thinking of other corners: in doorways, at field gates, walls joining at the edges of a house. My stitches pulling them together, reinforcing them… knowing how it was done, whatever it was they were doing, would be knowing how it could be undone… — Patricia A. McKillip’s Solstice Wood

May I note that author is one of  the most favoured around here? Iain’s busy re-editing the edition we did, so we can offer up to you again as I think McKillip’s an author truly befitting Autumn. Should be up in October unless Iain gets distracted, errr, too busy.

It’s rather quiet in the Pub on this warm afternoon, as almost everyone who can be is outside either doing needed chores or just enjoying the unseasonably warm weather it’s twenty three out right now (that’s Celsius, mind you), with not a breeze to be felt. I’ve the windows open here airing the place out, which is something I rarely get to do this time of year. I do have a group of German tourists sampling ciders and chatting with me about northern German favourite foods we share in common.

I’ve been reading two favourite Autumnal works of mine  that I keep close at hand for dipping into, Charles de Lint’s Jack of Kinrowan novels which he’s released as digital books, Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon.  You’ll find links in our review to purchase them which I think is a splendid thing to do indeed!

Yarrow: An Autumn Tale which is a Charles de Lint novel, gets a loving look by Grey: ‘Cat Midhir has stopped dreaming. People assure her that it isn’t possible, that she just doesn’t remember her dreams, but Cat knows they’re wrong. Where her dreams have been, there is only heaviness and loss. For Cat, this loss means more than it would to most of us, because she is that rarest of all dreamers, a person who returns to the same dream every time she sleeps. In her dream world live her truest friends and her only source of inspiration for the books and stories that have won her acclaim in her waking life…’

Welsh mythology in the guise of a well-loved novel gets looked at by Iain: ‘I must have first read Alan Garner’s The Owl Service some forty years ago when I was interested in all things concerning Welsh mythology. I wanted a hardcover first edition which cost a pretty penny at the time. I mention this because it’s now been at least twenty years since I last read this novel, which is long enough that when Naxos kindly sent the audiobook, I had pretty much forgotten the story beyond remembering that I was very impressed by the story Garner told.’

Richard has more pulp for us this week: ‘Turn On The Heat is the second of the twenty nine Cool and Lam mysteries Erle Stanley Gardner published under the pen name A. A. Fair, and it is widely regarded as the best of the bunch. It’s not hard to see why: The twists are extra twisty, the consequences extra serious and the plot twists especially ingenious.’

Robert goes back to a classic of science fiction’s Golden Age, Clifford D. Simak’s City: ‘To one who grew up on science fiction (and I really did — the first book I ever bought all on my own was The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Groff Conklin; I think that was about fifth grade. It was by no means the first science fiction book I had ever read — I really did grow up on it, starting with the Tom Swift series.) And even now, there are names that echo through the memory, the writers who brought visions to life that were fascinating, sometimes frightening, sometimes reassuring, and that made our universe larger: Heinlein, Sturgeon, Asimov, Vance, Pangborn, Clarke, Anderson, among many others. Not by any means least among those names is Clifford D. Simak.’

Denise looks at Brave: ‘Bairns, bodhrans and brogues…. Doesn’t everyone want to be in Scotland?  Disney/Pixar is really hoping you do, with the release of their newest animated feature, Brave.  I liked it.  But I really, really wanted to love it.  So that’s where the empty little hole in my soul is coming from.  Though it is good to see that archery is the new black this season, with Brave taking up the bow & quiver alongside Katniss from The Hunger Games and Hannah’s…Hannah.  Why before you know it, we’ll even get the vote!’

Jen is a person after my own heart when it comes to Autumn food cravings, as years spent busking on the road meant for me looking for simple, hearty food. She offers up this Mexican style casserole: ‘ This stuff will kill you, but you won’t care.  It’s intense, dense, and more-ish. I’ve never really settled on one definitive recipe. It’s more about what’s in the house when the cravings: ‘This stuff will kill you, but you won’t care.  It’s intense, dense, and more-ish. I’ve never really settled on one definitive recipe. It’s more about what’s in the house when the craving hits.’

OK, it’s Autumn, so I must offer up one of our favourite food reviews ever which is the Two Fat Ladies DVD set. If ever there was a series that felt like it was Autumn all the rime, it is that one Kathleen and her sister Kage wrote up. The series documented that they were brilliant English cooks who rode a motorcycle with a sidecar, drank excessively, smoked whenever they pleased and cooked using bloody great hunks of meat, butter and anything else that isn’t ‘tall good for you. And funny as all Hell as well which indeed the review is too.

Meanwhile, Denise dug into Golden Island’s Sriracha Pork Jerky and fell in love with the taste. ‘I’d love a barbecue glaze with this taste; think North Carolina barbecue blended with brown sugar instead of regular.’ But did she love everything about this tasty jerky? Read her review to find out!

The Oysterband are certainly a folk rock band now  but Ed has a review of their very early years when they weren’t: ‘I stumbled onto the Oysterband several years back via a copy of Little Rock to Leipzig, received as a premium during a college radio station’s fund drive. This was blind good luck. The two CDs I had originally wanted were gone, so I picked this one based on its “folk-rock” label. I haven’t stopped listening to this band and now own ten of their CDs. As a devoted and possibly obsessed fan, when the chance came to review some of their earliest and long out-of-print albums, I jumped. I now feel blessed to have acquired this piece of their history. In short, these LPs prove that the Oysters were always good, but have nevertheless gotten much better.

Gary reviews a new disc from Canadian-American duo Courtney Hartman & Taylor Ashton, who make folksy Americana music. ‘Been On Your Side is a quiet album of rootsy chamber folk with a definite indie-pop feel to it. Both of these musicians have far-ranging influences, but a clue to the overall feel might come from Hartman’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” on her earlier solo album.’

Lars brings us a recent album by Maddy Prior, Hanna James, and Giles Lewis, Shortwinger: ‘If you look at the cover of this you might be excused for thinking this is another solo project. Prior’s name is in much larger letters than those of Hannah James and Giles Lewin. But do not let yourself be fooled. This is a true trio effort. Each member has written things on the album, each takes solos and each has arranged tracks.’

Robert has a recording by a contemporary American composer, a concerto developed from a film score: John Corigliano’s The Red Violin Concerto: ‘John Corigliano is widely considered one of the leading American composers of his generation, which includes such luminaries as Morten Lauridsen, Terry Riley, and Ned Rorem. Commentators have characterized his style as “highly expressive,” “compelling,” and “kaleidoscopic.” In addition to symphonies, chamber works, and opera, Corigliano has also done film scores.’

Our What Not this week involves another trip to Robert’s favorite museum, Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where we discover the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Hall of Jades. As Robert points out, there’s a lot more to see there than dinosaurs.

For our Coda this week, Robert came up with something fitting the season: A very lively performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s ‘Autumn’ from The Four Seasons.

(Yes, we’ve reviewed this one several times, in recordings by several artists — just do a search for Vivaldi and The Four Seasons.)

When autumn darkness falls, what we will remember are the small acts of kindness: a cake, a hug, an invitation to talk, and every single rose. These are all expressions of a nation coming together and caring about its people. — Jens Stoltenberg

Ahhh that’s my drink that Finch is pouring now.  It’s one of our new Autumn offerings, Banish Misfortune Stout, and it’s quite good. We rotate our Pub offerings regularly so you should try it now before it’s off the board.

And that’s a SMOG (steak, mushroom, onion & gouda) sandwhich, warmed up of course, that I’m having with it for my very late lunch. The beef comes from Riverrun Farms who also supply us with our dairy. If you’re hungry, ask the Kitchen to make you one.

I’ve actually reading the overview of the current version of Storyspace, a hypertext system, that might be useful for mapping the relationships in the music played here as reflected in the musicians who learned it. Several of the Several Annies, my Library apprentices, are violinists and they’re taking lead on this endeavour.

It’ll be interesting to see if it’s useful as it certainly isn’t my idea of reading when there’s more than one novel awaiting my attention but a musical folklore journal expressed interest in the Neverending Session and how it learned music so I agreed to write an article up.

Cat was more than a little impressed by the audiobook of Elizabeth Hand’s novella, Wylding Hall: ‘Liz Hand’s Wylding Hall is fucking brilliant. And it’s simply the best audiobook I’ve listened to, bar none, as her text is perfectly matched to what amounts to a full cast production in a way that’s rarely done.’

The review of Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s Spirits That Walk In Shadow by Kestrell starts this way: ‘It’s late autumn here in New England. The last lingering tattered leaves have crashed and burned to the ground, and even the fiery rites of Halloween and Guy Fawkes are behind us. We’re left with a shrinking hoard of days burning shorter and shorter, like a few handfuls of candle stubs. With the darkness gathering around us, it is now the season for telling tales about the things that live in shadow.’ So is the novel itself an Autumn thing? Oh yes.

Richard has some choice pulp fiction for us: ‘How do you steal a six foot long blowgun from a party where all the guests are X-rayed on their way out? Believe it or not, that’s only the tertiary mystery in The Count of Nine, a twisty, sneaky thriller from the pen of Perry Mason creator Earle Stanley Gardner. But instead of belonging to that more famous series, The Count of 9 is part of a 29 book series Gardner penned under the alias A.A. Fair detailing the adventures of detectives Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Cool is big and brash, Lam is undersized but tenacious, and together they solve impossible cases that leave the local cops scratching their heads. This particular episode of their adventures has been out of print for a solid half century, and Hard Case has done the reading audience a solid by bringing it back.’

Robert’s been digging around in his bookshelves and came up with a book that deserves a look: ‘Bridge of Birds is an old favorite that has been sitting in a corner gathering dust for way too long. I recently hauled it out, dusted it off, and gave it another read, and it’s still as good as it was way back when.’

And another old favorite from Robert, Jim Carroll’s Fear of Dreaming: ‘Jim Carroll is probably best known for his 1978 book The Basketball Diaries, which became a feature film with Leonardo DiCaprio, released in 1995. However, he first made his reputation as a poet. He had been widely pubished in various journals and anthologies before the release of Living at the Movies, his first collection, in 1973, when he was 22 years old. Living at the Movies is reprinted in its entirety, along with selections from his second collection, The Book of Nods (1986), in Fear of Dreaming.’

Jayme has this to say about a series that got a proper finale: ‘Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is a miniseries that never should’ve existed. That’s true on several levels. Firstly, there would never be a need to wrap up the major plot threads with a miniseries had the Sci-Fi Channel honored its commitment to produce a fifth season of the acclaimed space opera. But when Vivendi-Universal — the parent corporation at the time — ran into financial duress, its subsidiaries were ordered to cut costs, and contract or no, Farscape was toast. But TV series that die stay dead, as a rule.’

Kedgeree is such a deep rooted British dish that we told you about it here and now Jen shares with us her most excellent recipe for it: ‘I’ve been reading about kedgeree in English novels all my life and decided to try it. This is regarded as intensely British food, meaning, they got the smoked fish from Scandahoovia and the curry and the basmati rice from India and where else does that kind of crazy happen except in Britain?’

Meanwhile, Denise digs into Chef’s Cut Real Jerky Co.’s Smoked Beef Chipotle Cracked Pepper Jerky: ‘This is a jerky that’s so soft and tender you’ll want to keep the entire bag for yourself.’ Read her review to find out why!

Hedningarna’s Karelia Visa gets this comment from Kim: ‘It’s an odd thing — one of the words which keeps coming to mind when I listen to this CD is “evocative.” But that raises the question, what exactly does it evoke? And I can’t really give you an answer, as I am not of Nordic origin and have never visited the area. So, it is indeed an interesting phenomenon to listen to a CD of a Swedish band travelling to the now-Russian province of Karelia, collecting the songs from that region to include on this recording, and to find it both exotic and evocative at the same time. Ah, the mysteries of music…’

Byss-Calle wins the approval of Naomi: The Nyckelharpa orchestra is comprised of six top musicians from the younger generation of nyckelharpa players. They are all working at preserving the nyckelharpa tradition, as well as developing it, both as an ensemble, and as solo artists. Their playing is exquisite, all six are adding in passion and talent to a ensemble which has much potential. And after listening I would have to agree that this is a tradition which should be preserved.’

Richard has high praise for a Maddy Prior recording: ‘Flesh & Blood is one of the finest CDs I’ve heard in years. Prior’s voice, always angelic, has never sounded better; and, with the able help of Nick Holland and Troy Donockley, she has picked material that does her vocal talents justice. Indeed, the collection is so captivating that I’ve had to take it out of my work rotation; after all, I don’t get paid to stand around and gawk dreamily to music.’

Robert has another major work by a major figure in twentieth-century music, Benjamin Britten’s Death In Venice: ‘Many consider Benjamin Britten the most important British composer since World War II; indeed, some think him the most important since Henry Purcell. Although often thought an uneven composer, most writers in the area concede that his operas Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and Death in Venice are among the greatest works in twentieth-century British music.’

Concert swag is our What Not this time and Vonnie who has now passed on so had once her take on that subject: ‘During a memorable trip to England for the Oysters’ 25th anniversary tour, I bought a fan t-shirt from Ian West that decried Oysterband concerts at seated-only venues.Since I’m a dancing fool, I can get behind the ‘When I’m Up, I won’t sit down’ sentiment. I had the t-shirt signed by everyone who would let me push a marker into their hands: Oysterfans of all ilks, a kind lady who put me up for the night, both members of Show of Hands, June Tabor, the sound guys, and a few Oysters, too. It was a great trip, and the shirt is a heck of a souvenir.’ She went on say ‘I did something similar with a Canmore Folk Festival t-shirt, and my signers got a bit more creative, drawing pictures and writing jokes on the shirt.’

So what shall we hear this time as we take our leave? Hmmm… So how about ‘Old Hag You Have Killed Me’ by the legendary Bothy Band as recorded rather well at the Lisdoonvarna Folk Festival some forty two years ago.

Variants on Old Hag tunes are so common that they actually figure into the narrative of at least one Charles de Lint story,  ‘The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep’, which is collected in his Dreams Underfoot anthology which you can purchase the digital edition of your choice here.