Blood Will Tell?

Confession: I can't turn down free cookies, no matter how hard I try.

Reading:

• The Best American Short Stories 2007, Stephen King, ed.
  

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

I find myself in an odd position right now, between books. I just finished Someplace to be Flying, and I've got to say, it really took off as the story went on. Sure, the characters were still the same usual De Lint creations, like I explained in an earlier post, but at the same time, they're not bad characters either. By the end, I was really invested in their story, and I was sorry the book had ended.

What I feel most strongly about De Lint's world of Newford is how real the unreality feels. I finish one of his novels, and I'm convinced that I'm going to see the Crow Girls walking around the next corner. In fact, coming down off that high is always a bit of a disappointment.

However, there's a darker side to De Lint's world, and it's the notion of blood. There's a heavy reliance on blood and heredity as a way of passing on magical traits, and this is not exclusive to De Lint by any means. But it seems to go so contrary to the themes of his books. I can't state it well right now, but there's a truth at the center of this thought, and if I worry at it for a few days, I'll get ahold of it.

Anyway, my next reading project will be The Best American Short Stories 2007, as edited by Stephen King. You won't see that title in the summary again, but instead, the individual stories involved in the collect. You can just assume that anything in quotes for the next week or two is from that collection.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1