For this Monday, as with all others, I'm going to tell you about the books that came in my mail the prior week. Sometimes it's a lot (and my Sunday is full of typing, squinting at ISBNs, and trying to phrase bemused disinterest in a more positive way over and over), and sometimes it's not.
This week, it's one, which is a nice number: it gives me an excuse to make this post in the first place, lets me pretend I'm giving a spotlight to this one book on purpose, and doesn't take too much time. If the book itself looks interesting, all the better.
Wicked Wonders is that book, at least right now. It's a collection of stories by Ellen Klages, with thirteen pieces of fiction and the true-life story of "The Scary Ham." (And I am here to tell you I have already read "The Scary Ham," as I was looking at this book and make preliminary motions at my keyboard. I will tell you no more about it, but it made me want to get into Wicked Wonders more quickly than I otherwise would have.)
It's a trade paperback from Tachyon, with a classy cover that looks stealthily like whatever dull memoir of a horrible childhood all of those book-club women in your neighborhood are reading right now. Think of it as protective coloration. Read this in public, and everyone will think you've got something worthy and classy -- and they will be more right than they know.
Do I need to tell you more? I don't really know Klages -- other than running into her a couple of times, back when I was in the SF world more than I am now -- and don't know her work well, either. But I've already read one story in this book, and I want to read more. And that's the core function of a collection: to get you to read one story, and then another. So this book is successful, and you should try it yourself.
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