Otherland - We love every Fantasy Trope
Every couple of weeks, a confused-looking person gets lost in our
glorious halls, looks around with a frown and pulled down corners of
their mouth and always thinks it’s necessary to tell the (un)suspecting
employee standing behind the cash machine, that they don’t like all this
„weird fantasy stuff“. This always awakens the dragon in me, I do a
little magic and lo and behold: the person leaves with an Otherland bag.
But where are the roots of the prejudice that genre literature is
trivial? Perhaps it's because of the flooding of a particularly
hackneyed genre trope, that has the mass media holding in a firm grip.
Twilight, Sarah J. Maas and lots and lots of hideous covers with two
people looking deep into each other's eyes while one of them holds a
sword. Have you guessed it?
Yeah baby, you’ve got it: Enemies to Lovers.
My mission for today's newsletter is to find a few exceptions even in this trope that won’t suck and even if it took some convincing, each and every one of my colleagues came up with something. But then most of them gave me more Lovers to Enemies things...somehow none of us is really into that trope, I guess. Let's start with THE standard work: Enemy mine. The 1985 movie is based on a short story by Barry B. Longyear and describes the cautious rapprochement between a human and a lizard-alien. A good read, and not at all cheesy. Personally, I was always hoping for a kiss between Brienne and Jamie in George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire", but tbh I felt more or less repulsed, when they showed it in the incredible awful last season of the Series. The deep friendship between the two of them was probably far more loving for me than a bad sex scene. I've also grown quite fond of Nina and Matthias in „Six of Crows“ by Leigh Bardugo. All the bickering and snickering…and the slow burn Romance, Yes that convinced me!
A whole book about Enemy to Lovers that is really really good is „This is how you loose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Not only is it well written, but it uses time travel and small, intelligently placed messages from the two protagonists, who aren't actually allowed to love each other.
It has long been a fact that Ursula K. Le Guin was incapable of
producing anything bad. In the Earthsea Chronicles, or more precisely
the Tombs of Atuan, there is a subtle rapprochement between Ged and
Tenar without any annoying label being imposed.
Joe Abercrombie also has a knack for breathing new life into fantasy tropes, but where exactly the Enemies to Lovers thing takes place I'll keep a secret, just read the whole everything!
If you're going through a breakup and would rather see your ex-partner's head on a pike, I recommend the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Definitely a lasting way to break up with someone.
And that's it for now, because that's all I can think of.
Have fun with the novelties!
Yours (loving) Esther, from the Otherland
Science Fiction
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird
Little, Brown Book Group: €16,50
Last month I was at the Jewish Museum’s Access Kafka exhibit, a combination of original diary papers and inspired artworks from around the globe. It was a great morning out: strange and powerful in equal measure.
My personal favourite was the central table where you were encouraged to draw the Ungeziefer from “Metamorphosis”, while simultaneously being informed that you would fail, as it was impossible to realise on paper. The exhibit itself was top-class – nothing but praise – but the gift shop after had a Kafka-shaped black hole in their literature section. It was like watching a film about popcorn in a cinema that was out of popcorn. If only there was something to fill the gap.
Collected 100 years on from Kafka’s death, A Cage Went in Search of a Bird is ten stories from modern authors written in honour of the great Czech writer. Here are tales which could have fallen straight out of his notes, such as “The Hurt” by Tommy Orange, a tale about a psychological virus which makes people black out and go into a self-destructive rage, throwing themselves off balconies or in front of trams. As a public service, handcuffs are left around the cities so people can incapacitate themselves. Leone Ross’ “Headache” shows a woman who is admitted to a hospital for a minor check-up, only to find herself indefinitely stuck in a never-ending chain of experiments, forms, and increasingly aggressive doctors. Or what about Keith Ridgway’s “The Landlord”, where the tenant protagonist is under assault from an oppressively talkative landlord, whose endless conversations burden the protagonist with tales of his private life.
Many of the tales use Kafka’s worldview to wrangle present concerns. “The Board”, by Elif Batuman, presents the horror of flat-hunting in a world build in favour of those who own property already. The protagonist’s application for a fourth-floor basement where plants, blankets, and carpets become people is thrown out by the sinister Board, who take it as their responsibility to the city not to let people live in it. In Helen Oyeyemi’s “Hygiene” two friends’ relationship is strained by a hostile third party, who takes over one of their smartphones and email. The tale plays on the eerie coldness of online communication, and the bizarre ambiguity of our messages. And the Covid pandemic looms large in “Return to the Museum” by Joshua Cohen, where the exhibits of the local Natural History Museum have some strong personal opinions on how we are managing things. Some adult-types are holding protests in the dinosaur hall – going on about a sixth extinction and staging a “die-in”. The resident Neanderthals are not impressed.
Still other tales take a dark yet inventive view of the future. In Ali Smith’s “Art Hotel” the characters traverse a nonsensical landscape (it isn’t even on Google streetview), navigating via global brand names. Their mother – stuck in servitude in some sort of life-debt – works in a hotel that appears to eat personality. Even the guests are more art than reality: “Is it still life?” asks one of the children. They could bring her back home, but someone keeps drawing a red line around it when they sleep – as if they are quarantined or marked for felling. Or take Naomi Alderman’s story “God’s Doorbell”. In Alderman’s future, humanity is looked after by a machine race and communicates via AI language InstaTranslate. They no longer understand how the machines work, but they don’t need to: the machines can do that. Their machine servants suggest building a tower to the heavens: Babel 2.0. If God has a doorway, we might as well have a look at it. Oh, and if you are into future languages, Yiyun Li’s “Apostrophe’s Dream” is a play where the characters are moveable types sitting in the darkness of a typesetter’s drawer, debating the evolution of communication.
Needless to say, Kafkaesque themes abound. Existential entrapment, punishments preceding crimes, prisons in unexpected places, and systems of justice for which there is no evidence. It is a wonderful collection in its own right, and you can imagine Franz himself reading these tales in quiet approval, a slight smile across his face.
[Tom]
She Who Knows #2
One-Way Witch
€27,50
The world has forgotten Onyesonwu, but her mother has not. Cradling her unresolved grief in the small desert town of Jwahir, Najeeba is the only one who remembers the Before, the time before her daughter rewrote history.
Back then her people were the victims of a genocidal campaign, hunted to the far reaches of the wastes simply for who they were. Now all that is erased. Former slaves work alongside former slavers, neither aware of the violence and the cruelty their previous lives held. Only Najeeba sees the injustice in the new peace. She is determined to make the world remember her daughter, and to grow the powers she herself wielded as a young “witch”. The sour-faced sorcerer Abo, Onyesonwu’s old teacher, is a possible path to the juju she needs, but it is going to cost her. All power comes with risk…
Set after the events of Who Fears Death, One Way Witch is part two of the She Who Knows duology, telling the tale of Najeeba, Onyesonwu’s sorceress mother. Nnedi Okorafor picks up the story several decades after the first book, with Najeeba now in her forties, living out life as an eccentric widower, selling cactus candies, and missing her loved ones. Her daughter’s actions have saved the world, but the survivors are scarred in ways they don’t even recognise, and Najeeba is the only one who can do anything about it.
I drank this up so quickly. What a picture. Najeeba is, as in the first book, a formidable heroine, with real-world personality to spare. Reading the first book (and Who Fears Death) is definitely a plus point, but the story has lots to offer first time Okorafor readers, too, and to be honest you could read all three in any order and it would not give too much away. As usual, Okorafor’s secondary world is misleadingly friendly on the surface, but the central themes are not for the younger reader: child loss, rape, war trauma, misogyny, domestic violence, sterility, and genocide. That is not to say it is all negative, however. It is as much about forgiveness as it is about revenge, as much about love as it is about hate. Okorafor also packs a good deal into a surprisingly slim space. And as quickly as she is throwing out new songs at the moment, she has not played a bad note yet.
[Tom]
Fantasy
Blood Over Bright Haven
Del Rey: €20
This is the first book by M.L. Wang that I have read, and I was equally surprised and disappointed by it. I started reading it because I had read a lot about it and wanted a standalone book. I also wanted to read more Dark Academia to understand it better (having read Nomi Novic's Scholomance), and it seemed to have only some romance in it, so it didn't look like a classic enemies-to-lovers story with peppery spice ratings.
Sciona is an orphan in the City of Tiran, which runs on magic as a fantasy substitute for electricity. All Sciona wants is to become a Highmage and a member of the High Magistry, the elite who control the flow of magic in a highly hierarchical society. Now aged 20 and highly skilled in mapping and siphoning magic, she is eligible to take the test to enter the Holy Halls as the first woman.
So far, so good: the story starts as expected, with magic, tests and an aspiring pupil. But then it takes a turn because the world that Sciona enters is not what she expected. She discovers that the magic that enables their comfortable lives in the city comes at a price she is not willing to accept.
Within pages, we are confronted with patriarchy and the suppression of women, abuse of power, racism, genocide, societal denial, oppression of minorities (who are actually the majority), capitalism... the list goes on. Sciona's realisation is the reader's realisation, and it is shocking. Twenty years of illusion. Twenty pages of realisation. And imminent action to change the (whole) system.
In the confined space of the book, this works pretty well. From a broader perspective, Scion's naivety and subsequent actions are... well... fast — even too fast for her character. Although she does the right thing and recognises the injustice of the system and her role in it, her character does not develop as quickly and remains disturbingly naive in many respects.
All in all, it's an ambitious book that, like many other stories in the fantasy genre today, shows that fantasy doesn't have to be all about escapism. Pure escapism in a book is very welcome if that's what you're looking for. But Wang does not go with Sciona all the way, even though Wang does make sure, that Sciona does everything right.
Good, quick read I can recommend, if you accept some flaws.
[Wolf]
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
Macmillan Publishers International: €22,50
I read this book in advance, or rather listened to the audiobook, because Macmillan has been running a huge pre-publication campaign for it. One month before the publication and there’s a thousand reviews for it on Goodreads. The Publishers have been showering booksellers and whoever with a bit of influence with reading copies.
It paid off, seeing the proud 4,4 stars the book got on the sus-mentioned social media. Honestly, after my first rush of excitation from reading the back cover, this whole commercial effort got me rather suspicious. Maybe I just don’t like marketing and general demonstration of capitalism, or more simply I know that trendy romance isn’t usually my thing. But to hell with it, I wasn’t gonna let my grumpy lefist self keep me away from „Toxic Lesbian Vampires“ (written in big letters on the back side of the tote bag)! V. E. Schwab, whose „Gallant“ I rather enjoyed, seemed eager to add to the great queer pile of vampire stories, and that is something I can stand for.
I’m happy to announce that I have no regret, none of those eighteen hours were badly spent, quite the contrary! My attention was caught quickly in the beginning and the book never failed me. I had a great time following Maria, Charlotte and Alice through the last five centuries! „Bury our bones in the midnight soil“ is a tale of longing for autonomy as a woman in a patriarchal world. Here, being turned into a vampire, is an appealing door to freedom, but the cost can only be truly understood when you’ve gone through it. Would you rather stay mortal and play by the rules of submission and marriage, or obtain longevity and freedom at the price of insufferable thirst and loneliness? Well, Maria chose to be a toxic bitch, and that’s cathartic. Now here’s something I appreciate about the whole toxic matter: romantic relationships and desire are central themes, but this is not a romance book per se, and most importantly, no questionnable behaviours are being glorified. I mean, you’ll get plenty of that, but it serves the story and is shown for what it is. The balance between the thrilling story and the questioning of societal norms is quite successful. I liked and was involved with all three characters (and the distinct voice actors with matching accents), they’ve got consistency and their psychological development is well-thought and nicely brought to us. I can definitely see how it will please the social media inclined YA public it’s marketed towards, but it does more than that, and if „toxic lesbian vampires“ achieves to raise your curiosity even a little bit, you’re safe to give it a go!
[Maé]
Horror
Friday, 13th of June
›There was once a man who was not a man‹, the man began. He was frowning or perhaps it was that his face was slipping. ›He acted like a man and yet he was not in fact a man after all. Then why, you might wonder, did he live with men or among them? Why indeed. But this is not that kind of story, the kind meant to explain things. It simply tells things as they are. And as you know there is no explanation for how things are. At least non that would make any difference and allow them to be something else‹. (from: Leaking Out)
Brian Evenson is coming to the Otherland, hell yes! I discovered his wonderful work through Inci and am eternally greatful. The short-story-collection “Song for the Unravelling of the World” was a real eye-opener! If you like weird fiction and might enjoy recurring themes such as twins, doppelgangers, dreams, skins and body-parts in general – check him out! As I understand it, he doesn’t want to be called an SF writer, nevertheless we often find space travel, time paradoxes or post-apocalyptic landscapes in his work. Especially the frightening thought that just a tiny thing has to go wrong for you - a glitch in the matrix, a wheel turning the wrong way in your head, things that look ordinary and well known, but are in fact something completely foreign and dangerous – is what I cherish most in these jewels of horror-writing. We have a selection of his stories and novels in stock and they are only waiting to be discovered!
If you can’t attend the event, we can still get a book signed for you! Why not “Immobility“? Or “A Collapse of Horses“? Or “Father of Lies“? The much liked “A Glassy, Buning Floor of Hell“ or the new collection “Good Night, Sleep Tight“? And many many more, just ask.
[Caro]
Oh, sing me an ode to the haunted house.
For a few years now, I've been observing how public places are being decimated and people go into hiding in their private homes. On one particularly nasty Friday, I tentatively tried to throw a little spontaneous party...but my wave of motivation got broken by the unwillingness of my friends and acquaintances to move from the couch. I angrily tried to summon ghosts – just to pass the time - and wished for nothing more than rattling chains and diffuse light figures messing up my cutlery trays, just to experience a disruption in my cozy little bedroom. On that note, would it be possible to apply for rent reduction if there is a haunting?
I still vividly remember the first time reading the masterpiece “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson in my bed at night, all cuddly with my Frog blanket, until I turned off the light…
But sleep didn't embrace me, for i was spooked and had to cry terrified tears. Good times. Nothing compares to the incredible panic that flows through you when you suddenly have the feeling that you are no longer safe in your shelter. And how is that saying? You're not afraid of being alone in the dark, you're afraid of NOT being alone in the dark.
So take a look and experience the multiple facets of the word “unheimlich” when you pick up something from this selection ;)
[Esther]
British Library Tales of the Weird
Uncanny Gastronomic
British Library Publishing: €15
Warning, this review will contain as many food puns as I can possibly fit into the dough.
For a starter, the series from the British Library Tales of the Weird is extraordinarily exquisite, like entering a wine cellar owned by a nineteenth-century eccentric. They have very specific anthologies on topics like tattoos; encounters with the end; demonic drinks; weird mathematics (???!!!) etc., etc., and collections of the (Michelin) stars of Weird Fiction. You'll find the big 5* wedding cakes but also unexpected little cupcakes, which will make your taste buds dance in ecstasy. Every collection I’ve devoured so far always satisfied my taste. I'm very much interested in the weirdness of food (edible stuff in itself, but also the way of processing it and ingesting it) and it’s no secret (ingredient) that food in fiction works as a huge carrier of different meanings, a little bit like butter in cooking. Either to make the world more convincing, or to convey emotions, danger or uncanniness. The editor Zara-Louise Stubbs did an AMAZING job with this one. It felt like opening a box of Pralinés and finding out that every single one of them is better than the last - but beware, all of them have a pinch of poison in them, which makes you addicted and repulsed at the same time and leaves you craving more.
There are 19 stories in here, and, like in a real menu, they’re ordered by appetizers, main courses, palate-cleansers (Virginia Woolf), desserts, and a digestif. My favorites were: "The Laboratory" by Robert Browning, an eerily beautiful poem about a jealous woman and poison; Christina Rossetti's classic "Goblin Market" (if you haven’t read it yet, do it! It makes your heart want to dive in and your mind tell you to be careful at the very same time...); and "#54" by Jim Crace - an unexpected find, which opened up another delicious read for me. But to be honest, I was fascinated by every single story in here and I’m hungry for moooooooore.
This is a book I won't lend to anyone, because I'll put it on the window sill, where it can spread its beautiful aroma to catch another victim…
And for the ones who want to lose weight: reading burns calories. ;)
[Esther]
Medusa
Talon Books: €19
I read this book in French when it came out in 2023 (yes, here I am, the French speaker of the O-crew, at your service.), but the original edition was brought out to the public in 2020 by a Canadian publisher, and that because Martine Desjardins is from Quebec!
The French from France discovered it, found it absolutely great and decided it needed to be re-published (same text, different cover) across the Atlantic ocean for my own eyes to read. But, what does it have to do with us? You will ask. We don’t speak French! You will state. You would be right! Listen, as you might have understood now, „Méduse“ has been translated into English, lucky you! You are now able to enjoy this great gothic tale! Rejoice!
Here is Medusa’s story: she was born with deformities to the eyes, ones so bad her family made her wear a long fringe to cover them, and imposed she look only downwards to ensure they never meet her gaze. After an accident with the house staff, she’s driven to the Athenaeum, an institute for young „malformed“ girls financed by a board of benefactors, who every month come and play with their protégées… As the cruel treatment never seems to cease, Medusa’s „ocular Revoltingnesses“ develop strange and formidable faculties... her Abominations might be a blessing after all.
Martine Desjardins’ Medusa is a feminist tale of shame and body reappropriation, of cathartic revenge against patriarchal oppression. The book uses first-person narration, which is a risk as it can be a very clumsy choice, but here it creates a weird sense of intimacy with our monster. The chapters are short and engaging, one might easily end up reading it in one sitting without noticing. It’s clever, gloomy, gritty, thrilling! Special mention to the vast and creative selection of terms Medusa uses to describe her eyes. I loved it, and I believe you will, too!
[Maé]
Mr. X
Harper Collins: €20
O Great Old Ones, read these words inscribed within this stout Journal by the hand of Your Devoted Servant and rejoice! Enormous forces have begun to come into play. Around our tiny illuminated platform suspended in the cosmic darkness, the ancient Gods, my true ancestors, congregate with rustlings of leathery wings and rattlings of filthy claws to witness what their great-grandson shall accomplish.
Ned Dunstan is a nobody. A backwater computer technician with a history of night-terrors. Every year on his birthday, he is subjected to paralysis coupled with scenes of gratuitous violence meted out by a shadowy figure whom Ned has come to call “Mr. X”. On the eve of his 35th birthday, Ned is drawn home to his terminally ill mother, who tells him the terrible truth about their family, and of the very real danger facing him. Ned is surprised, but ignores her warning and digs further into his family's past, determined to find out the truth behind his night-terrors. Then three people are found murdered. And Ned seems to be the chief suspect.
Peter Straub is clearly back in fashion. Or at least that’s what I’m taking from Ballantine Books’ new editions of some of his classic horrors, which have been hitting stores in 2025. The original Mr. X, here with a foreword from Dan Chaon, won the Bram Stoker Award when it surfaced back in 1999. If his Ghost Story was a love letter to Stoker’s Dracula, Mr. X is a playful take on the Lovecraftian weird. It is a 656-page monster of a book, a proper epic in scope and character detail. It reminded me of Laird Barron’s longer works, like The Croning, and I really think anyone into Barron, Langan, or La Valle would have a good time with this one. Don’t be put off by the length: the chapters are short, and often brutal. As with many of his books, Straub does a good job throwing twists in your face, even when you are convinced that you have the mysteries down after the first fifty pages. And the Easter Eggs for Lovecraft fans! It made me want to go and reread a whole load of the classic short stories.
[Tom]
Non-Fiction
Everything Must Go
Macmillan Publishers International: €18,50
We are still in the first six months of 2025, but this is a strong contender for my favourite book of the year.
Dorian Lynskey’s Everything Must Go is disappointingly not an in-depth study of Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers but rather an investigation into humanity’s obsession with our own end. This is a smorgasbord of apocalyptic fiction, film, and music, and why we as a species have been doomscrolling for thousands of years longer than “doomscrolling” has been a word. Destroying the world in myriad ways proves a rich source of cultural worries, and Lynskey describes the book as a history of fear: “Writers of fictional doomsdays all reveal what they love or hate about the world as it is, and what they fear. Such stories are like ice-core data for dating the life cycle of existential concerns.” And boy, are we humans concerned about a lot of things. Over a glorious 21 chapters, Lynskey takes us through many variations on Death by Impact, Death by Machines, Death by Social Collapse, Death by The Bomb, Death by Pandemic, and Death by Climate.
To say Lynskey is a well-read guide is like calling a tyrannosaur a chicken. My to read (or in some cases to reread) pile now has to include A Man Without A Country, Station 11, Darkness, The Last Man, After London, News from Nowhere, Caesar’s Column, The Extinction of Man, The War of the Worlds, Tom’s a-Cold, Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, Last and First Men, Ape and Essence, Sometime Never, There Will Come Soft Rains, On the Beach, The Long Tomorrow, The Chrysalids, A Canticle for Liebowitz, War with the Newts, Runaround, Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, How the World was Saved, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, The Machine Stops, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Leave the World Behind, The Silence, The Death of Grass, The Day of the Triffids, The Drowned World, Ice, Memoirs of a Survivor, A Boy and His Dog, The Postman, The Road, The Children of Men, Greybeard, The Stand, Oryx and Crake, I am Legend, Make Room! Make Room!, Heat, and The Ministry for the Future, to name just a few. (In unrelated news: I am looking for a new, slightly larger apartment, in case anyone has any hot tips.)
Best bits are too many to list, but I really liked the deep dives into Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, J. G. Ballard, and pretty much every cheesy comet/asteroid/meteor/meteorite movie from the last 100 years. There is even some Bob Dylan and some R.E.M. (though sadly still no MSP). Everything Must Go shows us that humans have always been paranoid about the next big last thing. And if you tolerate this…
[Tom]
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