Ellen Klages' Wicked Wonders is one of those short story collections that is deeply poetic and carries you like a song through the night when you're supposed to be sound asleep. This collection of short stories features everything from a girl destined to be on one of the first missions into space where return is not an option, a story of a young woman who can create magic through maps and rescue those who cannot help themselves halfway across the world, and even the secret imagined history behind margarine.

My favorite story features a young woman seeing Disney's Sleeping Beauty for the first time and falling desperately in love with the character of Maleficent. Rather than being delighted by all the dolls of the princess or prince, she finds herself wanting a puppet of the witch and begins to find that it carries her through challenging times.

As I've stated before, Klages' work has a poetic quality to it that appears almost lyrical. Passages become much more fun to read aloud than quietly to one's self. The best part is each story is relatively short so it's hard to fall back in to the age old excuse of not having enough time to read. Wicked Wonders is a collection that the reader finds themselves not wanting to put down, but also not wanting to finish out of fear that they will have to leave the magical world they've found behind when the close the cover.

Wicked Wonders is available from Tachyon Press May 23, 2017.

Wicked Wonders is filled with stories that stir the imagination. They are not stories for children, despite many featuring children. They are stories of transformation, each unique and exceptional. I loved the tale wherein mathematics ends up being used to create a paradise for two youngsters, and that of the cartographer who uses origami to create a passage for women to escape to safety. Many of the stories are moving, such as the love story between a woman who inherits the penny arcade and a stranger linked to the tree she loved as a child. The stories touch you with unexpected, sometimes making you smile, at other times making you shudder. All are excellent.

If you are looking for an anthology filled with wondrous tales that are entirely unique, Wicked Wonders is just what you are looking for.

5/5

I received a copy of Wicked Wonders from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom

I am very conflicted about this one. It's hard to even write the review, because I did like the collection but there was one problematic story that negatively impacted my impression of the entire book.

The positives - Klages has beautiful prose, and her writing creates such a sense of place. The characters are strong and willful and the stories have a feminist lens to the them. They have a bit of whimsy, sometimes leaning towards magical realism, science fiction or fantasy. My favorites were: Amicae Aeternum, Echoes of Aurora, and Goodnight Moons.

And then I read the story 'Woodsmoke,' the only story that has not been published elsewhere. Major spoilers ahead. It starts off interestingly enough, telling a story about a young girl named Peete at an all-girls summer camp who becomes friends with another camper named Maggie whose parents are missionaries. It's full of nostalgia and innocence, like most coming of age stories. The story is fine, until the very end. Maggie thinks she is getting her first period, but she ends up in extreme pain. After going to the camp nurse, who calls a doctor, it is revealed that Maggie is biologically male and her testicles were going to drop (I'm still going to use 'her' pronouns and refer to the character as Maggie). They say that Maggie can't stay at the summer camp anymore, and Peete approaches her, starts to say "Maggie," stops and says that she doesn't know what to call her, and Maggie says she doesn't know either. And that's how the story ends. It felt like a gut punch. Like a shock ending straight out of Sleepaway Camp (minus the murder). I felt like it just completely ignores concepts of gender roles, identity and expression. Maggie is still Maggie. I know the story probably ended where it did in order to elicit a reaction, but I am not willing to accept writing that relies on problematic twists or shock value - I demand more from this obviously talented writer. There is a section in the back of the book where Klages provides notes on each story, and I hoped that more insight into what she had been thinking when she wrote this would be provided, but the section on 'Woodsmoke' only included that she hoped to turn this into a full length novel. Perhaps in a full length novel concepts relating to gender identity could be properly explored, but I feel that the way things were handled in this short story just weren't acceptable. I'm sure others will have no issues with this story, but to me, this was problematic and ultimately clouded my memories of the entire collection.

She intends to be a good girl, but shrubs and sheds and unlocked cupboards beckon. In photographs, her eyes sparkle with unspent mischief; the corner of her mouth quirks in a grin. She is energy that cannot abide fences. When she sleeps, her mother smooths a hand over her cheek in affection and relief.”

I am not going to be alone in loving the first story The Education Of A Witch in this collection.. In fact, is it crazy to cling to some malingering hope that Klages might be inspired to write a full novel about this wicked little girl? In another story a girl tumbles into Clue and other childhood games and dice plays a wicked “ROLL” , another two little girls have a sleepover and explore a place in the closest with a strange man named Hollis. All of these stories have a strange little bend in them but the magic isn’t overwhelming, they are ‘curiouser and curiouser’ still. None are as fantastic to me as the first but all are playful in their own right.

In Singing on a Star one could easily manipulate the story, look deeper into it. Could it all be a fantasy a little girl conjured about the sleepover to explain what happened to her friend? That’s the fun part in reading these sort of tales. We can put any meaning we want on them or just enjoy their playfulness. The lovers in Echoes of Aurora filled me with tenderness. Is she in love with a real person or her youth? “Everything was as familiar at it was alien, and in that setting, in the early spring twilight, logic and Rory could not co-exist. Rory smiled, and logic lost.” Logic truly is the murderer of our fantastical childhood. I enjoyed the originality of this collection. So many lyrical/magical stories try too hard, just throwing in weird happenings for the sake of being weird. Not so here. They aren’t outlandish in the telling-they sit just right in their strangeness.

Publication Date: May 23, 2017

Tachyon Publications

Wicked Wonders by Ellen Klages
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

I've never read Ellen Klages before, but I can definitely say that she has a talent for understated and richly-drawn character tales.

These aren't meant to blow you away with reveals, but they are subtle and powerful explorations of youth (mostly) and they're definitely good for nostalgia.

A great deal of them will have slight magical twists, but I've got the impression that they're mostly nostalgic histories of Americana. It's mild and slightly subversive and the kinds of reveals are almost always social or personality.

It's nice.

Not particularly the kind of fiction I generally go for, and I generally liked the future SF in this collection better, especially the one about a baby on Mars, but I can easily say that all of these stories are very well written. Quality. :)

Ellen Klages’ short fiction has won several awards, including a Nebula, as well being short-listed for Hugo, Nebula, and John. W. Campbell awards, but her work is new to me. Wicked Wonders is a short-story collection of lyrical fantasy tales (mostly) starring young girls and childhood itself. With elements of historical and modern fantasy, and science fiction, there’s a little something for everyone in this collection.

Klages’ stories are lovely, strange, and sad things. Some are quite funny, most are clever, and they are all cultivated by these beautiful details that capture a mood of magic. Beware: These stories will evoke memories of your own childhood, or at least garner nostalgia for a childhood dream. Most of these are slow to start, but they stick with you for days. The collection concludes with author story notes, which in the least offer a fun insight, but some of which also provide a greater appreciation.

Easily half of the collection are 4 or 5-star works, but my absolute favorites can be collated into these categories:

Stories that show the quiet human element of science fiction —
-Amicae Aeternum”, in which a young girl spends a last night with her best friend before she leaves on a generation starship.
-Goodnight Moons”, in which an pregnant astronaut must raise her child on Mars, never to return home to Earth.

Stories that capture the magic and possibility of science —
-“Hey Presto!”, a historical fantasy, in which a young girl who loves science bonds with her magician father, and discovers the chemistry of stage magic.
-“Gone to the Library”, in which a little girl finds the power and protection of tic-tac-toe and mathematics on the back of a giant turtle.

Stories that feature the blurred lines between magic and reality —
-“Education of a Witch”, in which a little girl identifies with Maleficent, instead of Sleeping Beauty, because she’s interesting and powerful, has her own castle, and can turn into a dragon whenever she wants.
-“Singing on a Star”, in which a little girl finds a record that will turn her closet into a doorway to a magical realm of mysterious city streets and trains, and untried candy bars.

Highly recommended as a subtle feminist collection. If you enjoy strong or subversive female protagonists in speculative fiction, this collection is for you!

Loved it, Beautifully written and engaging. I've been telling all of my friends about this book, and am going to suggest it for our book club.

Thank you!!!

Childhood memories are a potent force in our lives, continuing to resonate within us even as we grow older and come to believe that we've left the magic of that early age behind. Ellen Klages's collection of short stories recaptures some of the innocence and enchantment of childhood, in a series of tales by turn evocative, romantic and poignant. Sometimes her stories bring us into the world of children who are on the brink of new lives, new potential and new discoveries; while sometimes we find characters closer to ourselves: adults who have put away childish things, but who find themselves drawn back in various ways to the brink between that age and this. We find children confronted with the cruel realities of the adult world, and fairy tales for adults, with nods to fantasy, science fiction and straightforward fiction. There really is something for everyone.

Writing about a collection of short stories is always hard, and this won't be a long post, because if I discuss any of the stories in depth I'll end up giving away the endings and will spoil your fun. All I can do is give you a tantalising magic-lantern show of vignettes from several of the stories in the volume. A little girl breaks the trend by falling, not for the Disney princess, but for the witch Maleficent, who dares to be different. In a quiet suburb, two best friends watch a final sunrise together before one of them moves away; while, in another story, a vacation at summer camp turns into a beautiful study of shy first love. A couple of ladies who lunch take sharing their pudding to a whole new level; and two schoolgirls find themselves playing a boardgame with a difference. One grown woman, returning to her childhood home, rekindles an old love affair; another must dispose of her late father's cherished hanging ham. In misty San Francisco, a woman uses the power of maps and origami to save lives, always searching for the one who got away.

There's a feminist turn to many of the stories. In Klages's fictional worlds, girls and women have the power to direct their lives, save others and, using mathematics and physics, push the boundaries of what is possible. Yet that doesn't always mean there's an upbeat ending. On the contrary, on several occasions Klages ends her tale with a moment of such poised, haunting loss that I found myself demanding, 'But then what?' The story that touched me most in that regard was Woodsmoke, which seemed so idyllically simple and yet turned out to be so moving. Yet this is surely the sign of a good short story, which brings you into its world, makes you care about its characters' predicament, and then spits you out the other end (again I think of Bede's swallow flying swiftly through that hall).

I'm not a great reader of short stories and so I can't immediately think of anyone to whom I can compare Klages, to give you a feel for her style. She isn't as intense and sensual as Angela Carter, but occasionally her twisted endings or lyricism struck a comparable note. If you like reading the kind of short stories featured on Tor.com, which explore speculative fiction from all kinds of angles, then Klages will be right up your street and, indeed, if you enjoy reading about strong, clever or adventurous women, then I'd encourage you to dip in.

This review will be published on my blog on 13 March 2017 at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/03/13/wicked-wonders-ellen-klages