But you know me — I’m an information magpie, always interested in shiny bits of intel. I’ve never gotten in trouble because of knowing too much.
T.A. Pratt’s Blood Engines

Welcome. I’m Gary, music editor and Archive diver. A query from a loyal reader about our Archives prompted me to take a deep dive into our reviews of, first, Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw’s short-lived but influential SFF zine Flytrap. I like what Kestrell had to say about the zine, in her review of Flytrap #7:
”The tone of Flytrap is set in large part by editors Shaw and Pratt, who list themselves on the masthead as “enablers,” and indeed, their chatty offbeat editorial columns encourage a sense of having been invited into their living room for an evening of literary experimentation. With all the bad news in the SF genre regarding the buyouts and downsizing of numerous publications, it is a welcome change to find chapbooks such as Flytrap maintaining the ‘zine tradition of creating a sense of shared conversation among publishers, writers, and readers.’
Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and so I rummaged around some more to see what else our staff has had to say about the other various projects of Mr. Pratt and Ms. Shaw, as you’ll see below…
To Faith fell the task of reviewing the final Flytrap, #10. This last (for the foreseeable future) issue is a good one, too, with a little bit of something for many tastes. Besides Heather and Tim’s final editorial, with a picture of their terribly cute son, we have fiction, poetry, truths and oddments.’
Faith also worked a short review of Flytrap #8 into a twofer review. She liked it except for the poetry. ‘There’s also an excerpt from Alan DeNiro’s poem “The Stations.” I must admit I couldn’t finish it. It’s the sort of poetry that makes my head ache, but you will probably love it.’
Kestrell also reviewed Flytrap #5, noting that it published twice yearly, ‘except when it isn’t because the editors were on their honeymoon (see the pictures of Hawaii which illustrate this issue). Such eclectic elements are part of what makes this zine so reminiscent of the early days of SF zines. Another element that evokes the lure of zines is the often playful tone of many of the works. Most of the contents are one to three pages in length, allowing one the casual variety of a summer picnic.’
She also nabbed and reviewed Flytrap #6. ‘One of my favorite regular Flytrap features is Nick Mamatas’s column on writing, “Life Among the Obliterati,” and this issue is no exception as Mamatas takes a long hard (and ironic) look at what he calls the “MFA Cliché,” in which he discusses his experiences participating in a Master of Fine Arts program.’
And Flytrap #7! ‘Flytrap 7 is the perfect antidote when you begin to feel your reading has become stale and predictable, but you don’t need to wait until then to enjoy the wit and originality of the writing.’
In fiction by Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt separately, we start with Camille, who reviewed Poison Sleep, one of the books in Tim’s (writing as T.A. Pratt) Marla Mason series. ‘Insightful, philosophical introspections about the nature of the universe this book most definitely is not. Crazy — even immature in a snickeringly charming way — grownup humor and stylish magic clashing against stylish magic at a breakneck pace is what Poison Sleep offers in spades.’
Cat was wowed by Tim’s Rangergirl. ‘ The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is easily the most impressive debut novel I’ve read in a very long time! It is also one of the best novels I’ve ever read, period. I’ve included it on my list of Best Reads of 2005.’
He ran out of superlatives in his review of one certain collection of Tim’s fiction, Hart & Boot & Other Stories. ‘I’ve read hundreds of single author short story collections over the decades — I must say this collection is far better than almost any of them. Indeed it’s good enough that I’ll be keeping it for re-reading!’
When Tim Pratt went to collect his favorite stories about the Devil, he took the same sort of long view as Richard Thompson did when asked for his favorite songs of the previous millennium. Denise reviewed his Sympathy For The Devil. ‘Besides the usual spooky short-story heroes — Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Neil Gaiman — there are authors that are close to my heart, like Holly Black and China Miéville, as well as perennial GMR favorites Elizabeth Bear, Charles de Lint and Kage Baker. The old-timers are here too, with Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stephenson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Dante Alighieri putting in appearances.’
Jason had lots of good things to say about Pratt’s Little Gods, a collection of short fiction. ‘Watch out for Tim Pratt; his name will soon be associated with all the big awards, and his books displayed in stores for years to come. His career is just starting, and if this collection is any indication, it will be a long and fruitful one.’
Kestrell reviewed a collection of Heather’s dark fantasy shorts. ‘When We Were Six contains some very compelling dark fantasy stories and, with three of its six stories being retellings of traditional tales, I would suggest this collection to anyone interested in fairy tale retellings. Additionally, anyone interested in reading prose which contains an almost photographic sensibility (a style which I associate most closely with the writing of Elizabeth Hand) should find these stories extremely satisfying.’
She also liked Tim’s (writing as T.A. Pratt) Blood Engine, another in the Marla Mason series. ‘While I would recommend Blood Engines to anyone who loves a fun and fast-paced fantasy adventure, I would particularly recommend it to readers who enjoyed Jenn Reese’s Jade Tiger, as the descriptions in the martial arts scenes reminded me of Reese’s book even before I read Pratt’s acknowledgements at the back of the book which thanked Reese for the martial arts advice.
It’s not often that you find a book that perfectly combines an intereset in literary history and things culinary. Denise found it in a slim volume, Kim Wilson’s Tea with Jane Austen. ‘At a mere 97 pages, I have to admit I wasn’t holding out much hope for anything really engaging at first. Instead, I found a treasure trove of information disguised as a coffee (tea?) table book that kept my interest and left me happily surprised.’
April wrote a glowing review of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast. ‘Cocteau makes remarkable use of light and shadows, texture, and literally human architecture. The Beast’s castle is otherworldly, cold stone cast in shadows from flickering candles in gilt candelabra held by human arms jutting from the walls. Human statuary flank the dining room fireplace, their eyes shifting to take in the scene before them. An arm rises from the table to serve Beauty or her father. Simple effects put to stunning use with paint and lighting.’

In new music, I review a couple of unearthed live jazz recordings from the jazz detectives at Resonance Records. First is a sprawling set from trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live From The Blue Morocco.
‘If you love to hear a trumpet and tenor sax playing together as much as I do, you’re in for a treat with this one. Hubbard and Maupin are locked in from the opening of the first track “Crisis,” one of four Hubbard originals which along with two standards and one by bassist Bob Cunningham (who played on a Hubbard album that same year). If you’re doing the math, seven tracks over three LPs or two CDs means these are long tracks. This combo really stretches out, with Hubbard, Maupin and Barron taking some long solos on every tune.’
Next up is one of my favorite Resonance releases ever, Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa In The Bronx. ‘This date, released as a double LP for Record Store Day as well as on a single CD, is the epitome of mid-century jazz, played by a top notch ensemble. Dorham is joined by alto saxophonist Sonny Red (Sylvester Kyner), pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Denis Charles. I hope they had as much fun playing this music as I’m having listening to it (I suspect they did).’
I also review another couple of new jazz releases from Steeplechase, guitarist Yves Brouqui’s Mean What You Say, and organist Brian Charette’s Borderless. Of the former, I note, “This album is a solid demonstration of swinging straight ahead jazz focused on hard bop styles. Brouqui plays his hollow body electric with classic tone, an ear for melody and a sure sense of rhythm on seven standards and a three originals.” And sometimes Charette plays it straight, sometimes not: ‘But he takes an unusual approach, coaxing some highly creative sounds out of the organ on the standard “Willow Weep For Me,” and turns Huey Lewis’s ’80s hit “If This Is It” into a lush lounge excursion — pass the wine cooler!’
Inspired by April’s review of the Cocteau film (above) I came up with some francophone music reviews from the Archives. First, my look at four North American Franco folk music recordings: ‘North America has a sizable contingent of French speakers, including much of the Canadian province of Quebec, and much of southern Louisiana. The two regions are connected by history, too; the ancestors of the Louisiana Cajuns were driven out of parts of Canada that were originally francophone when the British consolidated their hold there. The folk songs and dance music of these two regions also share certain traits. You can hear it in these four newly released francophone discs: one Quebecois, one from the Maritime provinces, and two from Louisiana.’
Jack reviews Gwazigan’s Y’Vait du monde: ‘This album’s a sheer delight, but then I tend to like anything that comes from the Quebec musical tradition. This is a group with violin, mandolin, guitar, vocals — and Uillean pipes. Yes, Uillean pipes! Brigid, me dear wife, says this reminds her strongly of Moving Hearts, the near legendary Irish super group that lasted but a few short years in the 80s. No doubt, it’s the pipes, but it does suggest something ’bout the bleeding together of the various Celtic traditions over the past thirty or so years.’
Evangeline Made is just the sort of music that Kim loves: ‘Cajun music is a beguiling, seductive, heady mixture of influences –rhythms borrowed from the Creole, French fiddle and accordion, full voice American vocal styles in which notes are emphatically held and the voice wavers around the tone. Along with its cousin Zydeco, it is one of the best strains of North American roots music: danceable, rhythmic, and oh so congenial’ . Now read her review to see why she was apprehensive about this particular recording.
Red Dog Green Dog’s Good Afternoon, This is Roughly Speaking is also to the liking of Kim: ‘Wow. Get this disc now! You’ll be dancing to a twisted, psychedelic mixture of bagpipes, accordion and hurdy gurdy that’s written after the French folk dancing music tradition. It’s great, man. You won’t be disappointed!’ Sadly this is the only album from this group despite them being around for many years.

We get a three-fer in April’s review of a Disney/Dark Horse collab on Roald Dahl’s The Gremlins: a book, a cookie, and especially some action figures. ‘They stand several inches high and they’re quite substantial, with no moving parts but great dynamism. Each is armed with one of the Gremlin mischief-causing tools (a small pick, a large nail, and a Gremlin-sized, old-fashioned drill, which probably wouldn’t have been nearly so old-fashioned in the 1940s).’
For the Coda, some live music. One of my favorite podcasts, The Rest Is History, just started a series on the Rolling Stones, which is highly recommended for fans and newbies alike. To get you in the mood, here’s a rendition of Paint It, Black from Lyon in 2019.
What’s New for the 6th of July:
If you’re looking for Iain, our Librarian, he’s off again on a vacation trip, errr, I meant another short concert tour with his wife, violinist and vocalist Catherine, in the Baltic nations. While he’s gone, Gus has the Library Apprentices, the Several Annies, assisting him with much needed gardening work, so I’m writing up What’s New this edition without their usual assistance as well.
I just remembered that I’ve got a tale of how Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-Earth came to be a learning lesson for a group of Several Annies which you can read here. For just how important Tolkien thought maps were to creating his world, go read our review of his epic work, The History of Middle-earth.
Jennifer reports on the class war between inaccurately-privileged fantasies in genre Regency romance and the genre’s better examples, notably Barbara Monajem’s very excellent Rosie and McBrae Regency Mystery series. The series starts when a young woman of title loses her husband, and her mother tries to have her committed to a mental institution for having obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then someone starts sending the widow poison pen letters trying to drive her to suicide. Then society’s latest and most celebrated anonymous cartoonist, who exposes dirty laundry among the Upper Ten Thousand, falls in lust with her. Wackiness ensues! And that’s just book one.
Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’
Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.
Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’
Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.,
Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’
Jennifer offers chilaquiles for breakfast on a hot summer morning. No, really. When your ears are sweating a little, you don’t notice the heat outside so much. Your clothes smell delicious all day. Takes ten minutes. Any lucky soul who shares your breakfast with you will roll over with their paws in the air and love you for a solid week afterward.
Craig dug around in his film library to come up with the lighthearted baseball fantasy It Happens Every Spring. ‘Most films would feel a need to moralize on its characters’ actions instead of just letting them be. This film holds no such pretentions. It is simply what it is: a movie about a man who loves baseball utilizing a happy accident in the name of love. And it’s all the better for it.’
Robert has this to say about Craig Thompson’s Habibi: ‘Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a sprawling tale (that’s 672 pages of sprawling) that relates the adventures of two lostlings, the girl verging on womanhood Dodola, and the much younger Zam, a boy who she finds lost in the desert. They stumble across a ship that somehow has found its way to the desert (whether abandoned before or after it arrived there is anyone’s guess) and there make a life until through one circumstance and another each independently leaves — or is taken away.’
In new music, Gary reviews Twilight Blues by Poi Rogers. ‘This Santa Cruz based duo tossed the cowboy country western ethos of the Sons of the Pioneers with the warm tropical stylings of Hawaiian style lap steel guitar music and came up with something all their own,’ he notes. ‘It’s a winning formula that mixes roughly equal parts Western swing, cowboy campfire songs, Commander Cody and Ennio Moricone, all done with big smiles and lots of Cali sunshine. And they’re dog lovers to boot!’
Gary also reviews Invocation, the new one from Seattle Latin jazz trio Duende Libre. ‘Duende Libre’s core members — composer, bandleader and pianist Alex Chadsey, bassist Farko Dosumov, and drummer Jeff Busch — have been making music together for quite a few years now, and it shows in the tightness and easy flow of this set of eight originals rooted in the traditions and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and West Africa.’
From the Archives, Big Earl liked most things about a compilation of Hawaiian steel guitar music from Rounder. ‘A re-issue of a 1974 release, Hula Blues is a loose compilation of several artists who explored the possibilities of the lap steel (whether electric, acoustic or Dobro/National resonators) in the decades before the more complex pedal steel was invented. To paraphrase Ry Cooder, this music is often “highly hookey.” Cheesy pop tunes, oddball standards and quasi-hokum tunes abound. This only adds to the novelty of this disc and lends it a wonderful charm.
Christopher reviewed a couple of early discs by jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer: Tell You How I Feel and Strings Attached. ‘Kaeshammer has a great left hand, as befits a boogie-woogie aficionado. And his right hand ain’t too shabby neither! Check out the other of his two originals on this disk, “Jivin’ with Dal,” to hear what he can do. He builds a fast and funky bottom, then begins to dance around with the melody above. Later he swaps, letting his left hand ‘solo’ while his right comps. All in all Tell You How I Feel would be impressive if it came from a twenty year veteran of jazz clubs, let alone a newcomer not yet 20 years old.’
Dean enjoyed most of the compilation and tribute album What’s That I Hear: The Songs of Phil Ochs. ‘What’s That I Hear includes 28 tracks from a wide spectrum of musicians. Regardless of style the best interpretations are those which stay true to Ochs’ spirit, and the worst are those which resort to the too-earnest whining which seems to be the default setting for folk and protest singers.’
Lars truly appreciated the traditional folk music of Magpie Lane’s A Taste of Ale. ‘Magpie Lane is a six-piece folk group from Oxfordshire. They only use acoustic, mostly traditional instruments such as assorted squeeze boxes, fiddle, guitar, whistles, flute, recorder and percussion. They have no intention of rocking up their songs or modernizing them. Instead they produce a sound with clear mediæval influences. With all six members singing, they are strong vocally as well as instrumentally.’
Mike appreciated pretty much everything about The Bluegrass Patriots’ Springtime in the Rockies. ‘Whether this band is covering A. P. Carter’s “Winding Stream,” or the Tompall Glaser/Harlan Howard hit “Streets of Baltimore,” or traditional numbers like “Down in the Valley” and “Eat at the Welcome Table,” you’re going to get that real old time sound. There aren’t that many bands of this caliber any more that promote the original sound pioneered by Bill Monroe and friends. These good old boys play it all fresh while keeping it tight and true.’
Noam had mixed feelings about Phil Ochs’s The Early Years. ‘Herein are collected twenty songs (running time a generous 74 minutes!), all from the years 1964-1966, which could easily be seen as the halcyon period of Ochs; the majority of the songs are live solo performances from the Newport Folk Festivals of those years, whereas the first five are taken from a then contemporary Vanguard sampler album.’
Our What Not is from Kage Baker who was a storyteller beyond compare, be it in emails as Cat can well attest, at Ren Faires with her sister Kathleen serving up ale, lovingly critiquing quite old films, writing stories of chocolate quaffing cyborgs, whores who decidedly didn’t have hearts of gold, or space raptors who are actually parrots now. So it won’t surprise you that was a master narrator of her own stories as you hear as when she reads for us ‘The Empress of Mars’, a novella she wrote. It was shortly before her death supposed to be included on a disc with a chapbook of the novella but the small press went tits up before that happened so she gave me permission to host it here.
So the Infinite Jukebox, our somewhat fey media server, has a song written and performed by Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne, that shows that she’s every bit as great covering her own material as she is covering his material as she did here. This week it’s ‘Runaway Train’ which comes from the same Bimbos concert in San Francisco that January evening. It details the end of a relationship that may or may not have been about her own such ending but it’s certainly heartfelt.