Made of Library

I’m in two minds about short stories. On the one hand they are short, self-contained, bite-sized chunks of entertainment.   On the other hand I feel like they need to have a point to them, a reason for their existence, and if they don’t I feel like I’ve wasted my time reading it. I’m not sure how to classify these stories. I wouldn’t call them sci-fi or fantasy, but they are definitely not realist either.   The writing has a surreal quality to it. Like Dali’s melting clock or the warped mirrors in a funhouse. I liked it. It gave a different and unique flavour to these stories. I would very much like to read a full length novel by this author. I want to see if that surrealism can be maintained for the whole length or if it can only be held for the duration of a short story. I also want to meet some real characters. The characters in these stories never had a chance to develop. That’s one of the points against short stories, in my opinion. I don’t get a chance to kn...

This is book 2 in a series of, I think, 6 books, so far. I don’t know if this is an ongoing series or whether there are a planned number of books. Book 2 was pretty well encapsulated as its own adventure but still makes some nice advances on the overarching story of Kate’s heritage and develops her relationships with the other characters. One thing that bugs me. The author of this book uses the pseudonym of Ilona Andrews. The author is the husband and wife writing team of Ilona and Gordon. So am I missing something or isn’t the pseudonym just the wife’s name? Ilona Andrews… that’s her name… how is that a pseudonym? Isn’t she really just saying “I wrote these books but I guess hubby helped a bit, too”? Book 2 feels much more episodic. Like we’re settling into a groove and a pattern, which is cool. There’s 6 of these things so I like that there’s a clear delineation to each one, rather than one just blending into the next and being essentially just one really long story. ...