ravens in the library

I just received my copy of Ravens in the Library. The anthology, which had been put together by her friends to help defray S.J.Tucker's medical expenses, looks very nice.

"Pride and Prometheus"

Not long ago, when the Hugo finalists were announced, I bemoaned and decried, with gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, that none of my nominees had made it to the list. I obviously had read the list too fast. How else could I have managed to miss the presence of Elizabeth Bear’s Shoggoths in Bloom and of Robert Reed’s Truth? I’m very happy that I was wrong, especially in the case of Reed’s novella.

While I have already read half the non-novel finalists, there remain an equal number of unread stories and I have no wish to wait until the last minute to cast my vote. Thus, tonight, dear reader, I first read John Kessel’s short story Pride and Prometheus in which lonely bookworm Mary Bennet meets kindred soul Victor Frankenstein, once at a ball in London, later in Matlock. As they walk by a limestone cliff, she contemplates its great age.

”Whenever I come here,” Mary blurted out, “I realize how small I am, and how great time is. We are here for only seconds, and then we are gone, and these rocks, this river, will long survive us. And through it all we are alone."

Later…

The family was together as they had not been for many years, and she realized that they should never be in the future except on the occasion of further losses. Her father was grayer and quieter than she had ever seen him, and on the day of the funeral even her mother put aside her sobbing and exclamations long enough to show a face of profound grief, and a burden of age that Mary had never before noticed.

Very highly recommended.