readingwithhippos's review against another edition
3.0
My reactions to the stories in Falling in Love with Hominids were all over the map. Hopkinson is a Caribbean-Canadian speculative fiction writer with quite possibly the biggest imagination I’ve ever come across. Whether her stories work for you or not will depend on your ability to hang with the weirdness.
My favorite story, entitled “Emily Breakfast,” was an outwardly silly tale of a couple whose chicken goes missing one morning. Their three chickens are named Lunch, Dinner, and Emily Breakfast. (Because Emily the chicken already had a name when they got her, so they just tacked the “breakfast” part on the end. Obviously.) The distressed chicken owners are aided in the hunt for the missing chicken by their winged cat. Also, the chickens can breathe fire, and a neighbor owns what she calls a “scuttle” of messenger lizards. It’s an absolute delight from start to finish.
Other stories weren’t as big a hit with me. A couple were clearly for insiders, like the story taking place in a fictional world from a book series I haven’t read. Those I skimmed or skipped entirely, knowing I wasn’t the intended audience. Still, the good stories here are REALLY good. Hopkinson’s characters are refreshingly diverse—black, brown, straight, gay, male, female, teenaged, elderly—and they’re immediately knowable, despite whatever craziness might be happening around them. I don’t often get the feeling that an author had fun writing a book, but I just can’t imagine Hopkinson putting this stuff down on paper with anything but a playful smile on her face.
If you’ve ever seen an elephant’s skin up close and wanted to apply lotion to it, you and this book will probably get along famously.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
My favorite story, entitled “Emily Breakfast,” was an outwardly silly tale of a couple whose chicken goes missing one morning. Their three chickens are named Lunch, Dinner, and Emily Breakfast. (Because Emily the chicken already had a name when they got her, so they just tacked the “breakfast” part on the end. Obviously.) The distressed chicken owners are aided in the hunt for the missing chicken by their winged cat. Also, the chickens can breathe fire, and a neighbor owns what she calls a “scuttle” of messenger lizards. It’s an absolute delight from start to finish.
Other stories weren’t as big a hit with me. A couple were clearly for insiders, like the story taking place in a fictional world from a book series I haven’t read. Those I skimmed or skipped entirely, knowing I wasn’t the intended audience. Still, the good stories here are REALLY good. Hopkinson’s characters are refreshingly diverse—black, brown, straight, gay, male, female, teenaged, elderly—and they’re immediately knowable, despite whatever craziness might be happening around them. I don’t often get the feeling that an author had fun writing a book, but I just can’t imagine Hopkinson putting this stuff down on paper with anything but a playful smile on her face.
If you’ve ever seen an elephant’s skin up close and wanted to apply lotion to it, you and this book will probably get along famously.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
laviskrg's review against another edition
1.0
This falls in the category of "barely managed to read the first half, donating the second half". Nope, just because it is random, does not mean it is good. The stories with the dragon chicken and the fat orchid girl completely ended this book for me. Stories need to be interesting, not just tropes and anti-tropes and ridiculous ramblings.
palomapepper's review against another edition
4.0
If you're looking for a series of fantastical stories with a diverse cast of characters, Falling in Love with Hominids might be right up your alley! Most characters were ethnically diverse and/or LGBT, and the stories delve into mythological fare ranging from Shakespeare to Caribbean lore.
Like any short story collection, there were some hits and misses among these 18 stories. A few felt half-finished, like character studies that still needed expansion. Still others were so strange that they seemed beyond my comprehension. But Hopkinson's hits are REALLY hits!
Stories I liked:
The Easthound: In a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, children survive in fear of a transformation called “sprouting.”
Soul Case: A colony of former Afro-Caribbean slaves uses magic to defend against their ex-“owners”.
The Smile on the Face: In a twist on the old urban legend about swallowing fruit seeds and growing plants in your stomach, a teenage girl goes to a house party and faces an unexpected transformation.
Old Habits: Ghosts trapped in a mall long for life.
Stories I LOVED:
Message in a Bottle: An artist has a bizarre encounter with his friend’s unsettling child. This one has a dash of science fiction; there’s talk about speciesism, art, legacy, and the incomprehensible world of the future.
Left Foot, Right: A teenage girl, wearing a single high-heeled shoe, visits a river. I remember feeling viscerally stunned when I figured out what this story was actually about. (Sorry to be cryptic! It’s tough to summarize these stories without spoilers.)
Stories that were so bizarre, I didn’t know how to feel about ’em:
Herbal: An elephant bursts into a woman’s house.
A Raggy Dog, A Shaggy Dog: An eccentric collector of parasitic orchids tries an unusual impromptu dating service.
Stories that didn’t work for me:
Emily Breakfast: A pair of kinky husbands lose one of their chickens.
A Young Candy Daughter: A woman and her daughter seem to be at the center of magical, altruistic happenings.
Like any short story collection, there were some hits and misses among these 18 stories. A few felt half-finished, like character studies that still needed expansion. Still others were so strange that they seemed beyond my comprehension. But Hopkinson's hits are REALLY hits!
Stories I liked:
The Easthound: In a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, children survive in fear of a transformation called “sprouting.”
Soul Case: A colony of former Afro-Caribbean slaves uses magic to defend against their ex-“owners”.
The Smile on the Face: In a twist on the old urban legend about swallowing fruit seeds and growing plants in your stomach, a teenage girl goes to a house party and faces an unexpected transformation.
Old Habits: Ghosts trapped in a mall long for life.
Stories I LOVED:
Message in a Bottle: An artist has a bizarre encounter with his friend’s unsettling child. This one has a dash of science fiction; there’s talk about speciesism, art, legacy, and the incomprehensible world of the future.
Left Foot, Right: A teenage girl, wearing a single high-heeled shoe, visits a river. I remember feeling viscerally stunned when I figured out what this story was actually about. (Sorry to be cryptic! It’s tough to summarize these stories without spoilers.)
Stories that were so bizarre, I didn’t know how to feel about ’em:
Herbal: An elephant bursts into a woman’s house.
A Raggy Dog, A Shaggy Dog: An eccentric collector of parasitic orchids tries an unusual impromptu dating service.
Stories that didn’t work for me:
Emily Breakfast: A pair of kinky husbands lose one of their chickens.
A Young Candy Daughter: A woman and her daughter seem to be at the center of magical, altruistic happenings.
moirwyn's review against another edition
5.0
This review originally appeared on my blog, Books Without Any Pictures:
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2015/10/16/falling-in-love-with-hominids-by-nalo-hopkinson/
Falling in Love with Homids is a short story collection written by Nalo Hopkinson, an award-winning Canadian/Caribbean fantasy author. Her books have been on my radar for some time now, and when Tachyon Publications offered me a copy of her newest anthology, I was excited to dive right in.
The introduction to the collection explains that while each of the stories was written at different times and for different purposes, they are loosely united by the theme of the restoration of faith in humanity. Falling in Love with Homids includes scenes both mundane and fantastical, each of which begins with an annotation describing something about the story’s conception. These personal remarks made me feel much more invested in each of the stories, and gave me a sense of Hopkinson’s own self rather than just her characters.
It took me a while to read this collection, which was partially a realization about my own reading style. I like to jump into a story and stay there for some time, and jumping from one story to another too quickly breaks my immersion. That being said, this was a collection where I’d read a story or two at a time and keep coming back for more, because each of them was unique and wonderful and disturbing and made me think and laugh and cry and ponder why the world is the way it is. And yet despite exploring some dark themes, Falling in Love with Homids is at its heart a story of hope.
Here are a few of my favorite stories in the collection. These summaries are not exhaustive though; if you want to hear tales of flying elephants, shopping mall ghosts, a female Jesus meeting a Salvation Army Santa, and a Caribbean retelling of the Tempest, you’ll have to read Falling in Love with Homids for yourself!
The Easthound
The Easthound gets its name after a garbled message on the Toronto subway–rather than hearing “Eastbound,” the author heard “Easthound,” and thus this story was conceived. I found that absolutely delightful, in part because Mike and I have our own inside joke in which I heard him say “Safe Auto” as “Say Fado” and was like, “Fado,” which we thought was silly enough to still be laughing about years later. Where was I? Back to the Easthound. It’s basically a story of the zombie/werewolf apocalypse, but the disease only affects adults. The children have banded together in groups for survival, starving themselves to keep from growing up too quickly and meeting their own swift demise. It’s really messed up, and yet, as one of the characters begins her metamorphosis, we can truly see how much she cares for the others and how she does everything in her power to give them a running start.
Message in a Bottle
This story starts out in a rather mundane way, with this average guy who never wants children talking about what his legacy might someday be. He’s got an adopted niece though whom he helps take care of, and he thinks she’s really weird. The narrator grows up, has a relationship, and winds up accidentally becoming a father, and a pretty good one at that. His niece also grows up, and we see that she’s got some crazy secrets of her own that completely change how we perceive the narrator’s true legacy. It’s a nice thought piece on what we leave behind, whether it’s our genetics, our work, or the seemingly insignificant little things that we touch throughout our lives.
Emily Breakfast
Emily Breakfast was hands-down my favorite story in the entire collection. It’s been almost two weeks since I read it, and I still can’t stop thinking about it. When the story opened, it took me a minute to get my bearings. Cranston wakes up and starts making Sir Maracle breakfast (as I’m thinking “Sir Maracle… a knight? are they in a castle? no, they seem to be in suburbia. oh wait! BDSM couple. got it). He goes out to get some fresh eggs from the chickens, who are named Lunch, Dinner, and Emily Breakfast. Emily Breakfast because she came with the name Emily, but they still wanted to make the joke. The basic gist of the story is that Emily Breakfast is missing, and Cranston and Sir Maracle do everything in their power to find her and bring her back. And as we see their concern for Emily Breakfast, we also see how much they care for each other, and it’s absolutely adorable. There’s a happy ending to this story–Emily Breakfast turns out to be quite capable of taking care of herself.
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2015/10/16/falling-in-love-with-hominids-by-nalo-hopkinson/
Falling in Love with Homids is a short story collection written by Nalo Hopkinson, an award-winning Canadian/Caribbean fantasy author. Her books have been on my radar for some time now, and when Tachyon Publications offered me a copy of her newest anthology, I was excited to dive right in.
The introduction to the collection explains that while each of the stories was written at different times and for different purposes, they are loosely united by the theme of the restoration of faith in humanity. Falling in Love with Homids includes scenes both mundane and fantastical, each of which begins with an annotation describing something about the story’s conception. These personal remarks made me feel much more invested in each of the stories, and gave me a sense of Hopkinson’s own self rather than just her characters.
It took me a while to read this collection, which was partially a realization about my own reading style. I like to jump into a story and stay there for some time, and jumping from one story to another too quickly breaks my immersion. That being said, this was a collection where I’d read a story or two at a time and keep coming back for more, because each of them was unique and wonderful and disturbing and made me think and laugh and cry and ponder why the world is the way it is. And yet despite exploring some dark themes, Falling in Love with Homids is at its heart a story of hope.
Here are a few of my favorite stories in the collection. These summaries are not exhaustive though; if you want to hear tales of flying elephants, shopping mall ghosts, a female Jesus meeting a Salvation Army Santa, and a Caribbean retelling of the Tempest, you’ll have to read Falling in Love with Homids for yourself!
The Easthound
The Easthound gets its name after a garbled message on the Toronto subway–rather than hearing “Eastbound,” the author heard “Easthound,” and thus this story was conceived. I found that absolutely delightful, in part because Mike and I have our own inside joke in which I heard him say “Safe Auto” as “Say Fado” and was like, “Fado,” which we thought was silly enough to still be laughing about years later. Where was I? Back to the Easthound. It’s basically a story of the zombie/werewolf apocalypse, but the disease only affects adults. The children have banded together in groups for survival, starving themselves to keep from growing up too quickly and meeting their own swift demise. It’s really messed up, and yet, as one of the characters begins her metamorphosis, we can truly see how much she cares for the others and how she does everything in her power to give them a running start.
Message in a Bottle
This story starts out in a rather mundane way, with this average guy who never wants children talking about what his legacy might someday be. He’s got an adopted niece though whom he helps take care of, and he thinks she’s really weird. The narrator grows up, has a relationship, and winds up accidentally becoming a father, and a pretty good one at that. His niece also grows up, and we see that she’s got some crazy secrets of her own that completely change how we perceive the narrator’s true legacy. It’s a nice thought piece on what we leave behind, whether it’s our genetics, our work, or the seemingly insignificant little things that we touch throughout our lives.
Emily Breakfast
Emily Breakfast was hands-down my favorite story in the entire collection. It’s been almost two weeks since I read it, and I still can’t stop thinking about it. When the story opened, it took me a minute to get my bearings. Cranston wakes up and starts making Sir Maracle breakfast (as I’m thinking “Sir Maracle… a knight? are they in a castle? no, they seem to be in suburbia. oh wait! BDSM couple. got it). He goes out to get some fresh eggs from the chickens, who are named Lunch, Dinner, and Emily Breakfast. Emily Breakfast because she came with the name Emily, but they still wanted to make the joke. The basic gist of the story is that Emily Breakfast is missing, and Cranston and Sir Maracle do everything in their power to find her and bring her back. And as we see their concern for Emily Breakfast, we also see how much they care for each other, and it’s absolutely adorable. There’s a happy ending to this story–Emily Breakfast turns out to be quite capable of taking care of herself.
mar's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
i wasn't as floored by the stories as i expected to be, but they were still enjoyable to read, with a distinct whimsical fairytale feel to them. i'll definitely be picking up hopkinson again :)
(if i'm quite honest though, i think my favourite part of this book might've been the introduction - and i don't mean that in a bad way, it was just a really compelling introduction. if nalo hopkinson ever writes nonfiction i will be SO down)
(if i'm quite honest though, i think my favourite part of this book might've been the introduction - and i don't mean that in a bad way, it was just a really compelling introduction. if nalo hopkinson ever writes nonfiction i will be SO down)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Body horror, and Child death
charlibirb's review against another edition
3.0
Honestly, I don't really remember this book a couple weeks after reading it. I wasn't terribly struck by it, but I remember liking some of the portrayals of characters.
egraney's review against another edition
4.0
Hot damn, that Nalo Hopkinson is a good writer. I received this title as an ARC from netgalley and it was my first experience with Ms. Hopkinson's writing. From the first story, I was hooked. She is so very original, I mean stop-you-in-you-tracks original with her ideas and she crafts them meticulously. I'm not usually the biggest fan of short story collections. Generally, they either have such promise with too little payoff or feel like too little story to merit the pages. But these stories seem well crafted for their size. Enough to build the (always) fascinating world without leaving you feeling like the story is unfinished. I absolutely love how she simply throws the reader into a story line. There is no chance to question or doubt, you either accept the world or you best move on. So very good, I devoured this book in no time.
literatehedgehog's review against another edition
4.0
Weird and lush and thought-provoking speculative short stories from a favorite author.
jazzypizzaz's review against another edition
4.0
3.5, although I like to be generous with short stories as several left me wanting a whole novel based on the premise. the kind of writing where every so often I come across a turn of phrase, a sentence, some imagery that gives me a little thrill inside, a strange ache. I shelved this as fantasy, but more accurately it's fairytales in the Grimm way -- transportative, enchanting, but also often visceral. a folklore that feels both modern and ancient.
linguana's review against another edition
4.0
The second half of the collection wasn't as good as the first but overall, this was a very good collection.
Emily Breakfast totally stole my heart. :)
Full review hiding behind this link
Emily Breakfast totally stole my heart. :)
Full review hiding behind this link