A review by drtlovesbooks
The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories by John Kessel
3.0
What it's about: This short story collection spans a wide range of times and places, reaching back into the past and pushing forward into the future. The stories examine some common ground, but go off in some unexpected directions. Two different thefts go wrong in very different ways. A series of stories connects the past to the future where women rule a moon colony. And the fictional worlds of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley have a crossover.
What I thought: There were some neat ideas. I particularly liked the stories that tied together in a grander narrative; in fact, I found myself skipping back and forth to see if the connections being made were direct, glancing, or just the coincidence of inspiration. Kessel seems adept at writing characters of either gender, and in working with different time frames - overall, I think this is a good study in the fact that people are people, no matter where or when they are.
Why I rated it like I did: The moon saga went on a bit too long, and with not enough resolution, for my taste. Also, I was reading an e-book edition, and the formatting was problematic, as it was uniformly incorrect throughout - all the same font, with double spacing between the paragraphs, and sometimes italics that didn't always carry through all of the passage they were supposed to. There were places were special formatting was clearly suggested, but not applied; and other places where I had to re-read passages to try to work out whether there was something I was missing due to the formatting.
What I thought: There were some neat ideas. I particularly liked the stories that tied together in a grander narrative; in fact, I found myself skipping back and forth to see if the connections being made were direct, glancing, or just the coincidence of inspiration. Kessel seems adept at writing characters of either gender, and in working with different time frames - overall, I think this is a good study in the fact that people are people, no matter where or when they are.
Why I rated it like I did: The moon saga went on a bit too long, and with not enough resolution, for my taste. Also, I was reading an e-book edition, and the formatting was problematic, as it was uniformly incorrect throughout - all the same font, with double spacing between the paragraphs, and sometimes italics that didn't always carry through all of the passage they were supposed to. There were places were special formatting was clearly suggested, but not applied; and other places where I had to re-read passages to try to work out whether there was something I was missing due to the formatting.