Reviewer Praise for FEASTS AND SEASONS: Better Written and More Original
Mr Keith West of Amazing Stories has an amazingly kind review of my work:
http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/12/small-press-book-review-book-feasts-seasons-john-c-wright/
Here is the review, which I reprint in full, in order to flatter my bloated ego.
This week I’m reviewing a title that’s seasonal in nature, although the seasons it deals with occur across an entire year rather than a small part of the year. I’ve not read much of Mr. Wright’s work, but what I have has been better written and more original than much of what’s currently being published.
The same is true here. These stories have a great deal of depth, both in the characters they’re about and the concepts with which they deal.
Wright is a Catholic, and as a result the holidays and feasts he focuses on tend to be religious ones or have religious aspects. There are ten stories here. I’ll focus on the ones that resonated the most with me.
Wright opens with New Year’s Day. “The Meaning of Life as Told Me by an Inebriated Science Fiction Writer in New Jersey” sounds like it should be a Harlan Ellison story. Which is quite appropriate since Ellison is one of the characters. So are H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapleton, and A. E. van Vogt. It seems that what these three men wrote was actually fact thinly disguised as fiction. This is something Ellison reveals to Wright (yes, he’s a character in his own story) one night in a bar in New Jersey.
I should point out that this is the first story in the collection that directly involves the time machine as H. G. Wells described it. Wright has a fondness for time travel stories, and after reading City Beyond Time, I have to say he writes some of the best.
…As I stated earlier, Wright is an author who isn’t afraid to delve into deep topics. Some of the themes here dealt with the nature of God, forgiveness, kindness, racism, sacrifice, and second chances. A number of authors these days try to deal with serious themes and issues in their fiction. Few are as accomplished or as entertaining as Mr. Wright.
The Book of Feasts and Seasons is one of the best and most thought provoking books I’ve read in the past year. I highly recommend it.
The production values of the book were good, but I did have one quibble. I’ve read other titles from Castalia House, and they generally do a good job of copy editing. There were a number of typos scattered throughout this book, however. Many of them looked like one verb had been substituted for another without the original word being removed. Everything else was fine. The cover illustration is great. The links in the table of contents took me where they were supposed to.
No doubt my countless horde of fan (Hi, Nate!) is wondering as to my reaction to this flurry of compliments.
I should like the kind reader to picture me reading this review, all the while dancing and skipping about my chambers in grotesque jigs, knees kicking energetically, my mushroom colored belly flab bobbing in an antic, yet somewhat disquieting oscillations.
Meanwhile trembling neighbors peer fearfully through curtained windows anxious lest the herd of waterbuffaloes whose temblors they deem themselves to have overheard on a rampage oversweep their quiet streets and lanes.
When I start bellowing arias and paeans of joy in vaguely song-shaped blats, bleats, blasts and other expulsions of wind, they will flood the switchboards of the police and national guard, not to mention the stalwart Science Patrol, fearful of the return of Godzilla, or some of the subterranean yet primordial monstrosity.
In other words, I am pleased in my own quiet, stoical, and undemonstrative way, as pictured below:
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
