Review: Tea Leaves

 

Okay, this was a very interesting approach to a short story collection, and not what I expected at all. It includes a whole range of stories, some that are firmly magical realism, some urban fantasy, some high fantasy, and some that are all three, neither, or too short to really know. Many are tinged with horror; most are pessimistic. Some are nearly thirty pages, while others are under five. While there are some themes (marginalization, dissatisfaction) that run through the book, there are few real continuities. What I love about this is it’s simply a collection of the author’s works, without particular regard for short story conventions; it’s very unique. 

Unfortunately, most of the stories ranged from inspiring active dislike to just ambivalence, and I wasn’t particularly compelled by the first two thirds or so of the book. However, towards the end there were a few standouts: I particularly enjoyed “Borealis” (about a sort of modern-day sleeping beauty whose aunt helps wake her from her slumber with the offer of freedom), “And Then Again to the Next” (a story of two lovers who meet across time and space, but only in cities doomed to destruction), “The Oak I Knew” (a post-apocalyptic critique of society that can’t quite be called a love story, and “The Age of Oceanus” (a brief tale of the death of river goddesses). These four were actually quite good, and if you should end up with a copy of this book you’d be well-served to skip ahead to these if you aren’t enjoying the first few. This actually makes plenty of sense – the stories have been written by the author over his career, and in these few stories I felt like he was really beginning to touch on some particularly resonant themes. So these ones are absolutely worth reading, even if the first several aren’t.