Mother Aegypt and Other Stories by Kage Baker

Baker's diversity and creativity are on full display.  While there doesn't seem to be a setting she is not comfortable with, there certainly are some that play to her strengths more than others.  Much like another collection of hers from Night Shade Books, Dark Mondays, there is a lot of great quality writing here, it is unfortunately surrounded by other quality writing that isn't particularly great. 


There are two stories that happen in the world of Baker's novel The Anvil of the World; 'Desolation Rose' and 'Leaving his Cares Behind Him.'  In both the characters are well defined and exist in a simple fantasy world that readers have encountered before; except the world's "Dark Lord" is married to the "Saint of Light" and the exploits of their children take center stage. While 'Leaving his Cares Behind Him' feels like an introduction where a magical prodigal returns home with nothing to the reprimand of his parents, 'Desolation Rose' was more fleshed out and showed the anti-hero, Lord Ermenwyr, taking advantage of a family in ruin for his own benefit and how he is forced to atone.  There were layers of depth in this story that made me think the novel could be something worth checking out. 


'The Briscian Saint' showed three soldiers on the run contemplating the rational mind versus faith and superstition; people and gods; and the reality of people's work juxtaposed with god's supposed intentions.  The story itself is strong, but secondary to the thoughts and ideas represented.  One facilitated the other and the narrative didn't suffer in any way.


'Miss Yahoo Has Her Say,' a story set in the world of Gulliver's Travels was strong enough to hold my interest despite the presentation of speech that I find so irritating in all fiction: slave speech, for want of a better term.  'Her Father's Eyes' had a complex setting and the most potential for development, yet it seemed that Baker didn't want to go anywhere with the material established.  The whole story took place on a train where the world is shown through the eyes of two children: a world in a dome, people that can't be seen by others, and so much intrigue to make me want to keep reading yet when the train ride is over; nothing continued.  Rather everyone just packed up and went home.  There was a great deal of set up that went into so modest a payoff.       


'What the Tyger Told Her' and 'Nightmare Mountain' were the two stories that I would make someone read if I put the book in their hands.  'What the Tyger Told Her' dealt with a child's observations of family conflict and political maneuvering in Victorian England.  We see that a little girl is able to learn and infer what will happen next with the help of her friend, a caged tiger, and the fact that she--as a child--is invisible in the eyes of adults and her intelligence is written off due to her age.  'Nightmare Mountain' was a fairy tale replete with a woman who was cursed to never touch the earth, her son who would die if ever seen by another person, plenty of evil spirits, and house that was nothing short of Gormenghast (Technically, that link goes to Titus Groan but I plan on reading Gormenghast shortly) that they all lived in.  The son's marriage and the drama that ensues has "Hollywood" all over it and was a great joy to read.     


While I feel this collection was much stronger than Dark Mondays with a few standout stories and a strong supporting cast, fans that have come across Baker's name in best of anthologies and themed collections may be best advised to wait and check out the table of contents from 'The Best of Kage Baker' collections I hope we'll be seeing in the near future following the authors untimely passing. 

Dark Mondays by Kage Baker

Kage Baker is a writer I'm very familiar with.  I've come across her works in themed collections, best of anthologies, and just about anywhere quality short fiction is to be found.  Dark Mondays is a 2006 collection in which I was hoping to find the charming, seemingly effortless short stories that made her a name I remember.  While there are high points, more often than the not, the collection is listlessly bobbing in a sea of uninteresting events.

My first contention with the collection is that the title story is in fact not in my edition of the book.  It only came in the limited edition with cost $49.99; shame on me for not reading the fine print and while this is more of a gripe with the publisher, Night Shade Books, than the author my displeasure may have colored my thinking on the stories that were present.  

Dark Mondays is a collection of very well written of short stories, only most of them weren't special enough in any way as to standout.  "So This Guy Walks into a Lighthouse" is a great title that only yields a mildly interesting story about a man looking forward to the solitude of a lighthouse position only to be overrun by very peculiar visitors. 

Few of the stories contained enough thematic material or anything that could be called plot that was worth developing and a weak premise rarely makes for interesting reading, regardless of the characters created in the story.  The one hundred page long "The Maid on the Shore" proves this point better than any other.  There is a great and diverse cast of pirates--two women dressed as men, a priest with psychotic breaks, gay pirates, a stereotypical 'good-guy' who has merely fallen in with the wrong crowd, and a phantasmic young woman who may or may not be real--that Baker seemingly does nothing with but make march and sail.  It turns out their objective was to sack a great city in Panama, but this didn't register with me until the very end, it hardly felt climatic or worth the time it took to get there, and by the time it happened, I didn't care.  With such a cast I'd hoped that Baker could do more.

Perhaps it's not coincidence that the stories that brought Baker to my attention were one where she focuses on smaller cast and the events of individuals as opposed to large groups; such as the 'Ruby Incomparable' from Wizards and 'Are you Afflicted with Dragons?' from The Dragon Book both edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.  The only real standouts for me in Dark Mondays (and let me tell you how much I dislike referring to the name of this collection by a story that wasn't even included…) were 'The Two old Women' and 'Oh, False Young Man!'  Both are about older women trying to reconcile something in their past.  The former deals with a woman who lost her husband at sea and finds a way to conjure him back.  Despite the unnatural manner of his actions and the pleadings of her family she has a very hard time giving her husband up a second time knowing they will be forever parted.  'Oh, False young man!' is a revenge story gone horribly wrong where a scientist--a very bitter, scorned lover--plots revenge with the aide of her best creation: a fully functioning human AI.  She intends to marry her 'son' to the daughter of her once lover.  Things don't work out and there are many lessons learned.  While all these stories share treads of being more intimate and personal that is not necessarily the key to success for Baker.  

'Portrait, With Flames' and "Katherine's Story' share similar elements as the better stories in the collection but with little to no action happening of any kind it is hard to push events along and harder still to keep turning pages.  

While the good stories are good, neither are worth seeking out the collection solely on their account.  All in all there are some very creative and wonderful ideas, only a few of them develop into something special.  All the writing is well done and it certainly feels like Kage Baker; only not the really amazing Kage Baker that I'd previously come across in so many anthologies and collections.  It's all well written and generally I'd consider Dark Mondays good reading.  It's just not very interesting reading.