In most versions of “Little Red Riding Hood,” after all, the wolf is eventually split open. Manickavel’s work joins a range of contemporary fantasy writers not in subverting the original, but in lingering upon this late aspect of the tale.
The Old Drift has little interest in its speculative elements or at least severely mishandles them. This is a problem, since it is the speculative that binds the whole project together, that gives it a voice, that argues its purpose.
After the Flood is a book that teeters on the edge of despair without ever quite falling over—a novel that, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, may be in the gutter but is looking at the stars.
I did not get on with Trapped in the R.A.W., a fact that is all the more painful to me for having such excited expectations. Our time together could best be described as a blind date gone horribly wrong.
Its strong historical roots serve as a measure of restraint on the speculation that sets Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants apart from mere wishful thinking.
