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Cold Fires
Faced with the uncanny and the impossible, Rickert’s protagonists are as painfully, shockingly, complexly human as the readers who will encounter them. Mothers, daughters, witches, artists, strangers, winged babies, and others grapple with deception, loss, and moments of extraordinary joy.
17 pages, ebook
First published October 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 8, 2016
Passionate and mesmerizing tales of strawberries and paintings are told by two lovers during the coldest of winters.
I found both their stories and this tale enchanting. I particularly liked the author's description of the frigid weather -
It was so cold birds fell from the sky like tossed rocks, frozen except for their tiny eyes, which focused on the sun as if trying to understand its betrayal.
It reminded me of The Great Frost, my favorite part of Virginia Woolf's Orlando.
I'm looking forward to reading Rickert's short story collection.
I found both their stories and this tale enchanting. I particularly liked the author's description of the frigid weather -
It was so cold birds fell from the sky like tossed rocks, frozen except for their tiny eyes, which focused on the sun as if trying to understand its betrayal.
It reminded me of The Great Frost, my favorite part of Virginia Woolf's Orlando.
I'm looking forward to reading Rickert's short story collection.
December 26, 2015
This story annoyed me. As often happens when I read short stories, it seemed good, but I didn't like it. Do I just not like short stories? Or is the one I read just not very good?
Two things in particular annoyed me in this story:
1. This starts out saying how very cold it is, and several times describes icicles forming as an example of how cold. Ice does not form when it's very cold. In order to have ice, you have to have liquid water, and in order to have liquid water, it has to be above freezing. Makes sense?
2. Strawberries do not grow on vines, they send out runners, but they are not vines. Not any more than crab grass is a vine.
This one line did make me smile tho:
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/15/reprint...
Two things in particular annoyed me in this story:
1. This starts out saying how very cold it is, and several times describes icicles forming as an example of how cold. Ice does not form when it's very cold. In order to have ice, you have to have liquid water, and in order to have liquid water, it has to be above freezing. Makes sense?
2. Strawberries do not grow on vines, they send out runners, but they are not vines. Not any more than crab grass is a vine.
This one line did make me smile tho:
“ ‘She fell from the church cliff. She’d gone up there to light a candle for Our Lady, a flame of gratitude. Emile had proposed and she had accepted. She went up there and it started raining while she was inside. She slipped and fell on her way home.’
“ ‘How terrible.’
“ ‘Oh, yes, but there are really so few pleasant ways to die.’
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/15/reprint...
January 3, 2016
Review to come.
February 7, 2017
A perfect story. A classic folk tale combined with a traditional ghost story wrapped in a gooey horror center.
December 5, 2022
Outside in the cold night, even the moon was frozen. It shed a white light of ice over their pale yard and cast a ghost glow into the living room that haunted her face. He studied her as if she were someone new in his life and not the woman he’d known for seven years. Something about that moonglow combined with the firelight made her look strange, like a statue at a revolt.
Few things are more tiresome than lovers counting their excuses to each other in advance. The stories weren't compelling either.
2022 Short Story Advent Calendar
Hello December! It's time for the 2022 Advent Calendar. Maybe this year I'll actually manage to finish it. I learned from my experiment last year that reading from multiple collections does not work for me, so I'm trying to clean up some free standing short stories this year, and I have a lot of Tor shorts to go. Perhaps a few other things. One short story every day through Christmas Eve, and I will update links as I go. (I am traveling for Christmas, and I may post a few early right before the holiday. Or late. And I may go through New Year's Eve. Anything could happen!)
12/01/22: Yiwu
12/02/22: With Her Eyes
12/05/22: Red as Blood and White as Bone
12/05/22: "Cold Fires"
Few things are more tiresome than lovers counting their excuses to each other in advance. The stories weren't compelling either.
2022 Short Story Advent Calendar
Hello December! It's time for the 2022 Advent Calendar. Maybe this year I'll actually manage to finish it. I learned from my experiment last year that reading from multiple collections does not work for me, so I'm trying to clean up some free standing short stories this year, and I have a lot of Tor shorts to go. Perhaps a few other things. One short story every day through Christmas Eve, and I will update links as I go. (I am traveling for Christmas, and I may post a few early right before the holiday. Or late. And I may go through New Year's Eve. Anything could happen!)
12/01/22: Yiwu
12/02/22: With Her Eyes
12/05/22: Red as Blood and White as Bone
12/05/22: "Cold Fires"
February 7, 2016
It's been really difficult to put down a review for this story, because it contains two shorter stories within it, and not all of them are at the same level. But overall, Cold Fires is about different kinds of love; the passionate and captivating love of Great-great-grandfather towards the strawberry girl, the nostalgic but obsessive love of Mr. Castor for Elizabeth, and the reposeful and undisrupted love of the main protagonists.
In the short stories, the main characteristics of each season in which they take place are notably present through environmental and sensory adjectives. I believe it was the author's intent to make an evocative story out of the qualities of the seasons, so that they would help to empower the atmosphere surrounding every piece of text.
However, the main storyline lacked strength and purpose, leaving the overall structure unconnected. To me, this was the weakest part but it's still a good read for when you're feeling somehow nostalgic.
In the short stories, the main characteristics of each season in which they take place are notably present through environmental and sensory adjectives. I believe it was the author's intent to make an evocative story out of the qualities of the seasons, so that they would help to empower the atmosphere surrounding every piece of text.
However, the main storyline lacked strength and purpose, leaving the overall structure unconnected. To me, this was the weakest part but it's still a good read for when you're feeling somehow nostalgic.
June 14, 2024
Read in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection.
An odd structure, with a couple telling each other somewhat unrelated stories in a frozen house, one about a pirate maiden and the other about of cough drop magnate's lost love and his attempt to capture her in a painting. Formalized writing style but sincere and evocative.
Parental suggestion: Ages 14+
An odd structure, with a couple telling each other somewhat unrelated stories in a frozen house, one about a pirate maiden and the other about of cough drop magnate's lost love and his attempt to capture her in a painting. Formalized writing style but sincere and evocative.
Parental suggestion: Ages 14+
December 18, 2015
3.5 stars. Ok read, but for a story where the characters tell each other more than one story, while they have their own "story" happen, there was something missing. I can guess that the characters are married and both stories are about marriage or love and fascination, but to be honest I don't know what the stories tell me about the protagonists marriage.
Two houses by Kelly Link has a similar structure, but each story is more uncanny than the last and eventally ties in with the "frame" story. The connection was clearer to me in this case, and clarity in not one of Link's strongests suits...
Two houses by Kelly Link has a similar structure, but each story is more uncanny than the last and eventally ties in with the "frame" story. The connection was clearer to me in this case, and clarity in not one of Link's strongests suits...
April 6, 2016
Two very different stories, sewn together by a thing story. The result is worse than the sum of its parts: while the two sub stories would have been quite remarkable as stand-alone stories, they are very different stylistically and in the settings, and they do not fit well together.
December 18, 2015
Not sure what the author was after.
July 21, 2022
Another multi layered short story from Mary Rickert. So far, in every piece of hers I've read, it's like reading a little tiny anthology.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews