A Floating World

by Karen D. Best

With A Floating World, Karen Best infuses mundane life with elements of the fantastic. From mermaids and sea serpents to deadly pin pricks and crying icons, these 13 stories stretch the boundaries of reality while exploring the search for answers where there are none. Experience sorrow and disappointment as the title story, "A Floating World" inverts the "The Little Mermaid" through a woman born without feet whose relationship with a surgeon has unexpected consequences. Imagine the conflicted feelings of a seamstress who dissects wedding gowns when she is given a magical dress almost too beautiful to destroy in "Violets, Covered in Snow." Explore abandonment, when, in "Eternity in Ice" a young girl's lover deserts her for a mysterious woman with blue hair, and the anticipation and wonder of a woman who travels to Iceland to admit her adultery, only to find herself enchanted by fields of floating garbage and tales of sea serpents. Revisit "Sleeping Beauty" with the story of a young man who drugs his girlfriend in an effort to act out the fairy tale. And follow a beautiful model who risks her life to retrieve a family artifact from Chernobyl in "Our Lady of Wormwood" as she is stalked by corrupt soldiers and mysterious shadows. Best's final offering to the reader, her essay "Once Upon A Time," wraps up the reader's journey by exploring the uses of Fairy Tale elements in modern fiction. A Floating World entrances with wonder, unexpected beauty and a passionate belief in the magical -- and haunts with longing, entrapment, and an unfulfilled search for meaning.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Karen Best received her BA and MFA from the University of Central Florida. Early exposure to the paranormal, mythology, fairy tales and Edgar Allen Poe has left her with an abiding interest in dark stories. Her work has appeared in Our Stories and Filament Magazine. Karen has worked as a leather shop girl, bookseller, librarian and writing instructor. She can usually be seen dressed entirely in black. Karen blogs on Gothic aesthetics at lashesandstars.wordpress.com and tweets at @Karen_Best. Her Website is karendbest.com.

She lives in Florida with her husband and cats.

Reviews

[Burrow Press · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked most about Karen Best's debut collection is the way she uses elements of fable, horror and suspense without pinning the book to any of those particular genre categories. Story comes first, and each story doesn't offer the easy answers associated with the above-mentioned genres. Best takes lots of risks to accomplish this blend of genre and literary, which at its high points creates a wonderful range of dark moods. I have to admire that, and I look forward to seeing what's next.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strange and interesting book of short stories. Dark and thought provoking.
I think this might be the author's only book, I definitely would love to read more of her work. Very original.

[Nathan Holic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a thought about what this book was going to be, and trust me when I say that it surprised me by being something very different. Karen Best gives us an education on the fable and the fairy tale, but treats the genre with a modern sensibility that is tough to describe: there are moments where the fairy tale touches the Goth World, the Hipster World, and the Corporate World...and there are moments when the world of the Fairy Tale enters the Real World, as in the stand-out story of the collection, in which a host of displaced "refugee" princesses wind up in the big city to be preyed upon. I know, I know: if you're anything like me (stereotypical male, thirty years old), you're probably saying "Stories about princesses? Fairy tales?" Karen Best's book will change your mind, will make you interested and unsettled in the best way possible.

[Joshua Begley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastically sharp series of stories inspired by fairy tales. They're subtle, powerful, and insightful. Just a great short story collection.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when you thought all the great stories have been already written, A Floating World comes along and sweeps you off your feet. It only takes one glance at the cover and the outstanding titles and you know that this is not your ordinary short story book. Karen D. Best has given birth to thirteen modern fairy tales featuring contemporary princesses, twisted love stories, dark sea serpents, and magic dresses that will excite your imagination and make you feel you are reading your own thoughts. The words start to dance in front of your eyes and you find yourself in the heart of each story, feeling what the protagonists are feeling, and thinking about alternative endings for days after you have finished reading it. You empathize with Gwen from Eternity on Ice, as she watches her love skate away with the mysterious blue-haired girl, you share Maryska’s curiosity in Our Lady of Wormwood, and you enchant your mind with visions of the Snow Girls from Blizzard Season.

Each story leaves you wanting more, turning each one into your own personal saga, putting all those “what if” questions to work. The stories surprise you, combining elements of fairy tales with pieces from modern day life and a touch of dark mystery. A Floating World is a perfect example that fairy tales still have a lot to offer us, whether they are stories about sleeping beauties or trance-inducing blue-haired women. Karen D. Best has done a stunning job portraying her thoughts, imagination, and personal style into these stories and, by adding elements such as musical, literature or film references, she has managed to get readers even more involved in the storyline of her fairy tales. Sisters of Mercy, Anais Nin, and Fritz Lang or Marlene Dietrich references enrich each story and give it an amazing power in the eyes of its readers. And what is more beautiful than reading a book that only after one page the words leave the paper and start creating images in your mind? (Reviewed for Readers' Favorite)

[Shlby · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It seems that in many fairy tales, to be female is to suffer a fate controlled by outside forces.” As a feminist, I was captivated and satisfied by Karen Best’s fairy tale retellings, as her characters often subverted or questioned their roles in our patriarchal society. A few of Best’s female protagonists are creators, artists who exert agency and try to understand the world through their craft—in the cases of Miranda’s plastic tapestry of the Mother Earth goddess Tiamat (mythology class paid off after all!), Elise, and Erin. Another has a physical handicap in my favorite story “A Floating World”; a human Little Mermaid born without feet, this woman feels at home in water. Others are refugees from a huntsman, exploited for their old-fashioned virtues and skills, as in “Blizzard Season.” Although the majority of her stories adhere to the hetero male-female relationship formula, Best interrogates women’s roles in the fairy tale, endowing them with creativity, autonomy, spunk, and curiosity, even bordering on the lethal—like the archetypal femme fatale figures of sirens, maybe succubi, and witches. Some of my favorites were “Blizzard Season,” “Air and Water,” “The Worm Vine,” “A Floating World,” “When She Wakes Up,” and “Beauty Asleep.” In her closing essay, Best analyzes fairy tale tropes and explains their use in her anthology and Atwood’s, Carter’s, Munro’s, and Trevor’s stories. As a literature major, I really enjoyed her literary analysis and explanation of her own stories’ inspirations, themes, and significance.

At once enchanting and fantastical, Best’s anthology also explores the macabre and creepy, drawing from and blending Poe, Lovecraft, and the darker versions of children’s fairy tales. Best successfully weaves together the magical and ordinary so seamlessly that the situations seem plausible, and her style of urban fantasy or magical realism is haunting.

[Keith Gouveia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book released by Beating Windward Press has solidified my respect and admiration for this small press. Karen Best is an author to watch, the 13 stories included in A Floating World are deceptively good. As I finished each tale I recall thinking, okay, and tried to move on to the next. However, my mind lingered on the previous tale, dissecting the imagery and ideas presented. That is the mark of a true craftsman.

Karen does a wonderful job of not spoon-feeding her readers with all the answers. Sometimes bad things happen to good people without rhyme or reason, and she grants you, the reader, the chance to insert a piece of yourself into her world.

Pick up a copy for yourself and display it proudly on your bookcase.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of witchy, fairy tale and magic suffused tales. The best of these feature magic gone a little awry, touching lives in ways strange and corrosive (see "Our Lady of Wormwood," for example). Some of the others, though, had slightly more traditional reversals that had a kind of patness that stories indebted to fairy tales sometimes have. There's potential here to be sure, but for me, it was a little too restrained to raise my hair or quicken my pulse.

[Matt Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories sneak up on you. At first I thought they were beautiful but a little mild, and then noticed I was still thinking about them days, even a week, later. Always a good sign. I look forward to reading them again.