ROBUST discussion

A FEAST OF THE IMAGINATION
Carnival of Cryptids: An Anthology of Strange and Mysterious Creatures
Editor: Bernard J. Schaffer
REVIEWED by Andre Jute

A cryptid is an imaginary creature. This is the second volume of short stories in which all the proceeds go to a most worthwhile cause, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But never mind that you're doing a good deed by buying and reading this book, what are the stories like?

Well, they're what I would call "substantial commuter stories". Substantial because they're not short-shorts, they're pretty meaty in ideas and length. And they're commuter stories because several of them, if you're a nervous type, you'd better not read in bed, but on the train or the bus going to work, when there are guaranteed to be plenty of people around.

As for "meaty", I read the interesting author bios at the back first, and then, since I was there already, and since I know Matt Posner from his YA series School of the Ages about the young Jewish magician, I started with his story "The Paring Knife", which is about a kitchen from hell, a TV show from the boiler room of hell, and a supply of cooking ingredients and condiments from a truly olympian imagination. Posner tells his story as a TV script, which is clever, because it makes his almost universally nasty cooking contest competitors instantly accessible to the reader without in the least stereotyping them. I wish I thought first of the cook who tries to use the contest to poison his detested sister right out in public!

Posted to my blog and Amazon:

Review:

I always approach anthologies with trepidation. If an anthology is remotely worthwhile, it won't be filled with the same sort of story over and over. I typically expect a sort of normal distribution of story quality and interest, whether they are by one author playing around with style or a multi-author affair where the differences in stories often are even more extreme. Accordingly, I usually find a few stories I adore, a few that were okay, and a few that just plain annoyed me. Surprisingly, that didn't happen to me with this anthology.

In Carnival of Cryptids, the unifying concept of the anthology is that each story contains a cryptid in some way. A cryptid is a creature that is alleged to exist yet is not recognized to exist by the general zoological community. Although in the early days of zoology, this applied to a lot of creatures, advances in technology and science over the years have winnowed most cryptids down into a smaller group of legendary monsters. The Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch/Bigfoot are perhaps two of the most well-known cryptids.

Given the subject matter, it would have been far too easy for the various stories to end up some sort of feeble X-Files clones where various mysterious monsters are encountered in roundabout places doing the sort of spooky-boo things that people often associate with mysterious creatures of legend. It is a testament to the imagination and quality of the anthology writers that, instead, these variety of creatures are approached in radically different types of stories. Indeed, there's no real general style, theme, or approach used. Some stories are rousing tales of action and pure-fun; others are thoughtful meditations on the nature of existence. Even style is played with rather widely, and the anthology is almost worth checking out for the various approaches to writing used alone.

Admittedly, it's hard to love every single story in an anthology, depending one's personal tastes in terms of content and style. That said, this is the first anthology I've read in a while where I didn't dislike any of the stories. I have my personal favorites, but, in general, enjoyed all the stories, albeit for different reasons.

I'll also note that though I have a particular interest in cryptids, I don't actually think that knowledge or previous exposure to the concept or creatures is necessary to enjoy the stories. In fact, several of the stories involve some pretty obscure creatures that aren't as famous as something like the Loch Ness Monsters.

So unless you positively hate the very idea of stories featuring cryptids in some manner, you should check out this anthology.

Small boys will thank you, Jeremy, for pointing out that once in zoology many creatures now known to be real were cryptids. So, Little Johnny, you can still become famous by capturing BIg Foot.