Mer Mendoza (Merlyn’s Book Hoard)’s Reviews > The Privilege of the Happy Ending: S/M/L Stories > Status Update

“All authors leave a swath of destruction. We maim and move on. The privilege of the happy ending is accorded to few.”

“Across the clearing was a pile of stones that had once been a house: French or Saxon or Roman or any of the races that had swept across England’s face. Gone now, all gone: absorbed into Englishness, into legend and folktale.”

“Extinction can be as global as all, or as personal as me.”

“Her name was ungraspable by humans, but might be translated as Bessary, plus a term ravens used for the taste of three-day-dead goat when the temperatures have stayed just above freezing, plus a color at the 327-nanometer wavelength, plus a sensation along the rictal bristles in a particular sort of cool air.”

I got a little distracted by a line about how the toad was wearing a sealskin parka, given that he is a talking animal and all of his friends are also talking animals. It feels a little like if you saw a person wearing a human skin parka.