Connor Rooke’s Reviews > Castle of Days: Short Fiction and Essays > Status Update

La Befana, for Christmas - I'm either a bit late or extremely early on this. This one doesn't feel fully baked. I do like the last line a lot though. It's...melancholy, rather than sad.

"Three Million Square Miles", for Thanksgiving - I can't measure by eye very well, or imagine a set scale, but I know that I live in a big, big country.

"Against the Lafayette Escadrille", for Armistice Day (I'm running behind). This one has a wistfulness to it I appreciate, and seems much more straightforward than most of Wolfe's stuff I've read.

"Many Mansions", for Halloween. Baba Yaga's chicken leg hut in the far future. I'm tickled by this one.

"The Changeling", for homecoming day...which I think I missed by a lot, but I've never known when homecoming was for sure anyway. This one is eerie. I like it. I'll need to reread it down the line and puzzle over it a little.

"An Article About Hunting" for Opening Day. I either don't have anything at all to hook onto here or I have one possible interpretation that I really don't like.

"Forlesen", for Labor Day. "Let's see Paul Allen's card."

The Adopted Father, for Father's Day - I'm not pulling all the pieces together for this one, I think, but it's sad and it's sweet.

How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion, for Memorial Day - did you know Gene Wolfe was an engineer?

The Blue Mouse, for Armed Forces Day - This one is a little haunting. It also feels like there's enough of a world here to support more than a short story, but I don't know what kind a novel it would be. This one's going to roll around in my head for a while, I think.