Sometimes you don't want a long story in which to get lost. Sometimes, you are up to your armpits in alligators, or new classes, or soccer practice or any one of a hundred other things. Sometimes what you need is a taste. A story just long enough to remind you of the feel and flavor of great stories, but not enough that you feel committed or competition for your time. The Poison Eaters is such a book.
By turns, the Poison Eaters is dark, urban fantasy and brand new takes on some old favorite tales. A collection of stories: we witness the dark turning of a newly bitten vampire, an eating contest with the devil for control of souls and a suffering dog; a boy who becomes a werewolf. Perhaps my favorite is "Paper Cuts Scissors" in which a young woman fights with her boyfriend and then writes herself into a book and disappears. He then goes to library school to discover a way to retrieve her from the book. Anyone who loves books will find that one a difficult one to overlook. But the best of the collection is the "Night Market". Tomasa's sister, Eva, has been bewitched and sickened by the love of an elf. Tomasa takes enormous risks to save her sister. But in the end discovers more about herself, beauty and love than she had ever expected.
If you'd like other books like this one, try Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor. A collection of three fantasy short stories. Less romantic than the title may imply, this collection of short stories leaves one to wonder. What would it be like for a goblin to take on a wondrous human form only to entice and devour one's soul? Could one balance the greed of hell's destruction? Could one save lives to balance those stolen by chance or destiny? What if humanity wasn't the most powerful of creatures? What would it be like if humans were merely pets to more powerful beings in the universe? Read Laini Taylor's Lips Touch Three Times to find out.
“Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea … and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy’s blood with her eyes. Make promises she couldn’t possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted … to ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer’s small airplane, champagne-christened Kizzy, which would vanish one day in a windstorm in Arabia so that she would have to mount a rescue operation involving camels, and wear an indigo veil against the stinging sand, just like the nomads. Kizzy wanted.”
