a picture is worth...

The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiigari, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: healing fiction

Review: The Lantern of Lost Memories is, at the same time, a cohesive novel, and a collection of three short stories that seem only loosely connected until the end, when the connection becomes much clearer.

Each story begins with a delivery,  The deliveryman, Yama, brings a box to Mr. Hirasaki and they have a cheerful exchange, as they always do.  Yama comments on the size of the box, and makes a prediction about Mr. Hirasaki's next visitor based on the size and heft of the box.  Each box contains photographs - precisely one photograph for every day of the life of the next to visit Mr. Hirasaki's photo studio.

The photo studio is a waystation between life and the afterlife.  The recently deceased must sift through their individual boxes of photos and choose one for each year of their life.  The photos will then be placed on a spinning lantern to give them a last chance to relive their favorite memories.  Additionally, each person has the opportunity to go back to one day in their life to retake a photograph of a special memory.

Mr. Hirasaka is on hand for every state of the journey from death to afterlife, but doesn't know why he's stuck in the liminal space of the photo studio.  Unlike his guests, he has no memories of his life or death, and only a single photograph of himself to go by.  As the last story wraps up, and the threads begin to tie together, we get hints of why this is so, but no clear picture (pun intended) emergese.  Perhaps a sequel is in the works in which Mr. Hirasaka will help more people make the transition from life to death and will also learn more about himself.

Overall, a thoughtful and reflective addition to the healing fiction genre.

just a little unbalanced

Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: science fiction

Review: Good science fiction is more about the characters than the science. And this is good science fiction. Unfortunately, Kress goes a little overboard in weighting the book toward the characters (sometimes less human drama is more), but this is still a very interesting story. Kress presents a familiar question (what comes after death) and answers it in a unique way, without taking any of the various moralistic routes a less skilled author might have.

philosophy lite

In the Land of Second Chances by George Shaffner
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Summary/Review: I just did not know what to make of this book. The voices of the characters are very well-written, I could hear the Midwestern small-town twang in so much of the dialogue and narration. And if the book had been a story of small-town life, I probably would have loved it. But this is the story of how Vernon Moore comes to this small town and allegedly changes the lives of so many of its residents. Moore's origins are a mystery, as is what he's actually doing in the town. But while he's there, he manages to convince several residents to have hope in the existence of God and an afterlife, all through using rational thought and mathematical probability. Knowing that Shaffner has also written a non-fiction book on the same subject made me feel as though I'd been tricked into reading a lecture. Nonetheless, the book is well-written and, for the most part, a pleasant way to read about the author's philosophical ideas. Still, I would have liked to see more about the characters, not to say some character development that could be explained by something in addition to the revelations from the entire town's new best friend, Vernon Moore.