I got this as an Early Reviewers book, but forgot to read it for awhile. I finally downloaded the Creative Commons ebook to my kindle and really enjoyed reading it over the last few days. I wasn't familiar with Kessel but will definitely be seeking out his other works.

This book is a volume of short stories, several links, some unsettling. Several took place in an interesting matriarchal society on the Moon. The last story is a Pride and Prejudice / Frankenstein mashup.

Definitely recommended. ( )

The theme of the stories in the book is that most of them are responses or homage to other works of fiction, most of which I am not familiar with. The opening story takes on Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, while some in the middle are responses to science fiction works, to the last story which combines Pride and Prejudice with Frankenstein. I liked almost everything in the collection, with the exceptions being several of the more experimental stories toward the end.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories is a collection of stories by John Kessel. The publisher, Small Beer Press, made the book available both through LibraryThing as an Early Reviewer title, and through the Small Beer website as a free PDF download (still available here as of May 12, 2008). As well as, you know, a book you can buy.

This book is worth purchasing solely for the story "Pride and Prometheus", in which Mary Bennett, the serious and studious Bennett sister from Pride and Prejudice, encounters Victor Frankenstein and for the first time in her life is moved by romantic feelings. Frankenstein is likewise drawn to Mary, but makes no secret that his motivations lie elsewhere. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, so I will say only that this story is beautiful, serious, and heartfelt, never descending into parody or gimmickry.

The other story I was most interested in reading was the title story, "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence". In this story, the narrator picks up his relationship with Dot right where he left it off when he went to prison because of something the two of them did together. Because he can't refuse Dot anything, they break into a house Dot has heard contains a great deal of wealth, and are surprised when a passage from a bedroom closet leads to a train station that in turn leads to something like the Emerald City we know from Oz.

I found this story, and indeed most of the stories, very well written, but many of them, including "The Baum Plan", have an arbitrariness and/or lack of resolution that left me wanting something more. Kessel's prose contains lovely details, but there is sometimes a clean quietness to the stories that feels almost antiseptic, even when the characters are filled with strong emotion. One story, "The Snake Girl", appears to have no speculative element, which is certainly not a crime, but it reads a bit like the type of earnest literary magazine story that an intense college student writes just after suffering the end of his/her first profound relationship, rather than a story that offers any of its readers anything particular to think about.

Another story, "It's All True", is about a man who goes back into time (well, one timeline, anyway) to try and persuade Orson Welles to join him in a future that will appreciate his brilliance. (I understand that this universe is the same in which Kessel's novel Corrupting Dr. Nice takes place, although I did not recognize the connection myself.) This was a neat concept, and the resolution of the Welles element is generally satisfying, but I still came away with a slight feeling of "why does the story end here as opposed to anywhere else?" Also, in a few of the short-shorts, I felt as though the author clearly knew what was going on, but somehow I was missing critical information and/or the joke and/or the point. I also consider it a strength that Kessel does not browbeat the reader with clumsy exposition, but at the same time I felt like I often didn't get enough information to work with.

All that said, it's worth your time to take a look at this book. Different stories will appeal to different readers. And again, "Pride and Prometheus" is worth more than the price of admission (which is $0 if you do the download -- but it's still worth the actual price of the book!) all on its own, with an ending that is not only not arbitrary, but feels necessary and just right. ( )

(Amy) The short stories in this book range from "weird and interesting" to "weird and distasteful" to "weird and boring". The first category probably comprises the greatest proportion, fortunately, but nonetheless, it was very slow going, making it all the way to the end.

The title story (the first in the book) showed a promising concept - a bizarre edge-on take on a very, very different Wizard-of-Oz story - but in execution proved to be a) boring and b) gratuitous. I'm all in favor of retold tales, but I do generally prefer that the new version justify its existence by telling something different about the original story, or about life in general - or hell, just being entertaining. This story utterly failed to accomplish this, at least so far as I was concerned.

As for what the blurb text calls a "modern classic story sequence about life on the moon", well, it was entertaining enough. However, terribly sorry, but "female-dominant sex-positive society" is not shocking, it is not titillating, it is not insightful exploration of possible shapes of future humanity. It is practically cliched, and really reads like a series of wistful thought exercises by a frustrated fetishist. Enh.

I think the likelihood of me picking up another book by this author is best classified as "slim to none".
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... ) ( )

http://lcrw.net/kessel/smp-dl.php?fil...

A collection that is in the main, science fiction. There are 14 stories, which is a considerable number for a single-author book, so room for some variety, with excursions into fantasy, Frankenstein crossover pastiche, whacky, and even mainstream reptile loving.

The strength of this work is in the section the author calls "A Lunar Quartet":  —The Juniper Tree  —Stories for Men  —Under the Lunchbox Tree   —Sunlight or Rock, and the first two are the two best, and excellent tales.

Overall, a good quality group of stories, averaging 3.57.

Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Baum Plan for Financial Independence [short story] - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Every Angel Is Terrifying - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Red Phone - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Invisible Empire - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Juniper Tree - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Stories for Men - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Under the Lunchbox Tree - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Sunlight or Rock - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Snake Girl - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : It's All True - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Last American - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Downtown - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Powerless - John Kessel
Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel

Magic money.

3 out of 5

Dead cat, not people?

3.5 out of 5

“My amygdala vibrates with primal impulse as the sensory overload threatens to reduce my IQ by forty points.”

3.5 out of 5

"The governor had vowed “to expunge the viper of female vigilance organizations” from the state."

Just another dead president in a line, why these blokes so upset?

4 out of 5

Colony murder mystery reconstruction results.

4.5 out of 5

Cousinly sexist society xx gene fight club.

4.5 out of 5

Boring retreat.

3 out of 5

Only bet when you know what you are doing.

3.5 out of 5

Overconfident ice chick, and I get stuck with the reptile.

3 out of 5

Welles into the negative.

4 out of 5

DAS Biography.

4 out of 5

I'm almost off, Duck.

3 out of 5

Dodgy experiment dwarf busted brain damage interlude.

3 out of 5

It's Alive with Prejudice.

3.5 out of 5

http://freesf.blogspot.com/2008/04/ba... ( )

I was very impressed with this collection. The stories were thought-provoking, compelling, sometimes funny and sometimes sad. I read it all in order, except I read the last story first, because I had to see what was done with Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein. “Pride and Prometheus” turned out to be wonderful and fit perfectly into the worlds of those books. I was impressed with Kessel’s ability to write in different styles.

My favorite stories were “Powerless”, “It’s All True”, “The Last American”, “The Juniper Tree”, “Stories for Men” and “Pride and Prometheus” would probably be my absolute favorite. For people who liked Kessel’s time travel novel, Corrupting Dr. Nice, “It’s All True” is set in the same world of time travel.

Some of the stories were weaker and made me feel like I was missing something or that the story’s components did not quite work together, so that the reader could not know what happened or what was the point. Unfortunately, the first two stories “The Baum Plan for Financial Independence” and “Every Angel is Terrifying” were that way. Those stories were interesting enough that I was glad I read them and enjoyed the story as it went along, but I was reading with the expectation that there would be a big reveal or that what had happened had some greater significance.

Luckily, I have read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Pride and Prejudice, and I love literary references and inclusion of literary characters and historical figures, which Kessel also includes in his other stories. Though I prefer a story that is straightforward and has a comprehensible conclusion, I was able to adjust my expectations and find a lot to enjoy in stories that were puzzling, such as “Powerless”, which initially disappointed when I finished it, but it then grew on me.

The two short-shorts, “The Red Phone” and “Downtown” were silly, “Downtown” was deliberately nonsensical and “The Red Phone” wasn’t really clever and the fact that that sort of situation would never happen and it is not interesting enough to be a science fictional idea.

I highly recommend the collection (my least favorites make up about 4 pages of a 320 page collection). I thought the stories were also very accessible to people who are not big readers of science fiction, but love a good story and are interested in reading something thoughtful and different. These stories are really about humanity, so people turned off by aliens should have no fear. (Though I like alien stories).

John Kessel is an incredibly talented writer, and this collection serves as an excellent introduction to his work. His range as a writer is simply astonishing. This book alone contains a lunar gender study, a reformed criminal tale, and a surprisingly brilliant Mary Shelly meets Jane Austin story (despite it's groan worth title, Pride and Prometheus).

There is not a dud in this collection, however it suffers a bit due to its main virtue. The collection as a whole doesn't fit together to my liking. There is just enough cohesion amongst the stories to make me feel that there should be something more in this book. It's an arbitrary failing, but it does separate this collection from some others (Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners comes to mind) that I'd consider to be truly great. ( )

John Kessel does not write a lot of fiction, by the standards of his fellow SF writers, but he maintains a high level of quality, as in this collection of recent stories. He is a literature professor, and it shows in his interest in history, literary and political, in particular of the 19th century. He often examines the conflict between the individual and the social, a focus which still allows for great variety. Many of the stories start from historical characters, or existing literary works. We see how the economy really works, what a failed, violent man may do with a Power, a crucial moment in the life of director Orson Welles, and other possibilities, both straight science fiction and magical realism or fantasy. "The Red Phone" is hilarious and erotic. "Pride and Prometheus" brings together exactly the two, famous 19th century stories you think it does, respecting both - it's a treat. At the heart of the collection are four stories set in a future, utopian, feminist society. One of these, "Stories for Men", won the Tiptree award. The Society of Cousins, located in a domed lunar crater, has a gender and sexual-preference mix that seems to be about what we have today, but has social, economic and political structures which lead to generally harmonious relations between men and women - while women make most major decisions. I have the impression that this utopia might actually work. An impressive achievement, although flawed in that all the stories turn on the intrusion of male agression, or on its possibility. Must it always be about the men? However, Kessel leaves room for more stories about the Society, and I certainly hope he writes them. ( )

I was lucky enough to recently snag an ARC of John Kessel's The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and other tales, courtesy of Library Thing's Early Reviewer's program. The back cover copy promises witty intersections with classic literature like Pride and Prejudice, The Wizard of Oz, and A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Subversive literary mash-ups seem to be all the rage today, and Oz doubly so. The last few years have seen the release of a manga, Alan Moore's pornographic Lost Girls, the excellent science fiction Dorothy of Oz comic, and the lackluster SciFi channel's Tin Man. The title story (Baum as in L. Frank) is unfortunately rather middle of the road, as such things go. Dot, a liberated gal of the mid twentieth, takes our narrator on an underground ride to a strange dream space where wealth is theirs for the taking. It's rather unfortunate that "Baum Plan," like many of the other mash-ups, has a rather indecisive ending. Kessel has a knack for the entertaining, and the pages kept turning, whether I was reading about a time-travelling Orson Wells or Victor Frankenstein doing the dance of manners with the cast of Pride and Prejudice. I was particularly impressed an amused by the ultra-short "The Red Phone," which surpasses Nicholson Baker's Vox in humor and sexiness.

The high point of the collection by far is Kessel's linked shorts about life on a moon colony. The world-building is excellent enough to be nearly invisible, and his stories about men in a matriarchal society are compelling enough that I literally couldn't put it down once I started the cycle.
With this collection, Small Beer press further confirms its reputation for producing excellence in the science fiction short form. I'll eagerly look for more as Kessel as an author, and continue to seek out new releases from this charmingly otherworldly imprint.

Fairly strong overall. I particularly enjoyed "It's All True", set in the same time-travel universe as Kessel's novel Corrupting Dr. Nice, where the time-traveling protagonist meets with Orson Welles -- it's a very inventive universe and it's fun to see what Kessel does with it in the shorter form. The four-story cycle set on the moon are the other standouts, though interestingly enough the best-known one of the set, "Stories for Men" (which appears to have been written as an exercise to win the Tiptree for a profoundly male-focused story, and which I frankly found tedious) was perhaps the weakest. The other three in this group, however, were excellent.

The final story, a sort of Frankenstein/Pride and Prejudice crossover fanfic, was far better than that description makes it sound, and certainly would have been even better had I read the Austen novel -- missing out on half of the source material didn't help matters, but the story was strong enough to not only stand alone but stand out as one of the best of the bunch. ( )

Overall a very strong collection of stories. The most interesting stories are the four set in a moon colony controlled by a matriarchal society known as the Cousins where there are almost no sexual taboos and men are "freed" to use their skills in the arts and sciences in exchange for not being allowed to own any significant property and being excluded from governing. It is an interesting society that seems to have many of the same flaws as our current society, but with a different spin. Other strong stories are "Powerless", "The Last American", "It's All True" and "Pride and Prometheus".

The downside of the book is that also all the stories are well-written and kept my interest, some of them such as the title story just seemed to end without much of a conclusion or a real point that I could see.

"The Baum Plan for Financial Independence" ***
Two thieves discover a subway to a mysterious city where wealth is available for the taking.
"Every Angel is Terrifying" ***
An escaped convict tries to blend in as a short-order cook and escape his past but has trouble getting past his own nature.
"The Invisible Empire" **
Women in an alternate 19th century from a secret group to take on misogynistic men.
"Powerless" ****
A man tries to invent a generator that draws power from the Earth's rotation. An examination of several different meanings of power.
"It's All True" ****
A time traveler tries to recruit Orson Welles to make movies in the future.
"The Red Phone" ****
Short-short. Phone sex through intermediaries.
"Downtown" ***
Short-short. A night out on the town in the future.
"The Last American" ****
Biography of an American dictator who dominated the 21st century.
"The Snake Girl" ***
Mainstream story about a college student's first love affair in the 1960's. OK, but the seems to hit you over the head with the symbolism.
"The Juniper Tree" ****
Murder in a matriarchal society on the moon. Interesting view of gender relations.
"Stories for Men" *****
An entertainer convinces a young man to challenge the rules of his matriarchal society. A very strong story about what is means to be a man and if "being a man" is worthwhile.
"Under the Lunchbox Tree" ***
A teenage girl from a moon colony learns some life lessons.
"Sunlight or Rock" ***
An exile from the Cousins moon colony starts learning to survive in the other colonies on the moon.
"Pride and Prometheus" ****
The Bennet family from Price and Prejudice meets Victor Frankenstein. Entertaining ( )

{placeholder for a review:}
Received ARC 2/28/08: based on my previous experience with JK, I'm fully prepared to enjoy this; so this goes right to the top of the TBR heap. (The question arises: why don't I own his previous collection "Meeting in Infinity"?) Great title.

The title story is disconcerting (for this reader, at least): it stars a protagonist named "Dorothy Gale". . .yet I seem to be missing just how the events of thestory map onto the world of Oz. Which makes the events somewhat hard to interpret, as I feel like I've missed something obvious.



14 stories, no notation of any previous publication, although the stuff about 'life on the moon' seems vaguely familiar from somewhere.