Outstanding collection of weird holiday themed stories. Two real duds hold me back from five stars but they are at least short. Otherwise the rest are great. It’s difficult to pull off a themed collection in any case. It would be difficult to impossible to categorize the book but suffice it to say it runs the gamut from the real, to sf, to fantasy, to horror. Many of the stories will leave a lasting impression.

This is my first exposure to Rickert but I think I have another somewhere if I can only find it... ( )

Holiday is a themed collection of short stories and novellas by Mary Rickert aka M. Rickert, winner of the Nebula, International Horror Guild, World Fantasy and Crawford Awards. Dark fantasy, magical realism, myth and (quiet) horror -- though, I dare you to read Mary's stories and fit them into just one tidy little box. And don't expect simple, literal "holiday" stories; think, Joe Hill's exploration of "ghosts" in 20th Century Ghosts. From the Introduction:

"Not everyone has happy holidays; the stories collected here are not, for the most part, what I would call happy. I am inclined not to call them sad either...People sometimes find my stories strange, but what could be stranger than life? For me, I choose to celebrate the strange, the misshapen, the forgotten, even the inevitable death. For many people this is not what holidays are all about. For me, this is what everything is about. (ix)"

I absolutely loved that I had no idea where each story was going. So often I find myself, without conscious effort, predicting what's happening, where it will end. Not the case with Holiday. I'd recommend this collection to anyone who favors the darker side of fiction with deeper meaning, heart and maybe even truth, but only if they don't mind mashed up genres or ambiguous endings.

4.5 stars

After The Memory Garden and now this collection, I must read everything I can get my hands on by Mary Rickert. ( )