Yellowcake

By Margo Lanagan

Yellowcake brings together ten short stories from the extraordinarily talented Margo Lanagan--each of them fiercely original and quietly heartbreaking.

The stories range from fantasy and fairy tale to horror and stark reality, and yet what pervades is the sense of humanity.  The people of Lanagan's worlds face trials, temptations, and degradations. They swoon and suffer and even kill for love. In a dangerous world, they seek the solace and strength that comes from family and belonging. 

These are stories to be savored slowly and pondered deeply because they cut to the very heart of who we are.

“Haunting, gorgeous, and sometimes painful, Lanagan’s stories are unlike anything else in fantasy literature.” --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Lanagan unravels familiar myths and fairy tales, weaving them into unique, sharply resonant forms in this characteristically stunning collection." --Kirkus, starred review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9780375989315

Margo Lanagan

Margo Lanagan has been publishing stories for children, young adults and adult readers for twenty-five years. She has won numerous awards, including four World Fantasy Awards. Two of her books have been Michael L. Printz Honor books and she has been shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula awards and for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the young adult division. Visit Margo at her blog, AmongAmidWhile.Blogspot.com, or follow her on Twitter at @MargoLanagan.

Reviews for Yellowcake

[larissabookgirl_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The smell of a rose brings back a lost past; golden strands lead a prince to rescue his lover; two sisters are given an icy reception; a mother ascends to angelic status in front of her sons eyes; a daughter takes over the family business; a boy will discover the brutally in the workplace. This is just a taste of some of the tales that are waiting to be consumed within this delicious book.This offering of short stories is an interesting mix of something's sweet, something's sour and other things bittersweet. For within these ten stories are weaved a wide variety of ingredients including elements of fairy tales, Bible stories, myths, fantasy and science fiction. But while some stories may leave you felling unsatisfied, others are a delight to devour, standing out for their slices of originality, their quickly capturing taste and their shore fire recipes of timeless themes.Yellowcake is a collection that clearly highlights the differing forms of a short story, accentuating a wide variety of themes, subjects and styles. Each story presented is as unique in its language as it is in its writing style and is recommended for more mature readers due to its complexity in both. With the nature and form of short stories being here expand there is plenty to contemplate, however there is work to be done in drawing out each stories meaning, but easily grasped in each story is the emotional reactions they evoke.

[delphica · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am just not that much of a short story person, even though I like Margo Lanagan's writing a lot, so this ended up being a strong collection of stories that I moderately enjoyed.All the stories are very much in her style, very rich, very vivid imagery, often somewhat haunting, and generally very vaguely otherworldly or creepy -- although she's extremely versatile in the way the creepiness sets it. It's never the same type of otherworldliness. Some of these are almost science fiction-y, while others draw from traditional fairy tales or myths. It's hard for me to judge short stories. I liked this, but there're just all too short to me to feel that invested in them. I am impressed though, that almost all of the settings felt like they could be the environments for other, longer books that still made sense.

[pabkins · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Almost everyone loves cake, but this is a completely different kind of slice!

Yellowcake, almost everyone I know loves cake, am I right? Well with this particular anthology I would have to say it will really only appeal to a certain slice of people. Those that don’t mind their fiction being disjointed, vague, obscure and dare I say…odd. While I enjoyed it, I honestly don’t know of anyone that I would recommend it to. It was just that strange. Literally it felt like it was all over the field. One moment it would be something deep I could understand and be in awe of, then next perhaps a love story, only the next story to be confusion and “WTF?” Ultimately, I would have to tag Yellowcake as “hard to place” and I definitely think readers will either fall heavily on the love or hate side of this short story collection. If it sounds appealing to you, I would say give it a whirl.

The Point of Roses
5/5
This story was amazing. I loved absolutely everything about it!. Billy sets out one night with a group of boys to experiment with psychic powers. Their experiments have have quite the interesting effects on them all as well as Billy’s grandparents. This was an unexpectedly heartbreaking and warning in equal measure. Also the kids were hilarious!

“Can’t go? What’s he doing, working up a good crap? Ow.” – pg 9

“It’ll never fade,” Alex whispered. “I’ll never forget.” “You will, too, “said Shai. “Just like you forget a bad dream.” “I don’t forget those, either,” said Alex, weeping. “I lie there going over and over it in my head, and trying not to go back to sleep and have it again. And sometimes I do go to sleep, and I do have it again–” – pg 21

The Golden Shroud
3/5
A retelling of Rapunzel but more along the lines of the damsel in distress instead of the original version. I liked it well enough with so much hair how could it not take on a life of it’s own? The writing style wasn’t my favorite. I believe the author was going for an old world fell which was definitely captured, but I wasn’t personally fond of.

A Fine Magic
5/5
I have but one thing to say, Never scorn a sorcerer’s affections! Two eligible and lovely young girls sought after by all the men in town catch the attention of a local fascination (sorcerer). Determined, a bit daft, but ever vengeful is a man when after a woman’s affections! I love the darkly humorous ending.

An Honest Day’s Work
3/5
This one was just strange. I couldn’t get a comfortable handle on the dialect style, and when that happens it always hampers my enjoyment a bit. It was an interesting story to be sure. This would be a crazy first day on the job indeed. What was that thing anyhow? I’m still not quite sure!

Into the Clouds on High
5/5
Someone, something, somewhos have been trying to call Marcus’ mother away. As a mother I just couldn’t understand how another mother would be so nonchalant about the possibility of leaving her children. This was sad, but not sad. Though I didn’t know what to feel by the end, it was a good short.

Nigh of the Firstlings
2/5
All I could think of while reading this was is this some sort of biblical tale? Was that the affliction done to the first born son of each family? And the parting of the sea? This one just wasn’t for me.

Catastrophic Disruption of the Head
4/5
Twisted and dark, you should expect that with an opening line like “Who believes in his own death?” This was a tale of a soldier, who changes when he acquires power of an unexpected sort. This story definitely is not for everyone and I was very surprised at the level of violence…or to put it more bluntly violation.

A little of what you can expect:
“I steeled myself before every fight, and shat myself.” – pg 129

Ferryman
5/5
One of my favorites in this collection. Who could have suspected the Ferryman who shuttles souls across the river Styx is a mortal? So sad and yet not, I almost think that sums up all of Lanagan’s stories. This one though was definitely well done and easy to follow.

“Some say dad is ugly. I say his kind of work would turn anyone ugly, all the gloom and doom of it. And anyway, I don’t care–my dad is my dad. He can be ugly as a sackful of bumholes and still I’ll love him.” – pg 168

Living Curiosities
3/5
Everyone enjoys the circus..or do they? There’s a tragedy that takes place this day, and plenty of curiosities as the title promises. I’ve come to the conclusion that find this author’s writing style very hard to get pulled in by.

Eyelids of the Dawn
4/5
Itchy! Do you ever see a bug and then you just can’t help feeling creepy cranky and itchy all over until you take a shower? That’s how the opening scenes of this made me feel. Afterward, it was a pretty fascinating concept. An entire Mall, that’s right the shopping kind, just picks up and walks off. Fancy that?

[stephxsu · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Quick—someone teach me how to review a short story collection. I’m afraid I didn’t take notes on individual stories as I read this, so just a few words on the collection as a whole.The book’s afterword explains not only Lanagan’s inspiration for each of these stories, which I found interesting to read, but also that the majority of these stories have been previously published elsewhere. If you’ve been a dedicated YA short story anthology reader, particularly of the SFF kind, then you may have read some of these stories already. It’s probably a good idea to know this, in order to avoid buyer’s disappointment.The best audience for YELLOWCAKE is devoted Lanagan fans, or readers who have read a book or two by her and are curious for more. I fall into the latter, perhaps moving into the former. Like her other books, the stories in YELLOWCAKE don’t seem like they should work, but they do. In each of them is a vague echo of something familiar: I felt like I had read the essence or the ideas of some of them before. But in Lanagan’s uniquely skillful hands, the ideas turn into phantasmal sights, old and new at the same time.I’m not sure if there’s a connecting thread running through all these stories. Sometimes I felt like I could catch hold of a connection, but then the next story comes along and dashes my tentative theories into pieces. The best I can come up with is that this short story collection persuasively argues, in a peripheral, is-it-or-is-it-not kind of way, the importance of having a little more magic—however you define it—in our lives.

[krau0098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. Previously I had read Lanagan’s Brides of Rollrock Island and really loved it. This was a collection of short stories that I enjoyed overall. Some stories were spectacular and some were a bit hard to follow.This is a collection of stories that span fantasy, horror, and paranormal genres. Some of the stories are really well done, a couple I had to reread to figure out exactly what was going on. In general Lanagan tends to be a bit vague in her writing, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about what really happened. This can lead to the reader having more questions than answers by the time they get to the end of a story.This is aimed at young adults, but there is one story “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” that was very adult. This story had a ton of violence including a rape scene and discussion of mutiple rapes on a young woman...so just be aware of that. My favorite stories of the bunch were: The Golden Shroud (a beautiful retelling of Rapunzel with a happier ending than the traditional fairy tale0, Into the Clouds (a story about a young boy whose mother gets called to go somewhere else), Ferryman (a story about how the young Sharon got the job as Ferryman of the dead) and Eyelids of the Dawn (in which a building decides it needs a vacation).All of the stories included are listed below along with ratings and brief descriptions. I haven’t read any of Lanagan’s other short story collections yet, so I don’t know how they compare to this one. I did enjoy The Brides of Rollrock Island a lot more than this story collection. Overall it was a decent collection of stories. I will be checking out more of Lanagan’s short story collections. I recommend to those who love quirky and slightly ambiguous fantasy/horror stories. A lot of these stories are very creative and very different. The Point of Roses (3/5 stars)The first story is about a boy who can make things come true from objects. Very vague and a bit hard to follow.The Golden Shroud (5/5 stars)A retelling of Rapunzel with a happier ending than the traditional fairy taleA Fine Magic (4/5 stars)When two young girls reject the attentions of an old wizard, he gets his revenge on them.A Honest Day’s Work (4/5 stars)About a town where the workers harvest creatures of gelatinous goo from the ocean.Into the Clouds on High (5/5 stars)Story about a boy whose mother is called to the sky.Night of the Firstlings (3/5 stars)About a family who survives a sickness and an attack, only to be forced to journey from their home. Another story that is very vague and was a bit hard to follow.Catastrophic Disruption of the Head (4/5 stars)Story about a soldier who comes across an old woman with magical dogs. A bit hard to follow since it jumps around in time, also very graphic violence.Ferryman (5/5 stars)Story about how Sharon came to be the Ferryman. Wonderfully done and clever.Living Curiosities (4/5 stars)A story about people living at a circus and a suicide.Eyelids of the Dawn (5/5 stars)When a building gets uncomfortable it decides to take a vacation out to sea. This was a fun story that was easy to follow and very creative.