Week 2

Assignment 1: Read this article on appeal factors.


Assignment 2: Using appeal factors describe three books you enjoy!
I'll start with the last two books I read: Get in Trouble by Kelly Link and Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. These are two of my favorite authors with a lot of overlapping appeal, and they released their short story collections on the same day last month making me very happy.
To start with Link: her stories are like nothing else I've read. I've struggled with recommending her  to my friends because they are so hard to describe. I usually say something about how "no other writer comes closer than Link to capturing the bizarre logic of dreams," but that doesn't really capture the charm and humor of her stories. She's not always fast paced, and her characters aren't always easy to understand, but plot-wise they always start with a premise that's irresistible. What if you had to work at a convenience store whose customers were actual zombies? What kind of ghost stories would astronauts tell each other while traveling through space? The execution could be overly cute or pretentious but Link's voice is a perfect concoction. Sad and funny, hip and mysterious.




Gaiman's book is also dark and fantastic, but less edgy thank Link. I'd feel more comfortable recommending his books to an older relative or a younger niece or nephew. Gaiman has written novels, comics, television and children's books, and has developed a voice that's inviting and timeless. Even though he primarily writes horror or "dark fantasy" his tone is always humorous and kind, like a loving parent telling you a bedtime story. This is not to say Gaiman's stories are "safe" by any definition, but for better or worse you just trust this guy even though he takes you to the worst places. His stories are fast paced, his characters are likeable, his plots are unusual and exciting... I'm running out of appeal factors here. For fans of charming characters and unusual plots.




The third book I'm reading is a bit of an oddity. It's the "Penguin Book of Ghost Stories" anthology. I'm not going to pretend this book has a broad appeal. It serves a slim specific audience of people who like to get spooked and don't mind plodding through dusty 19th century fiction to get there. The pace is slow, the characters are just vehicles for plot, and the language is antiquated, but boy are these stories fresh. Ghost stories are one of the oldest and most primal forms of storytelling and not much has changed in the last 100 years since most of these stories were published. It's almost reassuring to find that the very first "haunted house" story has a lot of similarities to recent ones like American Horror Story or The Happening. These stories are also inadvertently funny at times. After all the things that were scary and strange to us back then are not very strange or scary now. Sheridan Le Fanu's story "Green Tea" for example is all about the dangerous supernatural effects of caffeine. This book has high adrenaline appeal, and I would recommend it to fans of mysteries and thrillers as well as horror.