Cheyenne Wright

Mur Lafferty's most memorable and exciting creation to date, The Red Granny, is one that only grows more interesting as this novella unfolds. While she is not the main character -- that is a mostly hapless artist experiencing the ultimate fish-out-of-water story -- she steals every scene in which she appears even before we get hints of an alarming and interesting back-story.

On the whole she gets lost, though, as Lafferty is more interested in telling a cautionary tale to artists who may be tempted by deals that seem too good to be true. That's all right: her invented alien culture, bent on co-opting earthly artistic output to serve their own ends is an interesting one on its own, and her viewpoint character, Marco, shows us just enough of it to make us suspicious without necessarily seeing the ending coming.

I wanted more of the Red Granny, though, darn it!… (mehr)