The Interior Life: A Quest

Rating:
Summary: An interesting experimental fantasy. 3.5 stars
Review: -----------------------------------------------------------
This is an interesting experimental fantasy: the conceit is that
Sue, a housewife and mother of three who's thoroughly sick of
cleaning her kitchen (etc. etc.), turns loose her lively imagination
and creates an Interior Life: a medieval good vs. evil (Darkness
vs. Light) fantasy that's a bit generic, but has some lively and
clever touches. Then the characters in Sue's imagination start
giving her advice in RL....

In RL/OTL, Sue's husband Fred is bucking for promotion to
manager at the local Home Depot. Fred's boss's boss is an
unctuous womanizer who comes on to Sue at a dinner party. She
swats him down; he keeps trying. It gets quite weird. Sue never
forgets that she's making up her interior voices -- she doesn't
think she's going crazy -- but she takes her characters' imaginary
lives (and advice) pretty seriously. Of course, Sue herself is an
imaginary character, created by a pseudonymous author....

Heydt intermixes fantasy and real-life with no typographic
indication of what's what [note 1]. This works pretty well, but can be
confusing and, at times, precious. As I got deeper into the book,
I got more interested in Sue and started skipping over the more
generic fantasy episodes -- though the fantasy does come to a
rousing and effective finish. And Sue's a new woman: she's
redecorated her house, reinvigorated her marriage, and gotten
the PTA involved in building a new computer lab at her kids'
school. The weird womanizing boss is still around, too.

The Interior Life was Heydt's first novel, and is to some extent
apprentice-work ("There is a great host," Denis said, "several
hundreds at least, on cats, coming slowly toward us."). I don't
regret reading it, but would add a mild caveat to the fulsome
praise in rasfw that led me to read the book. Perhaps I should add
that I'm just an occasional fantasy-reader.

Note 1). Apparently the author intended the typefaces to be
different.

Rating:
Summary: A true story
Review: Every once in a while, you come across a story that just reads 'true'. Not true as in true crime story (which would be difficult in a fantasy), but 'true' in a way that touches deeply, and stays with you for a long time.
This is one of those stories.
Not one to miss.

Rating:
Summary: A true story
Review: Every once in a while, you come across a story that just reads 'true'. Not true as in true crime story (which would be difficult in a fantasy, but 'true' in a way that touches deeply, and stays with you for a long time.
This is one of those stories.
Not one to miss.

Rating:
Summary: The Interior Life: A Quest
Review: I really enjoyed this book. In fact, this is my second copy, the first having been loaned out until disappearance. The premise takes a little getting used to: A house-wife finds her imagination very compelling, to the point where these people she's imagining- or is she?- really help with her day to day problems.

I didn't necessarily relate to Susan, the protagonist, but I've reread it many times, and every time found something else to like about it.

Rating:
Summary: The Interior Life: A Quest
Review: I really enjoyed this book. In fact, this is my second copy, the first having been loaned out until disappearance. The premise takes a little getting used to: A house-wife finds her imagination very compelling, to the point where these people she's imagining- or is she?- really help with her day to day problems.

I didn't necessarily relate to Susan, the protagonist, but I've reread it many times, and every time found something else to like about it.

Rating:
Summary: Nom de Plume?
Review: Katherine Blake is also known as Dorothy J. Heydt (author of "A Point of Honor" and various short stories found in anthologies like Sword and Sworceress). I haven't actually read the book yet (just tracked down a used copy), but I thought fans of Dorothy's work would want to know.

Rating:
Summary: Nom de Plume?
Review: The Interior Life is one of the strangest fantasy's I've read. The elements of a quest, of lost loves, and trials against unutterable evil, are all part of a backdrop to a modern house wife's metamorphosis. Beginning as a simple fantasy while Susan is trying to catch up on her house work, the characters of her otherworldly adventure become to her, and to the reader, as real as Susan's children, and the local PTA. It is through this interaction between Susan and the inhabitants of her fantasy world, that an odd communication begins to unfold. Without any breaching of the barriers between fantasy and reality, both Susan and her characters undergo a metamorphosis, taking strength, wisdom, and inspiration from each other. And acting as a catalyst for their otherwordly friends. It is this mixing of fantasy and reality I find most compelling about the book. I hope to find that Ms. Blake has other stories to tell.

Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable book, mixing fantasy and contemporary elements.
Review: The Interior Life is one of the strangest fantasy's I've read. The elements of a quest, of lost loves, and trials against unutterable evil, are all part of a backdrop to a modern house wife's metamorphosis. Beginning as a simple fantasy while Susan is trying to catch up on her house work, the characters of her otherworldly adventure become to her, and to the reader, as real as Susan's children, and the local PTA. It is through this interaction between Susan and the inhabitants of her fantasy world, that an odd communication begins to unfold. Without any breaching of the barriers between fantasy and reality, both Susan and her characters undergo a metamorphosis, taking strength, wisdom, and inspiration from each other. And acting as a catalyst for their otherwordly friends. It is this mixing of fantasy and reality I find most compelling about the book. I hope to find that Ms. Blake has other stories to tell.