The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories

By John Kessel

Book Overview

"Pride and Prometheus," a story in The Baum Plan for Financial Independence involving characters from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , is winner of the 2008 Nebula award for Best Novelette. A long-awaited collection of fourteen stories that intersect imaginatively with Pride and Prejudice , Frankenstein , The Wizard of Oz , and Flannery O'Connor. Kessel, whose story "A Clean Escape" was filmed as part of ABC's Masters of Science Fiction , ranges through genres with a lean, graceful style that incorporates everything from future autobiography, alternate history, phone sex, perpetual motion, and his modern classic sequence of four stories about life on the moon. "In his first collection in a decade, Kessel jumps from place to place like a jolty time machine. In "Pride and Prometheus," Frankenstein and Jane Austen intersect in an uncanny Victorian tale of unrequited love, while "A Lunar Quartet" introduces a matriarchal, hypersexual moon colony in the future. But as a group, these stories offer a sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us. Kessel's wit sparkles throughout, peaking with the most uproariously weird phone-sex conversation you'll ever read ("The Red Phone")." A- -- Entertainment Weekly "Anyone who thinks genre writing can't be literary deserves to have Kessel's hefty new collection of stories dropped on his or her head." -- Time Out Chicago "Dark, wacky, wide-ranging short stories." -- Charlotte Observer "A pleasant callback to the days when science-fiction authors read more than just science fiction." -- The Seattle Stranger "Kessel's blend of dark humor and reality-stretching scenarios is consistently mesmerizing." -- Booklist "These well-crafted stories, full of elegantly drawn characters, deliver a powerful emotional punch." -- Publishers Weekly "Kessel proves himself again a master not just of science fiction, but also of the modern short story, crafting compelling characters and following them through plots that never fail to please--or to defy prediction." -- Metro Magazine "One of the best collections of the year." -- Locus "Kessel is a deft stylist and a master of all his tools, whose range is nearly limitless." -- SciFi.com "John Kessel's writing exists at the edge of things, in the dark corner where the fiction section abuts the science-fiction shelves, in the hyphen where magic meets realism. Reading Kessel's wonderful fabulations is like staying out too late partying and seeing strange angels while stumbling home in the dawn's first light. This is one of those too rare short story collections that you can recommend with confidence to both the literary snob and the hard-core computer geek." --Rich Rennicks, Malaprop's Bookstore, Asheville, NC "Invest. Invest now.... Your returns will be multitudinous." -- The Fix John Kessel co-directs the creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. A winner of the Nebula, Sturgeon, Locus, and Tiptree awards, his books include Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and The Pure Product, and story collection, Meeting in Infinity (a New York Times Notable Book). Most recently, with James Patrick Kelly he edited the anthologies Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, and The Secret History of Science Fiction. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193152050X
• ISBN13: 9781931520508
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Small Beer Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Sometimes variety is the spice of life

Sometimes variety is the spice of life. "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories" is a short story collection not limiting itself to a single genre. From the seductive relationships of people of questionable virtue, to encounters with Frankenstein, to Matriarchal lunar colonies, it's a collection with something for fiction readers of every genre. A highly recommended addition for personal reading lists and community library collections, "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence" is ideal reading for anyone looking for a very special series of stories, each one a uniquely crafted tale showcasing John Kessel's storytelling talent.

Free SF Reader

A collection that is in the main, science fiction. There are 14 stories, which is a considerable number for a single-author book, so room for some variety, with excursions into fantasy, Frankenstein crossover pastiche, whacky, and even mainstream reptile loving. The strength of this work is in the section the author calls "A Lunar Quartet": --The Juniper Tree --Stories for Men --Under the Lunchbox Tree --Sunlight or Rock, and the first two are the two best, and excellent tales. Overall, a good quality group of stories, averaging 3.57. Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Baum Plan for Financial Independence [short story] - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Every Angel Is Terrifying - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Red Phone - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Invisible Empire - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Juniper Tree - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Stories for Men - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Under the Lunchbox Tree - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Sunlight or Rock - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Snake Girl - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : It's All True - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : The Last American - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Downtown - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Powerless - John Kessel Baum Plan for Financial Independence : Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel Magic money. 3 out of 5 Dead cat, not people? 3.5 out of 5 "My amygdala vibrates with primal impulse as the sensory overload threatens to reduce my IQ by forty points." 3.5 out of 5 "The governor had vowed "to expunge the viper of female vigilance organizations" from the state." Just another dead president in a line, why these blokes so upset? 4 out of 5 Colony murder mystery reconstruction results. 4.5 out of 5 Cousinly sexist society xx gene fight club. 4.5 out of 5 Boring retreat. 3 out of 5 Only bet when you know what you are doing. 3.5 out of 5 Overconfident ice chick, and I get stuck with the reptile. 3 out of 5 Welles into the negative. 4 out of 5 DAS Biography. 4 out of 5 I'm almost off, Duck. 3 out of 5 Dodgy experiment dwarf busted brain damage interlude. 3 out of 5 It's Alive with Prejudice. 3.5 out of 5

A Strong Collection

Overall a very strong collection of stories. The most interesting stories are the four set in a moon colony controlled by a matriarchal society known as the Cousins where there are almost no sexual taboos and men are "freed" to use their skills in the arts and sciences in exchange for not being allowed to own any significant property and being excluded from governing. It is an interesting society that seems to have many of the same flaws as our current society, but with a different spin. Other strong stories are "Powerless", "The Last American", "It's All True" and "Pride and Prometheus". The downside of the book is that also all the stories are well-written and kept my interest, some of them such as the title story just seemed to end without much of a conclusion or a real point that I could see.