Everybody Hates Elves by Kari Maaren: You'll Just Love It

Hey, I had a great time in Toronto on Wednesday night at Bakka-Phoenix Books' Night of Amazing Stories, where I and four other authors (Jen Frankel, Shirley Meier, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, and Lena Ng) read from our stories published in the amazing Amazing Stories.  Editor Ira Nayman put this all together, Gisela McKay video-recorded the event (I'll post the link here when it's up on YouTube), and I actually not only read a story but sang a song, "If I Traveled to the Past," which will be on my new album, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, to be released by Old Bear Records in early 2020.  (If you'd like to hear that song, there's rough mix of it, right above this post, right above the snowy window.)

But speaking of songs, one of the best surprises for me of the evening was Kari Maaren, who sang two songs, one about a nerd, one about a werewolf, with her ukulele and her delightful, strong, funny (as in laughing) voice.  The songs both had clever, bouncy lyrics, just my cup of tea.  They've not yet been released.  But Kari has released a CD, which I couldn't resist listening to and reviewing here.

In general, Kari’s a little like Raffi with a ukelele - but mostly not like anyone else.  Her CD Everybody Hates Elves - which you can listen to here - has 14 songs, all of which have Kari's unique sparkle and style.

Here are my comments on most of them (I always like leaving a little something out when I review an album or an LP, to keep you in suspense) -

• “It must be so dreary to die” typifies the title song  "Everybody Hates Elves," a defiant song, with irrepressible, alliterate lyrics, which, come to think of it, light up just about every song on the CD
• "Fake Geek Guy" has some excellent counterpoint, and splashy sarcasm, another hallmark of these songs
• But "Come Rescue Me," from the Star Wars universe, is a plaintiff, almost lilting, altogether beautiful ballad
• "Trekless," on the other hand, rhymes Borg and morgue, hard and Jean-Luc Picard, binge and Fringe, and mentions Hulu
• Like most science fiction writers, Maaren dabbles in a little mystery, then returns to science fiction - but in the same song - and gets in another bevy of good rhymes, like "soil" and "foil" - in "Being Watson"
• She has a good love song in "I Did It For Love," and follows it with a good meta-love song, "They Are in Love," which stresses that nothing else matters, and brings the point home with the line "gives the tale its punch" which I think may be (homonymically) provocative
• "The Prophecy Hotline" is a very different kind of song, with a great ending, and one of my favorites lines in this collection of songs, "well meaning morons"
• Next up, "When the Starcats Come," has to be auto-biographical, about a kid oppressed in school, hoping for extra-terrestrials to rescue her
• Even more desperate is "Take My Sheep," which finds the troubadour unable to sleep, "buried in mounds of sheep"
• Boy A or Boy B is the dilemma presented in "I Can't Decide" - one is "excellent without a shirt" ... and the other? well, you have to listen to the song to find out
• And, trite as it may be for me to say this, Kari saves the best for last, with another other meta song, this one about a magazine seeking submissions (of stories), with rhymes of historical and metaphorical, in a refrain that features “we don’t want your unrealistic shit” which rhymes with ... "Can Lit" the title of the song

So, you get the acoustic picture.  If you'd like some laughs, memorable melodies, and creme de la creme rhyming lyrics, do yourself a favor and acquaint yourself with Kari Maaren's Everbody Hates Elves, which, again, you can listen to right here.

And if you'd like to know why I like rhymes so much, you'll find at least part of the explanation here.

Amazing Stories launch event in Toronto

For Immediate Release

Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine created in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback and featuring such luminaries of the genre as Jules Verne, H. G, Welles, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clark, has returned!

To celebrate the first new print issue of the magazine since 2005, a special launch event will be held at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy (239 College St.). The event will take place on Wednesday, September 12, from 6 to 8 pm.

Editor-in-Chief Ira Nayman will be on hand to give a brief history of the magazine and talk about the challenges of reviving it in the current economic and political climate.

Authors who have confirmed their attendance include: Paul Levinson (“Slipping Time”), Shirley Meier (“Flight of an Arrow”) and Drew Hayden Taylor (“When Angels Come Knocking”). Julie Czerneda (“Foster Earth”) has expressed an interest in attending if her schedule allows. Various other contributors to the magazine will also be on hand.

The first 50 people to attend will receive free copies of the magazine.

“This is both exciting and a little scary,” admitted Toronto native Nayman. “Amazing Stories has a – ahem – storied history. This makes reviving the magazine a delicate balancing act between honouring Amazing Stories’ legacy and updating it for a modern audience. Fortunately, the authors who have contributed to the first issue have given us a great start!”

Advance copies of the first issue of Amazing Stories are now available. Toronto-based author Ira Nayman is available for interviews.

For more information, contact:

Ira Nayman, Editor-in-Chief, Amazing Stories

(416) 630-7331

aardvarkseyes@hotmail.com