Literature / Oddly Enough

Oddly Enough and its sequels are an anthology series by Bruce Coville. Each of them contains a mix of nine previously published and brand new stories, plus one essay, all by Coville himself (the exception is a new introduction in the omnibus Odds Are Good, which is by Jane Yolen instead); they're mostly standalones, though some are part of his existing series.

The series consists of the following:

• Oddly Enough (1994)^Contents "The Box" (1986; originally released in Dragons & Dreams: A Collection of New Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories, edited by Jane Yolen, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh); "Duffy's Jacket" (1989; originally released in Things That Go Bump in the Night, edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "Homeward Bound" (1988; originally released in The Unicorn Treasury, edited by Bruce Coville); "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm" (1993; originally released in A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic, edited by Michael Stearns); "Clean as a Whistle" (1994; original to collection); "The Language of Blood" (1994; original to collection); "Old Glory" (1991; originally released in 2041: Twelve Short Stories About the Future by Top Science Fiction Writers, edited by Jane Yolen); "The Passing of the Pack" (1988; originally released in Werewolves, edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "A Blaze of Glory" (1994; original to collection)
• Odder Than Ever (1999)^Contents "The Golden Sail" (1999; original to collection); "Biscuits of Glory" (1995; originally released in The Haunted House: A Collection of Original Stories, edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "I, Earthling" (1994; originally released in Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens); "The Giant's Tooth" (1999; original to collection); "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995; originally released in Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares); "The Stinky Princess" (1999; original to collection); "The Japanese Mirror" (1996; originally released in A Nightmare's Dozen: Stories from the Dark, edited by Michael Stearns); "Am I Blue?" (1994; originally released in Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence, edited by Marion Dane Bauer); "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997; originally released in Bruce Coville's Book of Magic II)
• Odds Are Good (2006; omnibus of the first two books; also contains an essay by Jane Yolen)
• Oddest of All (2008)^Contents "In Our Own Hands" (1999; variant of "In Our Hands", originally published in Bruce Coville's Alien Visitors); "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (2003; originally released in 13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen, edited by James Howe); "The Ghost Let Go" (1994; originally released in Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts); "In the Frog King's Court" (2000; originally released in Ribbiting Tales, edited by Nancy Springer); "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996; originally released in Bruce Coville's Book of Spinetinglers); "The Hardest, Kindest Gift" (2001; originally released in Half-Human, edited by Bruce Coville); "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008; original to collection); "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld" (2008; original to collection); "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008; original to collection)

Tropes for sixteen of the 27 stories in this series are collected here. For the other eleven, see Bruce Coville's Book of...^note contains tropes for "Duffy's Jacket" (1989), "Clean as a Whistle" (1994), "I, Earthling" (1994), "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995), "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996) and "Biscuits of Glory" (1995), Goblins in the Castle^note contains tropes for "The Stinky Princess" (1999), Magic Shop^note contains tropes for "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997) and "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008), Nina Tanleven^note contains tropes for "The Ghost Let Go" (1994), and The Unicorn Chronicles^note contains tropes for "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008).

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Oddly Enough contains examples of:

• Abomination Accusation Attack: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is accused of using witchcraft to seduce a woman's husband away from her (said narrator thinks it's more likely that the woman's own nagging is what drove him into Wandis's arms), and then the narrator is accused of witchcraft simply for sticking up for her, and both are found guilty and sentenced to death. Fortunately, they're rescued by the wolves.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Happens to Jamie in "Homeward Bound", at the end — his physical body is killed, but it frees him so he becomes one with everything.
• Back from the Dead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", returns from the grave after being executed and angrily forces the king who ordered his demise to call back the soldiers he controls and withdraw his kingdom from the ongoing multi-sided war altogether. After three years of advising the king, Brion ultimately sees the other armies also decide to stop fighting and, with the threat ended for good, is thus able to return to his grave and rest in peace.
• Blood Magic: In "The Language of Blood", the main character is chosen to become the newest Speaker — a vampire who, when they drink blood, goes into a Fit of Prophecy that lets them learn the necessary information to keep their country prosperous, such as what their enemies are doing.
• Burn the Witch!: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is sentenced to burn for performing witchcraft, and the narrator too when he tries to stick up for her. Fortunately, the wolves come and save them.
• Burning the Flag: "Old Glory" revolves around the dystopian future of 2041 where the main character's great-grandfather ends up standing in front of a crowd, announcing that their flag no longer stands for what it used to, so there's no point in having it — so he sets it on fire as a sign of protest (or at least tries to, since it's fireproof). And then gets shot by the government for doing so.
• Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie: "A Blaze of Glory" revolves around Tommy and his grandmother, the latter of whom is old and dying. In the last minutes of the story, the elves whom she helped as a young woman return to fulfill the only reward she wanted for her help — to be taken back to Elfland and buried there.
• Cavalry of the Dead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", leads one against enemy soldiers who've been sent to raid his kingdom. Unusually, the dead don't attack the living — they just point out what it'll be like to be dead, and the soldiers decide they'd rather go home and live as long as possible.
• Draft Dodging: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there are people who avoid being drafted into their kingdom's army because they're physically unfit and others who avoid it because they're too frightened, too smart or simply "too loving"; this last category is the most dangerous, because objecting to the war has been made illegal. The protagonist, Brion, fits the last category and fakes being crippled to avoid serving in a war he doesn't believe in, but ends up revealing his true status and is arrested and executed for it.
• Dystopia: "Old Glory" is set in a dystopia future where by 2041, freedoms have eroded, free speech is no longer a thing, and a government organization exists to shoot dissenters on sight. Worst of all, the kids of this time think this is good.
• Evil Uncle: Jamie's uncle in "Homeward Bound". He's actually an evil wizard, who's captured and killed unicorns, taking their horns for his own purpose and forcing them into human shape afterward.
• Expanded States of America: Implied in "Old Glory", where the U.S. flag now has sixty-two stars.
• Fetch Quest: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him about the time she ended up in Elfland and had to go on one of these. It's not described in detail, other than to say it was quite a journey, but she succeeded in the end and brought back the stone containing the missing bit of the Elf queen.
• Forced Transformation: In "Homeward Bound", Jamie discovers he's actually a unicorn forced into human shape, and it's said that his father was the same, whose horn was stolen before the wizard took his shape, forcing him into human form, and then his memories.
• Forever War: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there's an endless war going on between the fifteen kingdoms on the continent of Losfar, and it's gone on for so long that when one kingdom pulls out, the others decide after a few years that this kingdom deserves punishment for daring to get prosperous while they're still spending their resources to defend themselves, and thus send armies of their own against the prosperous kingdom. Fortunately, Brion and his ghostly allies are able to finally bring the war to an end.
• Heart Trauma: In "Homeward Bound", a unicorn's horn must pierce a person's heart to heal them, undoing transformations and restoring memories, and even healing the emptiness and fear inside them.
• Neutrality Backlash: Attempted in "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm". Three years after Brion's kingdom pulls out of the Forever War with the other fourteen kingdoms of Losfar and starts minding their own business, the other kingdoms decide to send armies to invade and claim what they consider their fair share. Brion in turn calls up an army of his fellow dead to visit the camps of the enemy soldiers and point out to them that the continuing war will only lead to more senseless deaths, causing the other armies to all return home and leave them in peace.
• Passing the Torch:
  • "The Language of Blood" revolves around the main character becoming the next Speaker, learning from the current one of his duties, no matter how distasteful they may be — namely, having to feed on someone three times a year, fatally the last time, in order to serve as a seer of sorts and learn the information needed to keep their country safe and prosperous.
  • "The Passing of the Pack" is all about this, as the main character learns his father is a werewolf, who leads a pack of regular wolves and makes the hard decisions for them. His time has come, and he needs his son to learn what the boy needs to take his father's place as packleader.
• Sentimental Shabbiness: In "The Box", Michael spends his entire life looking after a mysterious wooden box that an angel gives him for safekeeping. When the angel finally returns, an elderly Michael apologizes for all the wear and tear on the wood, only for the angel to tell him with sincere gratitude that he's done perfectly.
• Trapped in Another World: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him the story of how, as a young woman, she fell through a hole in the world and had an adventure in Elfland, where she had to find a special item and return it to their Queen.
• The Unreveal: The contents of the titular item in "The Box" are never revealed. All Michael's told is that it will change the world, like Michael himself has.

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Odder Than Ever contains examples of:

• All Gays Love Theater: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin says that certain groups, like people in the theatre, have a higher percent of gay people because they're naturally artistic. Though he points out that the stereotype about all people in theatre being gay is false, as most of them are actually straight (two thirds, at the theatre Vincent and Melvin visit) and only some of the gay characters are into theatre.
• Cool Ship: "The Golden Sail" has Jan watching the harbor constantly for his father's return, since the man had gone off in search of the titular ship years ago. When the ship finally appears, Jan and his friend Samos board it, where they find it sails itself, can sail up a waterspout into the sea and can shrink itself into a coin for easy transport on land. In the end, after completing their mission on the island they've landed again, he's told that the ship is his now, and he and Samos board it once more and set off in search of adventure.
• Enemy Without: In "The Japanese Mirror", the protagonist finds a strange mirror which absorbs his anger. At first, he sees nothing wrong with this as it seems to fix his anger issues. But as he becomes thinner and thinner, he finds out that a darker copy of him is lurking in the mirror, feeding off his anger and waiting to take over his body.
• Evil Twin: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan's reflection in the titular mirror turns into his evil twin as it absorbs his anger, and outright plans to cause misery to the people in his life once it takes over his body.
• Fairy Godmother: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin is a Camp Gay Fairy Godfather in every sense of the term. As an angelic being who, as a human, was killed in a gay-bashing, he insisted on reclaiming the term when choosing his Heavenly career.
• Flying Under the Gaydar: In "Am I Blue?", this is discussed and defied by Melvin the Camp Gay fairy godfather. He can easily drop the mannerisms and look more masculine just by adjusting his posture. However, he's proud of himself and refuses to hide, not least since he lost his first life to a Homophobic Hate Crime.
  Melvin: Protective coloration. You learn to use it to get along in the world if you want. Only I got sick of living in the box the world prescribed; it was far too small to hold me.
• Forced Out of the Closet: In "Am I Blue?", main character Vincent ends up wishing for "gay fantasy #3", where every gay person — those who are out, those who aren't and those who are undecided — across the country turns blue for a day. At the end of the story, Vincent apologizes to any gay readers whom he may have caused trouble for by outing them in such a manner.
• Fusion Dance: At the end of "The Japanese Mirror", by accepting his anger as a part of himself and calling it back to him, Jonathan absorbs his evil double.
• Gaydar: In "Am I Blue?", Vincent gets a form of this, identifying gay people by the color blue. Also in the short story, everyone from coast to coast gets a form of this too, for twenty-four hours. The latter is a result of a wish granted by Vincent's fairy godfather (the first is just "education" on Melvin's part, which falls under a different category altogether). The mundane version of the trope is also mentioned by name and discussed:
  "Gaydar. Automatic sensing system that lets you spot people of similar persuasion. A lot of gay guys have it to some degree or other. If it was more reliable, it make would life easier on us.''
• Hair-Trigger Temper: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan is noted for having had a foul temper that made him yell at anyone who triggered it, until the titular mirror begins absorbing his anger.
• I Choose to Stay: In the end of "The Giant's Tooth", the giant finally catches Edgar and drags him out of his mouth, then soon flops down for a nap. Edgar, rather than taking the opportunity to escape, chooses to return to his home in the giant's mouth.
• Magical Queer: Literal and very self-aware version of this in "Am I Blue", with Melvin — a gay fairy godfather/guardian angel. Also played for tragedy, since Melvin ended up that way because he was killed in a gay-bashing incident.
• Mirror Monster: "The Japanese Mirror" features one that lurks within the titular mirror, making Jonathan's reflection look ugly in any mirror he looks in and gradually absorbing his anger until it can emerge and take over his body.
• Non-Residential Residence: A decidedly odd example in "The Giant's Tooth". Edgar gets grabbed and eaten by a giant, but is rescued by Meagan, whom the giant tried to eat long ago. Somehow, she managed to find a hole in a spot in his mouth, and began chipping away at the side of one of his teeth to dig out a place where she could live safely. She helps Edgar do the same, and together they save other people whom he tries to eat, each of whom digs out a home inside another of his teeth (to the giant's obvious discomfort).
• Resignations Not Accepted: "The Golden Sail" has Jan discover that his father (who'd gone to sea ten years before) is bound to the throne of a golden land, where the locals essentially force a king to remain until he is used up and only release him from the throne when he dies and has a successor.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" is intelligent, but eats humans, who are also intelligent.
• Swallowed Whole: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" has a habit of doing this. Justified in that he eats humans, and his size naturally makes him big enough to just swallow them in one gulp.
• Three Wishes: Vincent, the main character of "Am I Blue?" gets three wishes from his Fairy Godfather. The first gets him a Swiss double mocha at a coffee shop. The second turns every gay person, coast to coast, blue for twenty-four hours. Vincent's final wish is for a homophobic bully to be turned blue as well... only for his fairy godfather to return smirking that that wish is still available.
• You Are What You Hate: "Am I Blue?" has two characters, one extremely homophobic politician and a bully who beat up the protagonist for being gay, who are both revealed to be gay themselves.

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Oddest of All contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: Depicted in "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", where the main character's grandfather writes how he tried to save his friend from a wild boar but accidentally struck the friend with his sword, inflicting a fatal wound.
• Amphibian at Large: In "In the Frog King's Court", main character Dennis has been examining the frogs in the local swamp, which are mutating due to chemical dumping, but even he's surprised when he sees one the size of a golden retriever — far bigger than any normal frog. He later discovers he can be turned into a giant man-sized frog, in order to deliver an important message to the man who's doing the dumping.
• Benevolent Alien Invasion: "In Our Own Hands" has the Lyrans appear over Earth and promise one of these, essentially saying that if mankind agree to let them take total control of the world, they'll fix everything that's wrong with the planet — war, poverty, hunger and other problems. Over the next while, mankind proceeds to debate over whether they can actually trust that the Lyrans are really as friendly as they seem or not.
• Bewitched Amphibians: Inverted and played straight in "In the Frog King's Court", wherein main character Dennis discovers his distant grandfather was actually a frog who turned into a human when a maiden kissed him, and that he has the potential to turn into a frog himself with the help of a potion (which lets him change on the nights before and after a full moon from then on), which he does in order to carry out a mission for the frog king Urpthur.
• The Bore: The narrator of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" thinks of his eighth grade social studies teacher as one, remarking via narration that the man is someone "who you will probably see on the front of the National Enquirer someday as a mass murderer for boring twenty-six kids to death in a single afternoon."
• Curse: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", Melusine imprisons her father in the heart of a mountain out of anger for his role as The Oathbreaker, which led she, her sisters and her mother to be trapped on Avalon. In retaliation, her mother Pressina curses her to assume a monstrous form once a week, making her a snake from the waist down and giving her enormous bat-like wings, until she can find a man who never seeks to learn her secret. When her husband does reveal he has learned her true nature, her transformation becomes permanent, as well as making her immortal until someone can break the curse.
• Curse Escape Clause: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", narrator Geoffroi is able to break the curse on his grandmother Melusine by acting with love and courage to find and give her the item representing her mortality, which was separated from her at the moment of her transformation into a monstrous bat-winged human/snake hybrid. It also breaks the curse binding his great-grandmother Pressina to the mortal world.
• Devil's Pitchfork: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", the titular character dies in an accident and goes to Hell. The demons there carry pitchforks, which they often use to prod him with to keep moving along when he's stopped for a moment.
• Fallen Angel: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character is the great-grandson of a fallen angel, who was banished to Earth as punishment when she refused to take sides in the war between Lucifer and the Creator.
• Forbidden Fruit: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", at the entrance to Hell, an angel presents Herbert with a box and tells him not to open it. Naturally, he can't resist the temptation, and opens it to reveal another box, then an envelope inside that box, and finally a letter inside the box — which tells him he failed the Secret Test of Character, and is now doomed to Hell for all eternity.
• Green Aesop: "In the Frog King's Court" revolves around this, as the main character Dennis witnesses the consequences of a nearby factory dumping chemicals in the swamp, causing the local wildlife to develop mutations like a fifth leg or extra eyes. He soon ends up agreeing to act and stop that pollution, with the help of some magic that unlocks the ability to turn into a frog like his ancestor.
• Literal Metaphor: Lampshaded in "In Our Own Hands" — the Lyrans inform mankind that if mankind agrees, they'll take total control of the planet, but they're placing that choice in humanity's hands... literally, as the narrator notes, when he finds a strip of alien material attached to his hand with a button for "Yes" and a button for "No", letting the user vote to either let the Lyrans take over Earth or reject their offer at the right time.
• Mutant: "In the Frog King's Court" starts off with main character Dennis looking around a swamp when he suddenly spots a five-legged frog, and later one with eyes on its shoulders. All evidence indicates that they're mutated due to chemical pollution from the factory nearby, which the frog king later confirms.
• Nephilim: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character's grandmother, and by extension her ten sons and her grandson Geoffroi (the story's narrator) are this — said grandmother is Melusine, the daughter of a Fallen Angel.
• Neutrality Backlash: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", when Geoffroi hears the story of his great-grandmother Pressina, he learns that she — like others — refused to take sides in the war between Lucifer and the Creator when the former rebelled. Afterward, as punishment, she was banished to Earth.
• No Ending:
  • "In Our Own Hands" ends with Johnny contemplating his hand, still trying to decide how he's voting with five minutes to go before the vote to decide mankind's fate — will they choose to let the Lyrans take over Earth and fix everything, or not?
  • "In the Frog King's Court" ends with Dennis, in his giant frog form, about to confront the man who's been dumping chemical waste in the swamp, without showing the actual confrontation and what resulted.
• The Oathbreaker: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", when Geoffroi hears the story of his great-grandmother Pressina, he learns that her husband had sworn an oath not to intrude upon her when she was giving birth, per her request (and because of the condition set upon her when she was banished to Earth). Unfortunately, out of excitement over becoming a father, he burst in on her during the birth anyway and in doing so lost her, as she was forced to take her daughters and flee to the isle of Avalon.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: "In the Frog King's Court" sees main character Dennis gain the ability to become a were-frog, unlocking his own frog heritage (his distant ancestor was a frog turned human) with the help of a potion and letting him transform on the nights before and after the full moon.
• Performance Anxiety: The narrator of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" has a bad case of this, as he cannot perform on stage. When he tries, he freezes up with terror and looks like he's paralyzed. During the events of the story, he's asked to perform on stage and manages to do so without freezing up for once... until everything else suddenly goes wrong in the last phase of the skit.
• Repetitive Name: In "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", the narrator's name is Murphy Murphy. His first name has been passed down through his mother's family, to be given to the firstborn son in every generation, and he lampshades that given this, she really should have thought better than to marry a man with "Murphy" as his last name. His sister, as he notes, agrees.
• Secret Test of Character: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", Herbert is given a box at the entrance to Hell, to be delivered to an unidentified someone, and told not to open it. The box turns out to be a test, which he fails miserably — by opening all three layers, he's now damned to Hell, whereas if he'd left that last layer unopened, he could have gone to Heaven, no matter how bad he was in life.
• Uneven Hybrid:
  • In "In the Frog King's Court", main character Dennis discovers one of his ancestors was actually a frog who turned into a human, meaning he's mostly human but part frog himself from over twenty generations back. It's still enough to show through, giving him bigger eyes and a feeling of home whenever he's in a swamp.
  • In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character is one eighth Fallen Angel; his father and uncles were each a quarter fallen angel, and displayed unusual features, with one having different-colored eyes and another a boar-like fang, as well as having a fearsome temper.

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