Tag: fantasy

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: Variable

This is another volume of editor Bradley’s long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series. Published in 2000, it collects 21 tales by, as usual, a mix of both newcomers to the series and veteran contributors. I’ve encountered stories by at least four of the writers here –Vera Nazarian, Deborah Wheeler, Diana L. Paxson, and Patricia Duffy Novak- in earlier volumes.

Of the stories here, Nazarian’s “Caelqua’s Spring” was far and away the weakest. It has some beautiful passages, but ultimately the world-building is lacking, I couldn’t relate to the main characters, and the plot never gelled enough for me to be able to really have a handle on the premise. The whole thing struck me as very much an exercise in vaguely New Age-style mysticism, without a lot of content. (This author’s “The Stone Face, the Giant, and the Paradox” also exhibited tendencies that way in some passages; but there, the story was well-told enough to compensate for this. That’s not the case here, IMO. All in all, it’s a very inferior work to her earlier “Beauty and His Beast.”)

To various degrees, though, I liked all of the other stories. Jenn Reese’s “Valkyrie” draws nicely on Scandinavian mythology (which I can appreciate, being of Viking stock myself) in a story that assumes that the myths are real. Novak’s “Luz” and Cynthia Ward’s poignant “The Tears of the Moon” are set in fantasy worlds where pagan goddesses really exist; the former is a particularly thought-provoking tale. “Free Passage” by Mary Catelli features Amazons (but not all Amazons are nice or honest people!) and an herbalist’s quest for an herb that will save her people. We have a coming-of-age story of sorts, with a sorceress’ apprentice as protagonist, in ElizaBeth (no, that’s not a typo!) Gilligan’s “Demon Calling.” In “Hell Hath No Fury….” Lee Martindale suggests that even demons are entitled to be treated fairly and honestly. (This is one of the few stories in the series with a humorous tone.) Dave Coleman-Reese (Jenn Reese’s husband, and one of three male writers represented in this volume) contributes perhaps the deepest story in this book, the outstanding “Memories of the Sea.”

Another favorite was “My Sister’s Song” by T. Borregaard, a graduate student in archaeology whose writing is flavored by that interest. This is one story that actually has no magical or fantasy element at all, though the setting is exotic, the narrator’s cultural environment unfamiliar to most readers, and the denouement really unique and unusual; it’s straight historical fiction, a fictionalized re-telling (with invented characters –though there really were warrior women among tribes like the Heptakometes) of a real incident in the resistance of the indigenous tribes around the Black Sea to Rome’s attempt to conquer them.

Charles Laing’s “Weapons at War” is short and light, a humorous gag involving sentient weapons bickering with each other; but it’s meant to be short and light, and that’s fine. And Carrie Vaughn’s “The Haunting of Princess Elizabeth” is neither fantasy (it’s set in Tudor England) nor endowed with a heroine who’s either warrior or sorceress, although she’s certainly a strong-willed, tough-minded young woman; but it’s a good story, probably best calculated to appeal to British history buffs. To be sure, history doesn’t record that the ghost of her mother Anne Boleyn (later joined by the shade of Katherine Howard, and eventually of Jane Grey) watched over and counseled the young Elizabeth until her accession to the throne –but the Elizabeth depicted here didn’t tell anybody, and nobody but she could see them.

Some of the other ten stories, from the amount of back-story or the complexity of the world-building, read like they could be parts of a story cycle. For instance, sorceress Cynthia in Dorothy J. Heydt’s “An Exchange of Favors” (set in an ancient Greek milieu where the Olympian deities are real, and intervene in mortal affairs as selfishly and capriciously as in the legends) could easily be, and maybe is, a series character. A number of these ten are emotionally complex, powerful and evocative stories, on a par with the gems in the previous anthologies I’ve read in the series; the prevalence of that caliber of story in these volumes is a tribute to Bradley’s skill as an editor. Often it’s difficult to make comments on these without spoilers. But I can say that after you read Cynthia McQuillen’s “Deep as Rivers,” you won’t view trolls with the race prejudice you did before.

Diana L. Paxson characteristically sets her “Lady of Flame” in Dark Ages Scandinavia (where the demi-deities of mythology are real) and uses her knowledge of actual early northern European cultures to create a rich cross-cultural narrative. Almost all our protagonists in these selections are magically gifted –healers, conjurors, scholars, etc.– but Blaze in Bunnie Bessell’s “The Summons” is a fighter, called upon to make a significant moral choice in the deepest tradition of serious fiction. Probably the most poignant story here is “The Price of the Sword” by Kim Fryer –which, in our world of post-traumatic stress disorder and addictive violence, speaks to us symbolically of the psychic costs of warfare, even if it’s waged with guns and bombs instead of swords. Lisa Silverthorn’s “Soul Dance” also deserves mention here as another standout and favorite. But all of them are good, and none deserve to be slighted, though considerations of space and time force me to.

If you’re a fan of swords and sorcery, strong heroines, fantasy in general, or just well-written traditional short fiction with a plot, you won’t go wrong with this series, IMO!

Editor: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Publisher: DAW, available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: Variable

Another reliable winner from Bradley’s long-running anthology series, with a good mix of genre stalwarts and talented newcomers. For once, I read this volume without interspersing it between other books, and read the stories almost entirely in order. In this case, the really outstanding stories tend to be clustered closer to the back; but most of the earlier ones are also solid, competently-told tales of their type.

The one worthless clunker in the collection, IMO, is Carolyn J. Bahr’s “Does the Shoe Fit You Now?” a cynical and predictable re-imagining of the supposed situation some time after the part of the story of Cinderella that we know, from an anti-male, anti-marriage standpoint. It preaches to the choir of women who’ve married self-centered drunks and given up on the male gender as a result; but like most tracts in the form of “fiction,” it doesn’t succeed well as either, unless the aim was solely to resonate with that audience. (And news flash: physical work is going to a part of ANY lifestyle, married or single, that involves earning one’s keep and contributing to the world.) Nor does it really fit the collection theme: it has no fantasy element apart from the nominal “fairy-tale” connection, Cinderella is neither warrior woman nor sorceress, and stealthily running away from a bad situation without trying to change it (especially when that involves reneging on a commitment) is not a strong or “empowering” action.

However, the other selections more than make up for that one. 17-year-old (at the time this was published, in 1995) Karen Luk and L. S. Silverthorne contribute good exercises in humorous fantasy with “A Lynx and a Bastard” and “Dragonskin Boots,” respectively. Luk’s title characters would make series protagonists that I’d enjoy seeing more of. (I can say the same thing for Kaitlyn and Alvyn in Patricia Duffy Novak’s “The Lost Path” –and Novak was, at publication time, working on a novel featuring them!) “Though the World Is Darkness” by Lisa Deason pits her protagonist against a challenge more intimidating than fire-breathing dragons or pillaging hordes, and one far more obviously relevant to the real world –loss of eyesight. Heather Rose Jones’ “Skins” is a new twist on the shape-shifter theme, and very well done. One of two male authors represented here, John P. Buentello, makes use of the craft of glassblowing in “Demon in Glass” to tell a satisfying tale, though exactly how the magic system works there was a bit murky to me. Mercedes Lackey collaborates with Elisabeth Waters here to produce, in “Dragon in Distress,” another well-crafted yarn featuring Tarma and Kethry, whom I first encountered in an earlier volume of this series. (That’s also a story with a humorous touch.)

As usual in these volumes, a number of the stories struck me as truly outstanding, with a seriousness of tone and an evocative power that went straight to my heart. Several of these were by other veteran writers whose work I’ve also enjoyed in one or both of the earlier volumes in this series that I’ve read: Diana Paxson, Jennifer Roberson, Deborah Wheeler, Vera Nazarian. Like her earlier “Beauty and His Beast,” Nazarian’s “The Stone Face, the Giant, and the Paradox” explores the difference between physical appearance and moral worth. (The story here also pushes the limits of language to try to convey mystical experience that doesn’t translate well to language, but manages to do it without alienating the reader.) Paxon sets her “Stone Spirit” in a still-pagan Dark Ages Norway, where things like trolls and draugs are real, and people think their lives are ruled by Wyrd (Fate); being of Scandinavian descent myself, that background strikes a chord with me. (Patricia Sayre McCoy, on the other hand, draws as successfully on ancient Chinese culture to create the world of her “Winter Roses.”)

Wheeler’s “Silverblade,” besides being a gripping story on its face, makes particularly striking use of symbol and metaphor to say things about challenges, obsessions, and parent-child relationships. One of my favorite stories here, “Garden of Glories” by Roberson, has very little fantasy element at all. The cultural-historical background is one we can’t identify in the real world, and one of the two sisters depicted here has a talent for mending things that’s more than figuratively magical, as one minor incident shows; but basically this is “just” a story about human relationships (sisterly, filial, romantic, marital), about choices, about being true to our nature, about growing and changing; above all, about caring and love. It could easily have been written as descriptive fiction –very, very good descriptive fiction!

Two of our protagonists here (the title characters of “Chance” and “Amber”, by Tom Gallier and Syne Mitchell, respectively), are assassins by trade, trained to be good at a morally dark and lethal profession, and whose lives haven’t offered them much in the way of other options; but that doesn’t mean that either of them are sadistic, nor lacking in a sense of honor or capacity for love. Chance in particular is one lady you won’t soon forget, and her story is another of my very favorite ones here –but be warned, it’s not a sweet and warm-fuzzy tale, and her path in life isn’t an easy one.

My comments haven’t touched on all the 22 stories, but hopefully I’ve touched on enough to convey the flavor of the collection. In many of these selections, the quality of the world-building and character development cries out for expansion into a novel or story cycle. If swords-and-sorcery, or just good storytelling in the short format, is to your taste, then this is a collection well worth your time!

Editor: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Publisher: DAW, available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: Variable

This anthology of 22 original stories is one installment of editor Bradley’s long-running series of Sword and Sorceress collections, the first of which appeared in 1984. This was the second book of the series that I read (they stand alone, and can be enjoyed in any order). Virtually all of the general comments in my review of the first book apply here as well, and two of the contributors to that volume, Diana L. Paxson and Jennifer Roberson, are also represented here. Like John W. Campbell in the heyday of Astounding Stories, the late Bradley had her “stable” of writers who contributed frequently to her Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and to this and other long-running and one-time anthologies she edited, and whose careers she in many cases launched; several of them authored stories for this book. There’s a good mix here of established writers like Mercedes Lackey and Josepha Sherman (and some who would go on –this was published in 1991– to be much bigger names, such as Laurell K. Hamilton), and less known writers, some like Margaret Howes making their first sale of a story here. Three of the contributors are males.

Besides the fact that they’re all swords-and-sorcery tales with female protagonists (warriors, sorceresses, a thief, etc.), the other common denominator of the collection is quality. Most of the stories are serious, often evoking very strong and complex emotional reactions and making you think; a few are rife with situational humor. But there isn’t a one of them that’s weak or poorly written; the craftsmanship here is uniformly high, though some selections are more substantial than others. All the stories have the trappings of fantasy; magic works in their worlds, for instance, and dragons may be included in the fauna. Edged weapon action, and/or lethal magical duels, may be a key part of the plot. But at bottom, most of these stories are really about people, and human concerns that are the same in any world: good and evil, right and wrong, personal growth and identity, coming of age, family and marital love, growing older, questions of what really matters in life. Several of the heroines could be called rough-edged; you might not approve of everything they do, or have done, and you aren’t necessarily expected to. But none of them are bad human beings; they’re all women I could understand and respect, and whose choices and safety I came to care about. (As in life, not all of these tales have unambiguously happy endings.)

A few of the protagonists are series characters, like Lackey’s Kethry and Tarma from her Valdemar series, or Paxson’s lesbian warrior-woman Shanna. Their stories here have a basic level of completeness in themselves; but you’d probably appreciate “Wings of Fire” better if (unlike me) you’ve read previously in the Valdemar books to have more understanding of the world and the magic system, and “Ytarra’s Mirror” definitely feels like a bead on the necklace of Shanna’s story arc. I’d also say that Paula Helm Murray’s “Kayli Kidnapped” has enough complex back story, and leaves enough unresolved issues, that it could work very well as a chapter in a novel. (But I still liked all of these!) Some of the most wrenchingly evocative stories here include Rima Saret’s “Marayd’s Escape,” Cynthia Ward’s “The Opal Skull,” Jere Dunham’s “East of the Dawn,” and Sherman’s “The Price of the Wind.” Hamilton’s “Geese” is a fine story that doesn’t descend into the porn that the author later became known for (it has some sensuality, but not in a bad way.) Picking favorites here is really hard to do, but (besides any already mentioned) some I could designate as such are Roberson’s “Fair Play,” Howes’ “Retirement Plan,” Dave Smed’s “Trading Swords,” Vera Nazarian’s “Beauty and His Beast,” and Linda Gordon’s “Stained Glass.”

Editor: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Publisher: DAW books, available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: Variable

In the series of anthologies of original stories which began with this volume, the late editor Bradley mines similar territory, and deals with similar strong female protagonists, as does Esther Freisner in the later Chicks in Chainmail series. The quality of writing (at least in the initial volumes) is high in both; the main difference being that Bradley’s series tends to feature tales that are more serious in tone, with less humor. (Though that doesn’t mean that they all necessarily have none of the latter; and a couple would have been at home in the later series as well.) That doesn’t reduce their entertainment value, and often makes them more compelling.

The 15 stories in this volume come in great variety, as do the settings, and the heroines. Some of the latter can be rough-edged, and may sometimes do some things I wouldn’t do, or recommend; but all of them have good hearts at their core, and earn the reader’s goodwill and respect. (Some of them, like Charles de Lint’s bounty huntress Aynber, and Charles R. Saunders’ alternate-African warrior woman Dossouye, are series characters who appear in a number of stories elsewhere by these authors.) Some of my favorites here are “The Valley of the Troll,” “Gimmile’s Songs,” “Severed Heads” (which isn’t as grisly-gory as the title makes it sound), “Child of Orcus,” “Daton and the Dead Things” and “Sword of Yraine.” But virtually all of these are worth reading; the only one here that I felt was a little weak is “House in the Forest.”

Bradley’s substantial introduction is an added benefit of the book; she provides a good historical sketch of the role of female characters in sword-and-sorcery fantasy fiction, and some really insightful comments on the appeal and value of strong, three-dimensional heroines in this field. (Her meaty bio-critical notes on each story’s author are a very worthwhile feature, as well!) She very rightly outlines an equalitarian perspective that explicitly differentiates her purpose from “feminist propaganda” and Woman-uber alles male-bashing; the female perspective here is rightly seen as an essential part of the human perspective, that includes both genders as important, needed and responsible contributors to the world and the human story.

Even so, I would differ with her on one point. Though she dedicates this volume to C. L. Moore and to “all of us who grew up wanting to be Jirel,” she faults Moore here for Jirel’s realization in “Black God’s Kiss,” (which isn’t included here) after killing her adversary Guillaume, that she loved him; Bradley thinks this weakens the character, and sends the message that “woman’s pride only stood in the way of true happiness –interpreted as surrender to a man.” Personally, I didn’t take Moore’s story that way; I interpreted it as a true-to-life reflection of the fact that sometimes underneath anger and enmity there can be a bond between two people –just as a male, too, might feel attracted to a woman who can fight him tooth-and-nail, and even defeat him. (And it’s as much, or more, Guillaume’s pride as Jirel’s that separates them.) But that’s a quibble –and one that has nothing to do with the great stories in this collection!

Editor: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Publisher: DAW Books, available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.