Ready for Action

I was getting ready to start this post when I saw today’s prompt. “What objects could you not live without?” I feel like that is so very obviously books that it’s too amusing not to mention. Especially because so many of these prompts are much more esoteric or uninteresting to me.

Anyway, today I was in a mood for some porn. Which means, in this case, the second of Aria Skylar’s Modern Mythica series, Seducing Dionysus. I had mixed feelings about the first book. I’m not hugely into BDSM, though I respect all of the consent that is discussed and utilized. And the whole aspect of the female lead being used by the male lead’s mother really left a bad taste in my mouth.

That’s why it took me a while to return to the series, even though these books are not especially long. Pure romance is not necessarily my interest, and I wanted to give these books as fair a chance as possible, given that a friend wrote them. So we’ve got Seducing Dionysus.

We open on Arynne in a hotel room with her lover Thomas. They’ve successfully eluded her father, a powerful and influential man, to escape to this island paradise. And when she wakes up, she finds she’s been abandoned. Entirely. Instead of them going off to elope or whatever as he’d led her to believe. She proceeds to use the money he left her to hole up in the hotel room, grieving the loss of her trust and innocence. Until she finds herself nauseous.

Yep, she’s pregnant. And the man who drove her to get the test turns out to not be a hotel employee but just some guy who wants to help her. Give her a place to stay, an income, a job to do if she wants. Which turns out to be “caretaker of an overgrown island estate he just happens to be the owner of”. Yep, mysterious cute benefactor is definitely loaded.

But Arynne is utterly enchanted by the mansion and is perfectly willing to clear out vines, wildlife, and anything else she encounters throughout the main and outbuildings.

This book is definitely more of a slow burn than the first, and the themes this time are about healthy views on pregnancy. Including that yes, sex is perfectly fine for a pregnant woman. Good for her, even.

In fact, there’s really only a couple of sex scenes in the entire book, with the bulk focused on the relationship between the leads. So calling Seducing Dionysus “porn” is almost a misnomer. It’s a romance, a love story, and sex is simply an expression of that.

True, things do get messy near the end as “the real world” intrudes on Arynne and Dion’s island paradise and yes, we will actually get to see Arynne’s father. But overall I found this book much more enjoyable than the first. Dion isn’t using Arynne for someone else’s gain and then having second thoughts like Eros. He’s just gotten in over his head in the real world and didn’t really realize it until he decided to help Arynne in her time of need.

One thing I appreciate about the Modern Mythica series is that while there are commonalities and cameos between the two books, it’s not built around the same premise. Or rather, the premise is truly just “we’re using names from Greek mythology”. The blind kidnap date from the first book is not the mechanism that propels every single subsequent volume and I greatly appreciate that. It was one of the least interesting aspects of Eros’ book. I can only hope that the third volume, when it’s released, is more akin to Seducing Dionysus than Twisted Eros.

I can admit it now. I really didn’t care for Twisted Eros. I’ve been hanging onto the book, not putting it in my library or sell pile, because I didn’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings and also because I felt I’d reserve judgement until I read Seducing Dionysus. Finishing the second book has made things clear. I’m not keeping Twisted Eros. But…I’ll keep Seducing Dionysus. I could see myself revisiting this story and enjoying it again.

Of course, looking at side and recurring characters, I’m now making some guesses as to who might be a lead in the next book. But that’s how a series should be, right?

After that I felt it was time and past for a fantasy anthology. I thought about returning to Sword and Sorceress, but that’s always an easy out and I wasn’t quite in the mood for those. The style of stories has gotten much closer to modern by this point, and I wanted something a little older. So I shrugged and pulled out Once Upon a Time.

This is one my book friend mailed to me a year or three ago. I’ve been avoiding it for two reasons. Firstly, it’s quite large, about eight inches by eleven and an inch thick. And of course it’s hardcover. Basically, it’s the sort of book I don’t like to read when I’d have to take it out of the house because it’s big, heavy, and unwieldly.

The other reason to avoid the book is because it’s called Once Upon a Time. I’ve read a huge number of fairy tale anthologies and I didn’t really want something like classic Brothers Grimm. Still, today I felt the time was right.

And boy did I feel like an idiot. See, the full title of the book is Once Upon a Time: A Treasury of Modern Fairy Tales. And it’s edited by Risa Kessler and Lester del Rey. So when they say modern fairy tales, they mean that they approached a bunch of genre authors, including some very big names, and asked them to write fairy tales. So I really shouldn’t have been so afraid of reading this book.

When I say there are some big names, I mean that the first story, “Prince Delightful and the Flameless Dragon”, is by Isaac Asimov. And according to del Rey, Asimov was very excited to contribute to the book. The story itself had me laughing within the first minute and that silliness persisted through the tale. It was still a bit too absurd for my taste, but I did enjoy reading it.

I had many more doubts about Terry Brooks’ contribution, as he’s not an author that impresses me to start with. “Imaginary Friends” is about a boy who overhears the doctor telling his parents he might have leukemia. And when he’s outside by himself he finds an elf in the grass who becomes his friend. The overall concept of the story is sound, but it’s not that interesting a read. But that’s par for the course on Terry Brooks.

I also had doubts about “Gwydion and the Dragon” because in my experience, C.J. Cherryh is not great with short fiction. I mean yes, Sunfall is a collection of short stories, but within a greater whole. This story is…fine. It’s a fairy tale, it’s got some Welsh flavoring, it works. But as you can tell, I’m pretty neutral about it.

Lester del Rey must’ve put together this anthology as an excuse for himself, given that he wrote “The Fairy Godmother”. It’s about a spoiled young princess who wishes her fairy godmother would fix the perceived failings in her life. She’s to be sent off to her aunt while her parents go to a kings’ conference. But on the road, her carriage is attacked, leaving her alone and defenseless, without an easy way to get anywhere or contact anyone. This is probably one of the strongest stories in the book.

Next comes “Thistledown” by Susan Dexter. The titular character is the young unicorn who is born at the beginning of the story and quickly orphaned when his mother is killed for sport. He’s taken in and named by a silent young man outcast by the nearest village. There’s a lot going on in this one and I have some mixed feelings about the early parts of the story. But it definitely gets better the deeper in you go. I feel like it would’ve worked better with fewer named characters.

I swear, when I started Wayland Drew’s story “The Old Soul” I thought I was in for something distinctly Christian. After all, I was presented with three men traveling on foot, guided by a mysterious Sound. The story isn’t actually Christian, it’s more about returning to nature and the wild things of the world, but there definitely is something preachy about its feel.

Reading “Changeling” by Barbara Hambly gave me flashbacks to her Winterlands series. Dragonsbane is a Del Rey publication, although it was released six years after this anthology. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if writing one led to the other in some fashion. After all, the current series she seems most excited about is a mystery one set in roaring twenties Hollywood, the same setting as Bride of the Rat God, and even having some character archetypes in common. This story is about the strange young girl the lord finds in the dragon’s hoard, and her two pet companions. It’s suspected she’s a changeling, obviously. This might be my favorite story of the book, which is a little surprising given what other authors I like that contributed.

It’s Katherine Kurtz who provides the actual Christian story with “The Tinkling of Fairybells”. A fairy, who has no physical form but light, finds herself drawn to a boy in a church. She’s avoided churches until now because their magic is unfriendly, lethal even, to fairies and the old magic. But the boy is willing to believe and so she finds herself intrigued by him, watching throughout his life.

“The Quest of a Sensible Man” comes from Anne McCaffrey. Our Prince protagonist is looking for a suitable mare for his Pegasan mount. A freak storm drives him into a clearly magical forest. In the heart of the forest lies an old castle, home to legendary horse breeders. But the castle is fallen into disrepair and all that remains are the last three members of the family, with even their servants all gone to grave. Sometimes all you need is a bit of logic, a bit of luck, and the magic that draws mare to stallion.

The book ends with Lawrence Watt-Evans and “Portrait of a Hero”. This is, not entirely surprisingly, an Ethshar story. Although that city is mentioned once in the entire tale and never visited. A dragon lays claim to a remote village and demands either a sheep or a person to eat each day. They have a relic oracle, and ask it who can get rid of the dragon. It shows the image of a woman, which is promptly rendered as the titular portrait. Then the protagonist sets off to find her and bring her back. Pretty simple and straightforward stuff, all things considered.

I knew pretty early on that I wasn’t going to keep Once Upon a Time. The stories are okay, but nothing truly spectacular. The book is awkwardly large, although pretty. Especially because it’s illustrated by Michael Pangrazio. He created one gorgeously detailed painting for each story. They’re full page prints in full color and each seeks to represent a key moment from each tale. It’s not quite a style I prefer, and some of the people look a little awkward to me, but it is a nice addition to the book.

But these illustrations don’t really do much for my interest in keeping the book. They’re just a nice and notable inclusion.

I would definitely say that Hambly’s is my favorite story of the lot. Most of them are fairly good, but simply fail to hold my interest. I’ve read a lot of stories and most of these just don’t add much as far as I’m concerned. Or they add too much and things get awkward.

I’m glad I finally sat down and read the book. And I think my dad will enjoy stories by authors he’s been following for years. I mean, yes, several of these people are dead now. But I doubt he’s read any of these stories before. Except maybe the McCaffrey one. I’d have to check to see if it was in any of her collections that he bought.

Of course, now I have to figure out what I’m reading tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll worry about that in the morning.

Hello Brick

It’s possible I could have finished this book yesterday. I did spend a significant amount of my time in airports and on planes. And I’ve finished eight hundred page books that amount of time or less. Maybe it’s because I took special care to finish the audiobook yesterday. Or maybe this just wasn’t drawing me in as much as I’d hoped.

When an author wins me over with a series, I usually follow that up by looking for more of their work. Not everything is quite to my taste, but an author has to fail multiple times before I’ll start being more wary about what I pick up from them.

Which brings me to Fortress in the Eye of Time by C.J. Cherryh. It’s one of the few of her series I hadn’t touched peviously, but I kept seeing it around. In hardcover. So when I had the opportunity to pick it up in mass market paperback, I did. But only the first book. Of course, given that this is nearly eight hundred pages, as I said, that basically makes it two more conventional books.

It’s said that many, many authors have been inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Cherryh is clearly no exception. Fortress in the Eye of Time is the most Tolkienesque work I’ve ever read from her. We have old wizards, older than any normal man (assuming one was ever a normal man as we know them). We have ancient, crumbling ruins of civilizations long past, belong not just to a different age, but to the age before the modern age. We have a bodiless threat seeking to twist minds for its own gain, manipulating events to its favor. We have an innocent protagonist, although this one is no hobbit. Actually, he’s probably more of an elf, in more ways than one, based on what we come to understand of what he is. And we have “the grey place”, a strange shadowy realm not unlike what Frodo sees when wearing the One Ring.

There’s also a ton of politics and some military strategies, as well as innate magic and more. As a not-elf, our protagonist is clearly connected to subtle magics, although he doesn’t wield conscious power over them as of yet. And while he seems to be a blank slate, what he actually is is slightly different.

Think of a brain. Say, a dead person’s brain. It contains all their memories of objects, actions, habits, etc. Then you put that brain in a new body. The information from the previous life is there, but the new body has not yet created the necessary pathways to reach it. So if the new body sees a bird, that visual creates and activates a pathway to several concepts all at once: Bird, Feathers, Beak, Talons, Chirps, Flight, etc. Which means that, like some amnesia victims, the new body (or protagonist) is able to tend to themselves relatively quickly, but their understanding of the world is limited to the information and concepts they’ve managed to unlock so far.

Which is why, as our main character travels from an isolated tower to a busy town currently inhabited by the crown prince of the land, he sometimes finds himself overwhelmed by the concepts a single glance can unlock from his buried memories. And he grows from an innocent boy into a man who cannot always explain what he knows, but has no doubt of it. Or of what he can do. Because those memories include skills, he finds, such as horseback riding.

And this is just the barest part of the premise in Fortress in the Eye of Time. As I’ve said, it’s a thick book and there’s a lot going on. And it’s probably best that I picked it yesterday because I’m not sure I could’ve gotten through it otherwise. The writing style is definitely intended to ape Tolkien and older modes are not as easy for me to read.

There are definitely aspects and characters I liked in this book. However, they often seemed buried by everything else. Not to the point that I’d feel a need to count how much time was devoted to a particular plotline, but enough that there were more and less interesting parts of the novel.

I have no reason to read more Fortress books. I don’t know if they’re all bricks, but one was more than enough for me. Plus there’s so many other books to choose from. And I have no reason to keep this novel, so it’s going straight into the sell pile. Shame. My dad would’ve kept it if I’d finished it before I left.

I did make some progress on my Pile while I was on vacation. I had brought nine books with me, and came home with nine. I left five in Florida, and purchased five others in Florida and the Atlanta airport. One of those is just finally acquiring a mass market paperback I’d gotten from the library when it was brand new. Another was book four in a five book series that I’ve apparently been acquiring in chronological order. A third I’ve already happily finished and the other two are in the Pile, waiting to be read.

If my goal was to not overwhelm my Pile with new additions, I succeeded. And I did manage to reduce its numbers a decent amount for the number of days I was gone and the commitments I had on my time. It’s still about three quarters anthologies though, so I’ll have to work at those as usual. Ah well. At least I’m not out of things to read.

On the Edge

It’s another one of those days when I’ve wrapped up an audiobook. This is another short one, because it’s Rimrunners by C.J. Cherryh, which you might call book three of the Company Wars. It’s an unknown amount of time after the end of the war, but not so late after that we’ve got a new generation of adults.

Bet Yeager is stuck on Thule Station, one of the Hinder Stars that’s been reopened in an effort to restore ties between Alliance and Earth. But she’s no stationer. She’s a spacer, and she wants to get back on a ship. Any ship. She’s been marooned here a year because she didn’t want to stay on Ernestine, not with that ship headed back to Pell. Mallory’s base.

Bet isn’t just any spacer. No, she’s a trooper, a marine. Off Africa, one of the Mazianni ships that’s no better now than a pirate. She was on dock when Africa cut loose from Pell at the end of the war, and has been laying low ever since. Doing what she can, but trying to get and stay on ship.

There’s a ship due at Thule. A merchanter. But what comes in is clearly something else. A ghost, a spook ship. A hunter that waits just off in the dark until its prey comes by. But by the time she realizes it, she’s already in trouble on station. There’s a couple of bodies that people will connect to her, given time. And when board call for Loki comes, they have to pull her out of the station brig.

Onboard, it’s a ship, with many things like other ships and some not so much. She’s the new person, and it’s up to her to fit in. Of course, it does seem like she might be making waves. And there’s that secret, the fact that she spent twenty years on Africa…she doesn’t want that to come out. She’ll have to figure out exactly where she stands with whom and how to ride out the inevitable trouble for the best possible result.

As stated, this is another audiobook. Or audio drama, rather, by GraphicAudio. And there are some interesting considerations with this one. I noted at least one scene that was cut. Not super important, just Bet having a little party at her bunk on Loki, but I don’t remember hearing it happen. I could’ve zoned out a little, it’s possible, but I feel like I would’ve noticed if the phrase “Ritterman’s tapes” came up.

And then there’s Thule. Now, I haven’t gone and looked up a pronunciation, but from the time I first read the word I’ve pronounced it “thool”. The audiobook pronounces it “too-lee”. And while I’ve had some pronunciation questions throughout these adaptations of Cherryh’s work, I think I’m going to assume that “too-lee” is the correct version in this case.

It’s noteworthy that the Rimrunners audiobook is the shortest I’ve listened to date at less than six hours. But the physical book is a bit thicker than Merchanter’s Luck. That could be a factor of paper though, as some books are just printed with thicker paper than others, and it can disguise the true length of a novel.

Still, I’ve enjoyed listening to Rimrunners and the rest of the Alliance-Union books that have been adapted. It’s been a year since Rimrunners was released in this format, so I suspect that may be the whole of of the contract. Which is a shame, I’d really like to listen to renditions of Finity’s End and maybe Tripoint as well. But Finity’s End for sure as it’s one of my favorites in the series. And if they wanted to flesh out the early years of the Company Wars, there’s also Heavy Time and Hellburner. I don’t know that I see them tackling the entire series though, considering that the other book sets can get very, very strange. And, you know, it’s not a short series.

I’m not certain what I’ll be listening to next. I definitely have options, but there’s a number of considerations to take into account. So for now I’ll just savor the high of listening to Rimrunners’ climax.

As for physical books, I think I just needed a break today. I’ve got thoughts and plans and a lot to do, but I’ll be back…soon. You’ll see.

Variety

I’m so glad it’s a long, holiday weekend. I have a fair bit of reading planned, in addition to other things. But let’s start with my first book of the day, a short volume I picked up at the comic shop on impulse. It’s called The Zaks and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss.

Now, you might be unfamiliar with “The Zaks”. It isn’t one of the most memorable tales in Seuss’ repertoire, and is short enough that my copy is in The Sneetches and Other Stories. I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite stories either, but when I was at Universal Studios, in the Dr. Seuss area, I as absolutely thrilled to see the Zaks Bypass.

It’s also worth noting that I have a fairly decent memory for things that have made an impression, such as “The Zaks”. So I noticed rather quickly that the version in this book is not the same one I’ve read previously. Firstly, it’s compressed. Seuss’ original story has more illustrations over more pages. Secondly, it’s altered. And that’s the point of this book.

There is a note at the bottom of the front cover, and it’s relevant as all hell. It reads:

*This book is not associated with, nor approved by, nor do we expect it to be particularly liked by Dr. Seuss Enterprises I.P., a California limited partnership which owns some of the copyrights of the works of Theodor S. Geisel, the author and illustrator who crated many works under the pseudonym “Dr. Seuss”.

The Zaks and Other Lost Stories

The title page says there’s “additional material” inside by Glenn Hauman, David Gerrold, and Ty Templeton. And there’s some essays at the back that explain everything.

I guess this group had originally set out to do a Star Trek parody of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! but were sued by the Seuss estate. Basically, they seem to care nothing for fair use and see all things in a Seussian style as infringing their copyright. So…they want money. All the money.

I wonder if they’re aware of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthluhu for Beginning Readers?

Anyway, from what I can tell, The Zaks and Other Lost Stories is full of stories and images that are transformed in some way (as per fair use) and whose copyright may be in question or otherwise not truly held by the Seuss estate. There are other stories inside as well, including “The Sneetches”, “Did I Ever Tell You…?”, “The Flustards”, “The Munkits”, “The Ruckus”, “The Kindly Snather”, and “A Prayer For a Child”. I don’t think a single one is completely true to what was originally published, which is the point.

And it’s a good thing I’ve spent a number of hours watching youtuber Legal Eagle’s videos because without that grounding in fair use and copyright law I might be a bit lost. I mean, I do have some familiarity already, any artist should know at least a little bit about copyright, fair use, and creative commons, but learning some legalese is no bad thing.

This book exists out of spite. I can’t blame the team for their frustration, and I have to admit I’m impressed with the research they did, but the truncated endings to the stories really hammer home the point. I wish that, instead of this spite book, we could have their mashup of Star Trek and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, because I’m sure it’s very much from a place of love.

I also have to wonder if the Dr. Seuss estate is aware that this book they’re trying to sue out of existence would not be the first Trek/Seuss mashup. There’s a Christmas comic issue that Linkara reviewed years ago, in rhyme, that already crossed the two.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that the Seuss estate is very much in the wrong with their greed. The Zaks and Other Lost Stories is okay, but charmless and not worth keeping. Although I do wonder where a conventional used bookstore would shelve it. The stories still work for children, but the essays are a much higher reading level.

Naturally, you’d expect that I’d follow something so short with something a bit longer. And I did. But that’s not what I’m talking about now. No, rather I finished another audiobook. You might think that this is a bit short, and you’re not wrong. But the actual novel isn’t particularly long either.

Today I finished listening to Merchanter’s Luck by C.J. Cherryh. If you remember from when I’ve discussed my hardcopy, you’ll know that this is the book Cherryh wanted to write originally, but she wanted to set it into a larger universe. So she wrote Downbelow Station first and the Alliance-Union universe was born.

My audiobook is, once again, by GraphicAudio. And they have it listed as volume two of the Company Wars, which I think is something of a misnomer. After all, the Company Wars officially ended in Downbelow Station, with the creation of the Alliance and the Earth Company having to admit that they no longer controlled anything outside of Sol System.

That’s not to say there isn’t a military threat in Merchanter’s Luck. There are still Mazianni carriers out there. Norway is now the Alliance military, but Mazian and the rest of his remaining captains are still out there, preying on shipping as they can and will. But that’s out in deep space. Null points. Not on stations. And stations are what concern our protagonist here.

His name is Sandor Kreja, but he goes by Edward Stevens of Lucy. For now. The Krejas of Le Cygne were slaughtered by Mazianni at a null point seventeen years ago. The few survivors of the merchanter became marginers, skimming here and there, doing what was necessary to stay alive. And using assumed names because they didn’t want to sully their own with what they were doing.

And Sandor’s luck is running thin as the book opens. He needs a crewman, just one, who won’t ask questions and will do as they’re told. But in a bar he looks up and sees another merchanter. Allison Reilly of Dublin Again, far above him in class, but there and somehow attainable.

Allison, for her part, is intrigued to meet someone close to her own age who is captain and owner of his own ship. And he’s not unattractive, not when a merchanter’s on liberty. Thing is, Dublin was rather unaffected by the war years. Lost no lives, and full to the brim with hundreds of lives. So much so that, with rejuv allowing five and six generations to live together, Allison might be an old lady herself before she actually has the seniority to sit a post on the bridge. Meeting Sandor, whom she knows as Stevens, lights a flicker of hope for something more than endless waiting.

I’m tempted to call Merchanter’s Luck a cute little story. This completely flies in the face of some of the tensest moments, but it remains a shorter novel, and one that gives a feeling of comfort in the end.

When I was first logging into hoopla, I went and marked several audiobooks I was interested in as favorites, so I could find them easily when needed. When I finished Downbelow Station, I unfavorited it, knowing I’d never care to listen to it again. Not that it’s bad, just that I don’t see the need to experience the audiobook again.

I’d be happy to listen to Merchanter’s Luck more than once. Not right away, of course, but in the future. Just like I’m about as addicted to the Kate Daniels audiobooks as I am to the physical books. And that’s no bad thing. Audiobooks don’t last forever. I can see why people would listen to podcasts; those tend to update regularly, continually adding to the store of what can be listened to.

But for now I’m happy to have listened to the proud finale of Merchanter’s Luck. I’m not completely certain what’s next on my listening list, it’ll probably depend on what mood I’m in tomorrow. But I have a few options.

Now for the real book of today. Which is to say, the physical book I read from cover to cover today. As opposed to the short spite book and the audiobook.

It is, unsurprisingly, the next Kate Daniels novel. Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews. I took my break, but I do want to finish this series sooner rather than later. That shouldn’t be a problem, but we’ll see what happens.

Magic Rises is the sixth novel (discounting Gunmetal Magic, which is an Andrea book instead of Kate) in the series. Kate has settled in to the role of Consort, partner to the Beast Lord of the Pack. She still does work with and for the Mercenary Guild, but has her own business to run. But this book isn’t about any of that.

Things get started after Kate gives up on a spear lesson with Julie. The girl’s mind just isn’t on combat. Her friend was asked to a dance (held for teen shapeshifters) and Julie is to help pick out her outfit. Then, tragedy strikes. Julie’s friend and her twin sister start going loup.

Shapeshifters are stronger and faster than ordinary humans. They have keener senses and accelerated healing. An allergy to silver isn’t a terrible drawback. But loupism is. Shifters have to balance their human and animal parts, with the human remaining in control. The animal wins if they go loup. Loups seek out the worst parts of life with glee: sex, violence, death, etc. They’re also cannibals.

The greatest risk of loupism is when shapeshifters hit puberty. The elevated and uncertain emotions can go zero to sixty and there’s no warning at all.

There is one thing that can help when a child goes loup, and that’s panacea. It’s a special, magic drug that gives the shifter a fighting chance against loupism. It’s not a guarantee, but it improves the odds by about forty percent.

Curran has not found anyone who knows how to make panacea, and he’s forced to import it from Europe. Even there, nobody will take him up on his offer. So when he and Kate are asked to bodyguard a pregnant werewolf whose children could reshape geopolitical alliances in Eastern Europe in exchange for ten barrels of panacea, how can they refuse? There are lots of children in the Pack, and more of them will live if the panacea is available.

Of course, this is definitely a trap. What kind of trap and why is something that our heroes will only discover given time.

We’re at a turning point in the series. Kate’s been obsessively hiding her blood and her heritage for all her life. Although she’s been gradually letting others see…as well as learning what she can really do. The secret isn’t out in the open…yet. But the circle of those who know is getting wider. Soon she won’t be able to hide anymore.

The book also includes the short story “An Ill-Advised Rescue”. In Magic Rises, Saiman owes Kate a favor. The short explains how and why he owes her. There’s a note saying this was meant to be part of the novel, but it just didn’t fit with the story’s flow. So it ended up as a bonus, which is not a bad thing. Many of the novels in this series include bonus content at the end, whether it’s a scene through Curran’s eyes or a supporting story that didn’t quite fit into the narrative. I appreciate these inclusions.

I suppose if I was being thorough I’d be reading the short stories published elsewhere as I went. But that takes more effort than it’s worth. And I’d rather get started on the next novel.

Worlds and Series and Thoughts

Many years ago I discovered that I liked Mercedes Lackey. Moreover, I discovered that she had this massive catalog of books already published that I could devour, along with new novels every year. And as I became more enthused, I also learned that yes, the songs in the back of the early Valdemar books were real and I could buy CDs with actual recordings of them.

I also bought the CD Magic, Moondust and Melancholy because it seemed interesting even though nothing on there was Valdemar-related. In fact, many of the songs were based on or inspired by other authors’ works. And it seemed entirely reasonable that if an author I liked enjoyed those books, I should give them a try. And I should find out just who the title character of the song “Signy Mallory” really was.

Like I said, that was years ago. How many? Well, let’s just say that the first time I ever read Cyteen, the novel that could be called a sequel to Downbelow Station, I was working part-time at Borders. And that was the early days of my reading and collecting the Alliance-Union universe by C.J. Cherryh.

I would never say that Downbelow Station is my favorite book in that series. But it is foundational in so many ways. It is the starting point. If you were at all interested in the series, that is where you should start.

And so when I was looking for a new audiobook to listen to on my daily walks, I chose Downbelow Station as a contrast to the paranormal romance I’d been listening to before. This is another GraphicAudio production, because that is my preference at the moment, and like Elantris it was apparently long enough to be broken up. But as Downbelow Station is not as long as Elantris, it was only two parts instead of three.

The alternate title offered within the pages of Downbelow Station is The Company Wars, although this is the end of them. So let’s summarize how things got to where they stand as the book opens.

When humans managed to get off Earth it wasn’t through any government but through a company. The Earth Company as it called itself. And the EC helped to colonize Luna and Mars, to build Sol Station, and to send ships out even further. They built the Hinder Stars, a series of space stations going ever farther from Earth. And then there was Pell. Not simply a station but a world. A planet, that humans could live on with some help. And with its own sentient natives, the hisa. And a station was built above it. Beyond Pell, there were more stations built. Viking, Mariner, Esperance, Pan-Paris, Fargone…and then, another. Another world. Cyteen. And out there, in the far Beyond, a new force arose called Union. Home to birthlabs which could accelerate population growth to fill the worlds they found and the stations they built. And they didn’t see why they should take orders from the Earth Company. From Earth.

There also came the discovery of jump and the inventions that made it possible. Now ships could travel vast distances in months rather than years or decades. And the Hinder Stars fell out of use because they weren’t on the jump route to Pell and beyond. The stars changed even more quickly than the Earth Company and their orders could accommodate and Earth itself fell almost entirely out of touch and understanding with its children.

So with the birth of Union came the Company Wars, as the EC built the Fleet to force submission of all it had created. As Downbelow Station opens, there are only ten ships left in the Earth Company Fleet, and Union is pushing them hard. A group of Earthers, including Company representation, has arrived on Pell, seeking transit deeper into the Beyond for reasons they won’t share and nobody out here trusts.

Pell itself is the station of the title. With the way the hisa speak, the planet is known as Downbelow and the station is known as Upabove. And Pell is in for a bumpy ride. The book opens with Captain Signy Mallory of Norway, third captain of the Earth Company Fleet, heading in to dock accompanied by a merchanter and freighter convoy. There was disaster at Mariner, and at Russell’s Star. The convoy, outside the carrier (Fleet ship), is full of refugees. And they have nowhere to go but Pell. The War has changed in a way it hasn’t in decades, and it’s not going to be comfortable for anyone.

There are, as suits an epic of this scale, several different story threads to follow. There’s Damon Konstantin, a prince on Pell. Konstantins were there to help build Pell and they’ve run it since then. His own father, Angelo Konstantin, is Pell Stationmaster. Damon himself works in Legal Affairs, which is going to be busier than usual now with the refugees.

Damon’s wife, Elene Quen, is different. She’s a merchanter, off the ship Estelle, who chose to remain behind on station for a run. With him. She may work for the station for now, but she remains a merchanter at heart, looking towards the blackness of space with longing, a longing he can never fully understand.

Emilio Konstantin is Damon’s older brother, recently sent to Downbelow as the new planetary supervisor. He knows well how to work with the hisa, or Downers as they’re also called. He and his wife Miliko are a well-oiled team with good hearts.

Satin is the human name of a young hisa, Sky-Sees-Her. She’s a bright creature, usually happy as most Downers are. And what she wants is to go Upabove. To see Great Sun. Downbelow is often overcast and rainy, so the sun is not often seen in their skies. To see Sun might be a religious experience for hisa, but it is unclear. Their understanding is not a human understanding, and not everything translates.

Signy Mallory is a complicated woman. The only female Fleet captain at this time, she’s third in seniority and their best strategist. She’s hard and unyielding, and quite ruthless when necessary. But she holds the firm loyalty of her ship and troops, probably because she’ll do all she can for them and more. She may take orders on occasion, but prefers to follow where her conscience leads. She is a force of nature and a law unto herself.

Joshua Talley is a Unioner, a prisoner of war left on Pell separate from the refugees at the beginning of the book. Nobody really knows who he is, if he’s a real person or if he came out of the birthlabs. He seems, in some ways, to be dead inside, and struggling to find something to care for, to fight for. Maybe a chance is all he really needs.

These are the heroes of our tale. There are other players of course. Jon Lukas, whose family has stood in opposition to the Konstantins for generations. Vassily Kressich, a refugee who was a Councilor on his original station and could be so again here, for the people in Quarantine, or Q section. A mysterious man named Jessad. And, of course, Mazian.

Conrad Mazian, first captain of the Earth Company Fleet. The reason why they are, collectively, referred to as “Mazianni”. If the Fleet’s carriers have operated relatively independently for decades, he could loosely be called the mastermind of their strategy. Where Union is a vast, faceless mass of same-faced birthlab troops, Mazian is a very individual person. A name and a face to put to a ship and policies.

It was a little weird, for the record, to listen to the narrator and voice actors say “May-zee-an” instead of the “Mah-zee-an” I’ve always read it as.

It was also weird to conceive of Mazian with a British accent. The other captains, whose last names came from a variety of ethnicities, had less surprising accents that those names evoked. And maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Mazian’s ship is Europe. Still, it was unexpected.

I really do love GraphicAudio’s productions though. To hear every clan of an airlock, every hiss of breath through a breather (necessary on Downbelow for humans, on Upabove for hisa), every footfall and every clink of silverware. It really creates an auditory bubble of experience. So even when I’m walking around outside in the bright sun, I can feel emotionally like I’m curled up on the couch with all the lights out, watching an epic movie.

Also I was surprised at how young Seb Azov, a Unity captain, sounded. But then again, my memory might be influenced from having also read and remembered Cyteen and its sequel Regensis, where he’s much older. I think Cyteen starts maybe thirty or fifty years after the Company Wars? It’s been a while, so I can’t quite recall offhand.

The point being that I’ve had a good time the past couple weeks, listening to Downbelow Station. It’s definitely influenced me to read more science fiction physically than I have in a while, which is no bad thing. Of course, that’s also partially because I ran out of fantasy novels for a bit.

I can promise though that the next audiobook is going to be fantasy. I’ve already decided exactly which one it will be. But that’s something you’ll hear about in the future.

Back to the physical front, I decided to catch up on some comics. Yes, I still have several left, and more now that it’s Pride month (because both major publishers have learned that having special Pride issues makes money), but I’ll get to them eventually.

The first of today’s comics is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II #5, the finale of the second crossover. You know, the part where our morphed turtles and mutated rangers work together, even with Shredder, and combine a giant turtlezord with the dragonzord to defeat Krang and the mess he made of the megazord. And everything ends happily…or does it? Because, as many of these crossovers do, the creators left themselves a way to continue the story if the companies find it profitable.

I know, I know, I sound cynical. But unfortunately that’s how far too many decisions are made these days; based only on how much money they might bring in. It’s probably why there wasn’t a third Star Trek/Green Lantern crossover even though the door was left wide open. Of course, the Kelvin timeline part of the franchise definitely seemed to hit a few snags by the time Star Trek Beyond came out. And since I haven’t watched any parts of the TV shows since Voyager, I don’t know much about what’s going on there. Just the parts that have filtered through social media.

But let’s go back to the actual comic I read. It is, as I said, the end of the story. It felt a bit rote, because you knew it had to wrap up here, wanted to include all the basic elements you’d expect from both franchises, and a happy ending for all heroes. At some point I should sit down and reread the lot all in one go for better effect. I don’t know if it’s just me today or in general but I’m feeling a bit disillusioned. Crossovers are cool, but sometimes I want surprises more than predictability.

Moving on to what I believe is the last of my Free Comic Book Day freebies, Ranger Academy. Which is yes, another Power Rangers comic. We open on a stormy moon inhabited only by a girl and her father. She’s not thrilled to be living in the middle of nowhere and when a shuttle crashes, she’s eager to see it and offer help when she notices that the inhabitants need it.

These two are cadets at Ranger Academy, on their way to pick up recruits. Or they were, but one input the coordinates wrong and they’re nine lightyears from their destination. Naturally, our shepherd girl is interested and wants to go to the Academy. Just as naturally, her father forbids it.

The story does not conclude within this issue. It instead advertises an actual Ranger Academy series coming…some time in the future. Seriously, there’s no date specified and when I checked online, the pull service only lists the FCBD issue, no others. So I’ll have to keep an eye out because I do want to read it.

I mean, sure. Ranger Academy is going to be a school story, and our young shepherd girl will be the viewpoint character who knows nothing and thus can help the reader to learn as she does. Her father clearly has a past involving power rangers, if not the Academy as well. He might have been a famous ranger. And our protagonist will probably have some natural skill as a ranger cadet for all she’ll have a lot to learn about the universe beyond her moon home. Yes, I expect it to be that predictable, but I’ll read it anyway.

Then, of course, we come to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #108 and this is an interlude issue. Sort of. Last time we were shocked to see what looked like Zordon on Rita’s team. Turns out, that is Zordon’s actual body. I mean, it’s definitely been a cause for speculation over the years, what happened to Zordon’s body if he’s a head in a tube, but who expected his literal actual body to turn up?

The body is under Rita’s control. Or…it seems to be. Up until the point that it actually reaches Zordon himself and a fascinating conversation ensues. When you think about it, there’s usually two interpretations of bodies and minds. On the one hand, that the two are inseparable. On the other hand, that the two are separable, and the body is a vehicle for whatever mind/spirit/soul is driving it.

There’s a meme I’ve seen about a ghost and a zombie arising from the same person, and the ghost gets frustrated and tries to direct the zombie. The body is not particularly intelligent though, leading to the intact mind’s annoyance.

So the question here becomes…how much of a person on its own can Zordon’s body be? How much of a mind can it have, how intelligent can it be? I mean, the series doesn’t have to answer or even dwell on these questions. But I’m still going to consider them all the same. And then go further. If a body can become sentient in its own right, what does that mean for the mind? Or is the mind the body’s original sentience and without that residence a new mind must arise to control the body?

I know, I know. It’s Power Rangers. I should not be asking these kinds of deep, complex questions of it. Still, I can’t help myself. It’s a fascinating curiosity the series has presented and I want to ask all the weird questions that will probably never be answered logically. Although once he finds out Billy might try. We’ll see.

How Many…?

I do appreciate that my friends know me well. So much so that when a birthday box arrived from the hobbit box friend, I was largely thrilled with the surprises (and others I already knew about) I found inside. A number of books were intriguing, but there was only one that I knew would be first of the lot.

Of course, my question, upon seeing it, was “how many of these have I read before?”

I think I’ve discussed, although not in a long time, my library app. It’s a free service (up to a point, but most people will never need to pay) and they make it very easy by allowing you to scan the UPC or inputting the book’s ISBN to automatically bring it up. Although brand new indie books are not always likely to be there already, or other small press items that nobody using the app has encountered before. You can manually enter things as well.

I decided, around the time I started this blog, that I needed to have a collection on that app just for my short stories. Because I had grown tired of picking up anthologies only to find that I’d read one or more stories before. And let me remind you, we’re talking six and more years ago, when my anthology collection was a fraction of its size today. Anyway, I had a habit of pausing in my reading to go figure out which collection I’d read each tale in previously, because it would bother me until I knew.

So I figured it would be good to have a database, so that the information would be at the tip of my fingers and not require constantly trying to recall which book a particular story might be placed in. At this point, I have some five hundred anthologies, give or take, which own more than a shelf and a half of space and most of the mass market paperbacks are triple stacked. And those five hundred some books contain more than five thousand unique pieces of short fiction.

Today’s book is A Magic-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic, edited by Margaret Weis. And I knew it would have a number of tales I’d read previously because I clearly recalled referring back to A Dragon-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic back before I built my short story database. I also have A Quest-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic, although that was a later acquisition. My point is that I’m familiar with the anthology series, and knew full well that these are showcases, handpicked by Weis from the over the decades.

Let’s dive in, starting with “What Good is a Glass Dagger?” by Larry Niven. It’s a title I recognized because, well, it’s a memorable story and one I already owned. A warlock came up with something that changed the world forever, and years later, a young man sneaks into his cave to steal it. Along with the item, he sees a glass dagger, which will become, as you can guess, rather important. And lessons to be learned abound.

From there we have a troublesome author in Orson Scott Card. As I said to a patron at the library sale today, I have issues with the man’s politics, but he definitely can write. “The Princess and the Bear” definitely reminded me of other stories he’s written, though I’d never read this one before. I’m not entirely certain I cared for it, and that has nothing to do with real world politics.

“The Summoning” comes from Katherine Kurtz and it’s…not really for me. I am not entirely certain which of the United States’ Founding Fathers she’s depicting, and frankly, I’m not interested in putting them on pedestals or making them more than mere men.

Robert Silverberg shows us a man who just needs a car to tow a U-Haul across the country in “As Is”. The car in question has a trunk welded shut. But there’s just something about it, as our protagonist soon discovers.

“The Alchemist and the Witch” is a Christopher Stasheff story. The Alchemist has learned his magic through careful study of the world around him, though he lost a lot of ground when he had to make an abrupt departure from Salem, Massachusetts. The Witch sold her soul to the Devil for her magic, and seems to have made it her goal to seduce the Alchemist.

Fun fact, this is actually the first time I’ve read Mercedes Lackey’s original version of “Fiddler Fair”. When I first found this story in the anthology of the same title, I just couldn’t read it. This story became the foundation of the second act in The Lark and the Wren and that is a better overall tale for a number of reasons. But I felt I should at least read the original, the Ithkar version, once. So now I have.

Another story I owned but hadn’t read yet is “Wizard’s World” by Andre Norton. It’s in one of the many Norton books that I simply haven’t gotten around to yet, but will at some point. There’s a lot in this that reminds me of the foundations of the Witch World books, some of which had already been published at this point. But this is a different world from that one, although many similarities exist.

I could almost swear I’ve read Raymond Feist’s story “Geroldo’s Incredible Trick” before, but I think it must simply have been a different tale following in this one’s footsteps. A magician and his stepdaughter assistant are about to perform in a relatively hostile country. It may have to be the best performance of their lives, and it might be time to pull out the best trick of all.

“Willow” is from C.J. Cherryh and it’s about how war changes people. Our protagonist is a veteran returning home, sort of. There’s still war going on, but I don’t think he even knew what or who he was fighting for at the end, and just up and left. But he’s not the same boy who left, and even the land and the light seems dimmer as he returns to the place he came from. I don’t even think he hopes to see his family, it’s just a destination. But on the way, he notices something that draws his attention and changes the course of the story and his life.

Ah, Ray Bradbury. He shows up in so many showcases. And “The Vacation” is one I’ve read before. Talk about creepy post-apocalyptic worlds.

I keep turning up “Mazirian the Magician” by Jack Vance. I’m still somewhat annoyed that this was in My Favorite Fantasy Story. Mazirian is a selfish ass of a character, though I’m not sure any of the other characters in this world are any better.

If Fritz Leiber is here, it must be another Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story. This one is “The Bazaar of the Bizarre”, one I’d not read before. And I have to wonder if this in particular was offering some biting commentary on the real world. I’d certainly believe it.

“The Lady’s Gifts” is another duplicate from my library, although in Ancient Enchantresses it was listed as “The Lady’s Gift”. Either way, Melanie Rawn retells the story of Narcissus.

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s offering is a Lythande story, “The Walker Behind”. I’d not read this one before and can appreciate that the basis of the horror is that feeling, that knowledge that someone or something is stalking your steps. However, I also find this to not be a preferred Lythande story, and I’m also beginning to seriously question the gender identity aspects of the character and what that says about Bradley.

“The Anything Box” is another tale I recall reading previously. Zenna Henderson portrays a first grade teacher, one of whose students has the box. It makes her happy to look inside, and the story is clearly about the innocence of childhood as compared to the unfortunate realities that adults have to deal with.

Greg Bear’s “The White Horse Child” is yet another repeat for me. A young boy is walking home one day when a strange man calls out to him. But he’s not supposed to talk to strangers, not even strangers who only offer stories. Still, it’s a choice the boy has to make for himself.

I definitely have more questions about “Armaja Das” by Joe Haldeman than I did the last time I read it. After all, the protagonist is Romany by birth, although he lives and acts like a white man instead. Which raises a specter of why his own people may be threatening him. Of course, the story doesn’t use the word “Romany” and there’s the question of if Haldeman should even be writing about a protagonist from that ethnic group. I’m not making the call for a number of reasons, including not being Romany myself, just saying it’s a question that should be considered.

I am not going to try typing the title of F. Paul Wilson’s story. It’s letters jumbled up and typed over each other. And what I might call it to myself is something of a spoiler. I thought I’d read this before, but if so, it’s not in a book I currently own. In this tale, a loser orders a videotape off an infomercial. What he receives might be even more of the answer to his problems than he’d originally hoped for.

“The Word of Unbinding” is one I’ve read several times before. Not just because Ursula K. Le Guin’s tale has been published in a number of other books, but also because this is part of one of the Earthsea novels. Or at least, that’s my recollection. It’s been a while.

Finally we end on Roger Zelazny and “The Last Defender of Camelot”. An older gentleman wanders the streets of the then-modern day of 1979. Some thugs accost him, but he turns surprisingly spry and easily defeats them. Then a fortune-teller’s shop catches his eye and we begin to understand that yes, we are dealing with figures of Arthurian lore.

As stated, I fully expected to be familiar with a number of the stories here. And I can see why a number of these can be considered key or significant tales. It’s not the stories’ or the editor’s fault that I’ve been overexposed to some of them, or that I may have discovered that I can’t respect some of these authors as people over the years. So don’t let my jaded reactions to a significant portion of the book be your only indicator of whether or not the tales are good.

I’m not actually dissatisfied with A Magic-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic. As I said, this is exactly what I expected from the book. A lot of big name authors, a lot of stories considered good enough to be reprinted multiple times, etc. I may not have expected it to take me all weekend to get through, but there are no less than twenty stories and it’s been a busy weekend with the library sale and all.

I have been thinking about what to read next and I’ve got an idea. And not just because I want to continue taking books out of the Pile.

It’s Long

There are any number of reasons why a book might languish in my Pile for months and years before I read it. One of those is length. Since the pandemic started, I’ve had a definite trend towards shorter books and more blog posts. I mean, regardless, I post a lot because I read a lot and I read faster than many. But I did do a lot more “book a day” posts after lockdown started and I no longer had a commute to eat up any time at all. Which in turn made me more inclined to push myself to finish books in a day, instead of stretching them over two as I might have done previously. And that led to a more strategic planning as to when I would read longer books that I knew up front could not be finished in a single day.

Combined with that issue of book length, I’ve also come to realize over the past several years that I don’t care for overly long anthologies. Year’s Best anything is not going to make a sale for me because I find it increasingly exhausting to contemplate anthologies of four hundred pages or more. There’s just so many stories and it’s easy to get burned out. Especially because anthologies are full of variable quality in the first place.

You can figure that today’s book is in fact a very long anthology. And, minding the previous paragraph, not one I might have picked up at all if not for two very clear reasons. First and foremost, today’s book is Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers. You may recall that I’ve read the first of this pair, Infinite Stars. So that’s a strong reason to read the sequel volume. The other good reason is that this came out of that closing Barnes & Noble location and was purchased for eighty-five percent off cover price. Which is why I was willing to buy the hardcover. And yes, there are still a couple more books from that particular haul left in the Pile. I’ll get to them eventually.

Dark Frontiers was, until yesterday, the literal biggest book in the Pile, and pulling it out made an impressive amount of space. Enough so that, even after the numerous acquisitions this month and last, I can actually see all the books in it once more. There are twenty-six stories here, many of which are longer than the normal twenty pages. We’re talking about six hundred pages of stories, all told, and this is why I had to carefully plan this reading. And why I’ve put it off so long.

I’ll also note that this volume is a mixture of brand new stories and older featured tales. They’ll run the gamut of the science fiction timeline, though I won’t always mention publication dates. So let’s get to it.

Jack Campbell opens the book with “Ishigaki”, a tale set in his Lost Fleet universe. The defining event of the Lost Fleet is a hundred year interstellar war. This particular shot story takes place in the early years of said war, and shows the difference between inexperienced commanders, and those who know what they’re doing. And when I say “inexperienced”, I mean “never actually fought before” because they had peacetime commissions. It’s an interesting tale, although I don’t know that I’d be inclined to look up any of the novels. My impression is that this story is meant to be a snapshot in time, not specifically related to any of the novels.

From there we go to “A Good Heretic” by Becky Chambers. This is set in her Wayfarers universe, where spatial travel is impossible without the Sianat, who infect themselves with a virus that Pairs them and expands their minds to allow for the necessary calculations. The story opens with a young Sianat who is nervously looking forward to her infection, and where her story goes from there. Again, I enjoyed reading the story, but I’m not sure I’d pick up a novel.

The first older tale is next, unsurprising given that it’s by Robert Heinlein. “Misfit” tells the tale of one young man among many who is shipped off from Earth to join the Cosmic Construction Corps because he just didn’t fit in. You can tell this was written in the thirties with a number of conventions, including smoking, computers referring to people doing calculations, and a general lack of women. It is very much a product of its time.

“A Beast for Norn” is, interestingly enough, a George R. R. Martin story. An older one too, from the seventies. Because what people seem to forget when an author becomes famous for something, is that there’s always more to their bibliography. This is apparently part of a series about the protagonist Haviland Tuf. The premise is somewhat worn by this time, though I’m sure it appeared far fresher forty years earlier.

Susan Matthews brings a story from her Skipjack series with “The Devil in the Details”. Once again, we see two sides in an interstellar war. In this case, we also see the humanity in both. As stories go, it’s kind of a nothing and I definitely wouldn’t invest further time in the series.

I was not at all interested in reading “Messenger”. I’ve said my piece on Orson Scott Card and more than once. This is an Enderverse story, trying to tie his various subseries together, and also probably lead into a new one. Bringing together Bean’s children – the Anton’s Key ones – along with Jane’s direct allies to fight the Descoladores. Oh, and Colonel Graff, the guy who got Ender into this entire mess in the first place, three thousand years ago, is still around. Because of course. Why kill off a useful character when you can fill him with the religious imagery of Lazarus because you’ve decided to mix your religious and political views right into your stories and not hide them any longer?

I don’t think I’d actually read anything by E.E. “Doc” Smith before. So that changed with “The Vortex Blaster”. I guess it’s also from a series, Lensmen, but it’s some weird stuff. The technical aspects are…yeah, I wasn’t up to wasting brainpower on it. Especially not after the insanity from the previous entry.

You might be surprised to hear I also had reservations about “First In”, when it should’ve been one of my most anticipated tales in the volume. It’s by Tanya Huff, a Confederation story showing us Torin Kerr on her first mission as a Sergeant. Not the Staff Sergeant we’d come to know and love, but just a lowly Sergeant. Still in charge of others’ asses though. And this one did actually remind me of what I love about those books. I’ve simply stopped reading the series because once the sentient plastic got introduced it’s really been downhill. Sad, but there you have it. I don’t think I ever did read the second Peacekeeper novel.

Curtis Chen is a newer author, and “Fire in the Pocket” serves as a prequel to his Kangaroo series. I think that’s a codename, Kangaroo that is. The protagonist of this story is not the young man, but rather an older one who will be developing tech for Kangaroo to utilize on his missions. It’s all very top secret though. I don’t know that I’d seek this one out…but I’d be interested to read more if it crossed my path.

“Frontier ABCs: The Life and Times of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher” is an excellent title. It comes from Seanan McGuire, and I’ll admit I was intrigued. I’ve not had a lot of luck with McGuire’s work previously, but I’ve also never read any of her science fiction before. I’m still not interested in giving her urban fantasy in particular another shot, but after this, I’d definitely be willing to read more science fiction from the woman.

I think I’ve read part of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden series before “Dark Secrets”. Probably in an anthology like this one. I don’t remember for certain, and I’m really not inclined to look it up because I didn’t enjoy reading this story. It just wasn’t fun at all to read.

One of these days I’ll actually look up where “The Lady or the Tiger” comes from as a phrase. But the story that Larry Niven and Steven Barnes spin is something I did eventually relax into. It’s a tale of deception on so many levels, and yet, it’s also a story of love.

Another older piece comes from James Blish. “Earthman, Come Home” envisions a future where literal cities, like New York, New York, achieve spaceflight as independent entities. Well, I mean, they’re not sentient and they’re still inhabited and ruled by humans, but they don’t answer to anyone but their own populations in the future as they travel from planet to planet, system to system, galaxy to galaxy. And that’s just the start of the premise.

“A Special Kind of Morning” serves as a reminder that while he was best known as an editor, Gardner Dozois did write as well. I didn’t much care for the story at first, which is a long and rambling narration from an old man to a young man, but once he actually got into the story itself, it became far more engaging. I do wish there’d been actual female characters though.

Today I learned that David Farland is a pseudonym of Dave Wolverton, a name I remember from Immortal Unicorn. So I was interested to see where “Respect” would take me. And I would say that there are themes in common between this and the story I recalled. I don’t know that I liked the story, or would want to reread it, but it’s interesting at the least.

“Boot Recruit” is a prequel to Mike Shepherd’s other Kris Longknife stories. I’ve heard of the character before, though I don’t offhand recall reading anything she’s in. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing some of those books. Maybe not right now, as I’m still trying to reduce the Pile, but I could see myself spending money when I’m in a sci-fi mood in the future.

I admit it, I groaned when I saw this one. C.L. Moore was an amazing author and I wish people would stop gravitating to “Shambleau” before all else. This is my third copy of the story and I can really only read it so many times. Worldcon had an entire panel on the woman and her work and a number of other short stories were mentioned. Why not put one of them back into print? I’ll also point out that the editor lists this as her first story, which is a claim with a caveat. She has a few earlier shorts that were published in her school paper. They’ve also been republished where more people can access them. So, calling this one her first is a bit deceptive.

“The Veteran” is a story from Neal Asher’s Polity series. It is, at its base, a story of why you should communicate openly with your loved ones. Everything else is just trappings. And I don’t know that the trappings have interested me in the series at all.

Weston Ochse brings in a story from his Grunt series. “The End-of-the-World Bowling League” is a title, to say the least. It’s about someone who knew the alien invasion of Earth was coming, couldn’t get the governments to do a thing about it, and now he’s stuck dealing with it along with two paramedics who wanted to go bowling, thank you very much. Yeah, I don’t need more of this world or these aliens.

“Death, Butterflies, and Makers of War” gets immediate points for the Oxford comma. This is part of Brenda Cooper’s series Fremont’s Children, where Wind Readers are people able to submerge themselves into the data systems and streams and do great good…or great evil. This story specifically is a teacher telling his student about the first time he killed, so that he can try and help said student get through the complex emotions he’s experiencing from his own first kill.

It does amuse me to turn up a Pip and Flinx story by Alan Dean Foster so soon after reading his memoir. Especially because the editor’s not preceding “Sideshow” discusses the author’s fame in relation to his novelization work. The story itself is fine. I haven’t had an interest in Pip or Flinx before and I’m not starting now. Mostly I was pleased to find a story that was actually a normal twenty pages or less.

Speaking of great titles, next is “Lieutenant Tightass” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. It’s from her Diving series, and I was more than a little intrigued. The last time I turned up a prequel short story to a novel series of hers, I ended up buying seven books and having no regrets about that. Of course, this one has some weird time travel shit, so that’s a big point against it. But the story is decent.

Kevin Anderson’s “Feet of Clay” is from his Saga of Seven Suns universe. It’s basically about the fact that while we do put people on pedestals, that doesn’t actually mean they deserve to be there, or that they’re the people we think they are. Kind of depressing, actually, and not making me interested in the rest of the series.

I had to seriously wonder why I now own three copies of “The Traitor” by David Weber. Intellectually, I know that’s because it’s a Bolo story, because I have it in one of the numbered Bolo anthologies as well as Bolo!, the collection of just Weber’s works in Keith Laumer’s sandbox. That still doesn’t make it less weird to find a third copy in my possession. I’m accustomed to thinking of Bolos as being pretty niche even in sci-fi and military sci-fi.

Then another older story from famed author Arthur C. Clarke. “Rescue Party” has an alien ship racing towards Earth. The sun is about to go nova and these aliens have only just learned that a sentient civilization arose when they weren’t looking. There’s some interesting elements to their exploration. Of course, this being from the forties, there’s the assumption that all the aliens are or present as male, but that’s really the biggest missed opportunity I can spot.

The volume ends with “Cold Sleep” by C.J. Cherryh, which I believe is a standalone story. Not always a great sign with her, as I tend to enjoy her short fiction if it’s set in a larger framework. Still, this one works fairly well as a horror story, fitting in with the Dark Frontiers theme.

So, that was Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers. It was a big, long book. Filled with a variety of stories. Some I liked, some I disliked, and many were just kind of there, taking up space. It was definitely a bit of a chore to read as many of the stories are relatively long, so I wouldn’t recommend it for the faint of heart. A few involve science that is incredibly esoteric and virtually guaranteed to make most heads hurt. But hey, some people like that.

There are women writers in this book, but between authors and characters it definitely feels slanted towards male – not a great sign in a volume published in 2019. There’s also a bit where an ethnic group is referred to as a slur, which I also didn’t are for. And when someone is trying to present all of this as a definitive space opera anthology…yeah, it’s not that. I haven’t read many anthologies that I’d consider to be definitive, and this isn’t one of them.

There are stories here I’ll revisit. When, I have no idea. But eventually. One day. In the meantime, I need to find something far shorter and sufficiently different to read. I did start by looking at the other books in the Pile, but couldn’t quite find it in myself to focus on any of them.

Then I remembered it’s been a while since I read any comics. So I grabbed a few of those for the remainder of my day.

I started with Jane Foster & the Mighty Thor #2-3. As a reminder, Thor has vanished. The last thing he was able to do was throw Mjolnir far away from whatever has taken him. And the only person he trusted with the hammer was Jane Foster. She’s a bit disconcerted to find the hammer facing her again for a couple reasons. Most obviously, she’s moved on. She’s no longer the goddess of thunder. Rather, she’s Valkyrie, who ferries the dead to Valhalla and does the superhero schtick besides. Also, the spirit of Odin Borson now inhabits the hammer, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

In these two issues, Jane is able to make good progress on figuring out where Thor is and how to get to him. Unfortunately, Asgard is under attack simultaneously, and we get some shots of Rüna and others defending it from dark elves and gods only know what else. It’s probably a five issue miniseries, so there’ll be a little more after this.

I’ve also got Power Rangers Unlimited: The Death Ranger. The BOOM! series has this habit of introducing an idea in one of the main series, then releasing a standalone issue that explains what the hell we actually saw. This particular issue is a story within a story. Young Andros and Zhane are listening to a story about an old, old Omega Ranger team. It explains, among other things, why there are only four Omega Rangers instead of the usual five.

And, like I said, it explains what we saw in the main series. And why Andros is probably a terrible red ranger. His motivations are that of a child, but he’s not above using an adult’s understanding and rationalization to achieve those immature goals. Witness his twin obsessions from Power Rangers in Space: restoring his best friend Zhane and finding his twin sister Karone. Basically nothing else matters to him, and the comic team knows this.

At this point, I think that’s more than enough reading for the day. I’ve got some other ways to occupy my time before bed, and then I’ll be ready to start something new in the morning. Something different. Maybe even something better?

Four and Four

It’s fitting that, with only four books left in my Witch World read-through, I should have Four from the Witch World to read. This was also the very last volume I acquired, making this endeavor possible in the first place.

Andre Norton stated that these novellas were originally collected for the Tales of the Witch World anthologies. But due to their length and strength, were published separately in their own volume. So, let’s talk about the four.

The book opens with “The Stillborn Heritage” by Elizabeth Boyer. The story begins by showing us a young boy spying on the birth of his cousin. As the title suggests, she’s stillborn. But the herbwoman, who has an ill look to her, has what appears to be a woman in a bottle that she gives to the baby. And then…the baby lives.

The main plot is about how the Stillborn (there’s others) are needed to protect something of the Old Ones in the Waste from a new Alizonian invasion, decades later. Or at least, that’s what drives the story in the third part. What the story is actually about I have a lot more trouble with. It’s about how Mal, the young boy, and Aislinn, the Stillborn girl, grow up as best friends and have a clear romantic interest. And I’m just…they’re first cousins. Ew.

Then there’s “Stormbirds” by C.J. Cherryh. And this is just more proof for me that short lengths are not her strength. I mean, I loved Sunfall, but that was a unified collection of stories. Sure, this one is part of Witch World, but Cherryh isn’t Norton and I’m still not entirely certain what happens in some parts. I like a lot of Cherryh’s work, but that doesn’t mean I’ve liked everything and her short fiction is where she falls flattest for me.

I suppose I should mention it’s also set in the Dales, this time during the original Alizonian invasion. And our protagonist tries to protect a young woman he happens across, and then finds himself in the unexpected care of an Estcarpian witch and her Hound. I just feel like…I needed more explanation at various points.

I know it’s Witch World, but when I saw Meredith Ann Pierce’s title “Rampion”, my first thought was, of course, Rapunzel. And…yeah, that’s not an unfair comparison. Our protagonist is the daughter of a lord who wishes he was more than he is, and she herself is hemmed in by propriety and expectations in the hopes of being married off to a wealthy Dales lord.

There’s no theft of a baby though. But that’s not what makes the Rapunzel story, now is it? Rather it’s the tower, and while the girl isn’t trapped in the literal tower, she is still trapped. This was a better story than the first two.

Finally we end on “Falcon Law” by Judith Tarr, and I’m so glad I read Lore of the Witch World just before this book because this particular story is a direct sequel to “Falcon Blood”. The protagonists of that tale found Salzarat, the ancient home of the Falconers, and cleansed it of Jonkara for once and for all. Now, several years later, the place is a Falconer home once more and, amazingly enough, we actually get to see inside the Eyrie.

Specifically, we see a group of young men, preparing to be tested and hopefully be chosen by a falcon. Except, our protagonist has a secret. A big one. She’s no man.

It’s easy to see why this tale ends the book; it’s by far the strongest (and least controversial in modern day) and best of the lot. There’s even, at one point, a moment where our heroine confesses that she doesn’t like women, implying to her Brother that he faces a gay man, and he simply accepts this. And it brings about a true conclusion to the story of the Falconers that has been seen here and there throughout the Witch World series.

You cannot properly appreciate “Falcon Law” if you haven’t read “Falcon Blood”, nor if you don’t truly understand what place the Falconers have in the Witch World. It’s not enough to know that most Witch World stories are romances, and that if a Falconer is a male lead, he’ll end up forsaking his people’s laws against women for love. You have to see how dismissively and casually cruel the Falconers can and have been to women, simply for what they are. You have to know the context. And with that context…this story is amazing.

Four from the Witch World is definitely a mixed bag. But it has its place and is worthwhile for that final tale alone. Certainly I’m glad I went and got myself a copy.

As I’ve said for some time, all of the remaining volumes have more than one piece inside. As such, I think I may take another brief break, read a novel before returning to Witch World. Sometimes I can read anthology after anthology in a row, sometimes not. And I think I’m still recovering from last week, so a break sounds nice. Never fear, the Witch World adventure will be finished well before the end of the month. And then…then I can really turn my attention back to the Pile. And order more books. Mmm…books.

Predecessors and Inspirations

I had planned on reading a novel today. I even had one in mind. I pulled it off the shelf, considered the synopsis, and put it back. And drew out an anthology that just seemed to be calling my name.

When I went to Windy City Pulp & Paper a couple weeks ago, I picked up a number of books. But before I came back home, I stopped at the Half Price a mile or two down the way from the con. It’s not one I visit as regularly as some of the others so I figured I might as well.

They didn’t have much for me this time, but I did find a few anthologies. One in particular I barely glanced at before determining I absolutely had to have it. Edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, whose novels I’ve been reading recently, it’s called Women of Futures Past. If you can’t guess the subject matter, I’ll tell you that some of the author names on the front cover include Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, and Ursula K. Le Guin. If you’re still lost, well, it’s an anthology of science fiction stories by women.

The introduction is an essay called “Invisible Women” by Rusch and I knew as I got into it that this book was going to be every bit as much an education as Paula Guran’s Swords Against Darkness. Women of Futures Past exists as proof that from the dawn of science fiction as a popular genre (IE the pulp era), women have been a part of it. As writers, editors, publishers, and readers, women have always been here. There’s a common misconception that women were rare before 2000, or 1970, depending on your perception. And it’s true that many of the anthologies celebrating older works tend to republish mostly male authors. But that doesn’t change the fact that women were there.

The point of the book was to raise awareness of those who have gone before, proof that there never were any barricades to bust down, and to get some of these short stories back into print. Rusch does admit in her essay that the volume is light on women of color and other marginalized groups. (She also notes she had intended to include an Octavia Butler story but there were…difficulties. So she tells readers what story it was, where it was most recently published, and where it would slot in to her anthology.) Regardless, the book does what it sets out to do and I learned quite a bit from this introductory essay as well as the biographical blurbs preceding each tale.

Really, I think this kind of essay is what the introduction to Dark Angels, the lesbian vampire anthology, was trying to be. That got bogged down in talking about goddess worship and the dark female aspects of it, trying to discuss the symbolism of vampires. Rusch’s essay, by contrast, is very transparent and open. And while it’s highly educational, it’s also very much the story of why and how the anthology came to be; something I always find interesting. It’s a rare essay that I can imagine reading on its own, but this is one of those.

I had never heard of Zenna Henderson before, nor her People stories like “The Indelible Kind”. They are, as Rusch writes, “alien among us” tales. What I found much more interesting was the author’s history, and I had to wonder if the one room schoolhouse of this story was based on a real place she taught. I don’t know that I’d seek out more of Henderson’s work specifically, but I wouldn’t object to turning her up in future anthologies.

I was slightly disappointed to find “The Smallest Dragonboy” was Anne McCaffrey’s representative story. I’ve read it before and multiple times. Oh I understand – she’s most famous for her Pern books after all – but I would have preferred to have something less mainstream spotlighted. The woman was prolific, and she wrote quite a few stories. I still like this one, I just wanted something I didn’t know so well.

Nancy Kress is next with “Out of All Them Bright Stars”. It’s a very small, self-contained story. Our narrator is a waitress in a crappy diner, presumably in the fifties or sixties. And an alien walks in. It’s a story that makes you think about human nature, human tendencies.

Then we get to “Angel” by Pat Cadigan. The story gives you the feeling of true understanding being just out of reach as the meaning slowly sinks in. It gave me an odd feeling, but I think I liked it.

When I saw C.J. Cherryh’s story “Cassandra”, my first thought was the Greek myth. She’s the prophetess whom no one believes. I’m pretty sure this story is a modern retelling, although it’s presented differently. I don’t think Alis actually understands what she’s seeing, and because of those sights she leads a fearful and limited existence. Her choices seem akin to someone disabled or on the spectrum, though I won’t presume to guess. As interpretations go, I really like it and I think it’s aged well in the forty-some years since it was first published.

“Shambleau” is the oldest story in the book, having first appeared in 1933. I was slightly disappointed because, while I’ve read this and all of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Jorey stories, I’ve not read anything else from the woman. I was also disappointed because I’d had part of the twist spoiled from me simply because of the anthology I first read the tale in. It was a themed anthology, to say the least.

On the other hand, I did learn something today from rereading “Shambleau”. See, there’s a moment when the protagonist sings a bit to himself, a song called The Green Hills of Earth. I know a song by that name, written by Heinlein as part of his own short story. But when I looked it up to confirm, I learned that Heinlein wrote the song and story because he’d read “Shambleau”. Which just made everything fall perfectly into place and also emphasizes how unimportant gender is when considering great literature.

I had recognized Leigh Brackett’s name before reading “The Last Days of Shandakor”. She’s shown up in some other anthologies. But I had no idea she was one of the screenwriters for The Empire Strikes Back, something that is apparently what many know her best for. This particular tale is another set on Mars, as viewed through the eyes of an Earthman. Specifically a planetary anthropologist. So when he sees a man enter a bar who is subsequently ignored and shunned, he becomes curious.

I knew I’d read “All Cats are Gray” before; I have a large collection of Andre Norton’s short fiction and I’d be surprised to find any short stories that are missing. But I didn’t remember it. Which at least made for an enjoyable read, especially the reveal at the end.

I’ve never had a notable interest in Lois McMaster Bujold, despite several people recommending her work. However, “Aftermaths” is a story I’d happily suggest to others. Rusch notes that it is set within the world of a larger series, but I don’t think you really need that context to understand this story. This may be the most touching story in the collection.

“The Last Flight of Doctor Ain” is a story I have to consider more carefully. Not just for the plot, which I had guessed at and is, well, let’s just say a number of people today would agree with it over fifty years later. But because it’s by James Tiptree, Jr., also known by her legal name Alice Sheldon. If you read my blog post on Boundaries and Bridges, the WisCon essay collection, you’ll know that the feminist convention recently renamed the Tiptree Award to Otherwise. There’s reasons for that, which I won’t get into, but the end result is that I’m going to treat any and all of Tiptree’s work the way I do Orson Scott Card’s. That is to say, I’ll take each piece on its own, decide whether or not I liked it, and whether or not the strength of the story outweighs the controversies and politics surrounding the author. In this particular case, they come out fairly even.

Ursula Le Guin’s story is “Sur”, something I’m grateful for. Rusch admits that she had originally intended to use “Semley’s Necklace”, which I’ve read and remember fairly well. Instead I got treated to an alternate history wherein a group of nine women decided to be the first humans to visit the South Pole. Because they could. And they were ordinary women; wives and mothers and the sort. It’s a fascinating tale.

The book ends with “Fire Watch” by Connie Willis. I’ve read one of her stories before, but I had not realized that she holds the record for most Hugo awards won. Not by a woman, just in general. Or at least, she did when this anthology was published in 2016. I doubt that anyone has bested her in the past five years, since Rusch says after Willis’ eleven, the next best was eight for Harlan Ellison and only if you include his Star Trek screenplay win instead of limiting the number to pure writing.

“Fire Watch” is a time travel story. A young man opens the tale by frantically preparing for his practicum, the final step of becoming a historian. As such, he’s going to be sent to London during the Blitz. Specifically to St. Paul’s. He’ll have to survive three months in 1940 and he does not want to go. He does, of course, and journals his experiences and thoughts as he’s able. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll learn something.

Even though the anthology is well under three hundred pages, it is packed full of information and well-written stories. I am so glad that I picked it up and I will strongly recommend it to anyone interested in science fiction and female authors. No, it’s not the be-all, end-all for either, but it’s a good gateway or even just a good representation of notable women who have written science fiction over the decades. It should be noted that Rusch deliberately did not consider anything published past 2000 (worth noting the newest story was from 1987). This was no slight, but simply pointing out the conception of decades when female science fiction authors were considered rare.

All in all, an excellent showcase and one I’m pleased to own. I doubt that tomorrow’s book, whatever it may be, will top it. But that’s okay. Not every book hits it out of the park.

There’s Some Swords in this Book

I do appreciate my nerdy and geeky friends. I said yesterday that I now have nineteen out of twenty Sword and Sorceress volumes as created and edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. And this was not a lie. However, I have since been informed that the series continued after her death with other editors and there are currently thirty-four volumes in all. This explains my being positive that I saw a volume XXIII somewhere, something I wrote off over the weekend as being my imagination. For the time being, my main focus will be on securing the volume I’m missing from the first lot, although if I see one of the later fourteen I will strongly consider spending the money. Given my hesitance with this series in the past, I can’t say how often I’ve seen later books on shelves, but I do not have any memory of seeing them in the past couple years. Of course, what with my failure to haunt any bookstores out of my immediate purview for the past year, that may not mean too much. So I guess once things are safer (trust me, we’re not there yet despite the increasing number of people vaccinated) I’ll have something else to add to my mental “look out” list.

I used to write it down. I really did. But that became unwieldly and frankly, if I can’t remember it off the top of my head when I’m in the store, looking at the books, it must not have been very important. It’s okay if I pull out my phone to determine if I do or don’t have that specific Andre Norton book (I have enough of them and from such a variety of incomplete series that this is necessary when looking at her novels), but I refuse to keep an actual list of things I’m missing. Actually, with most authors and series I collect, it’s easier to check and see if I have a book, rather than try to keep up a list of what I don’t. Especially since the only books not in my database are in my Pile or Sword and Sorceress. This series I’d normally keep in the Pile and shelve each when I completed them, but they’re such a chunk and it’s enough of a pain in the ass to move the anthologies around that I felt it would be much easier if I just shelved them to start with. But I know which are unread because I’m not adding volume or stories to my database until I’ve read them. A little silly? Maybe. But now that I have this nice set of stories, I have no plans to give them up.

As I implied yesterday, today I continued the series with Sword and Sorceress II, the second installment. There are, as expected, several repeat authors and some of them have contributed new tales with the same characters as before. Others have completely unrelated stories. And many authors are new to the books, to publishing, or to me. I was surprised by how many of these writers were not already in my database, and I appreciate Bradley’s efforts to bring fresh blood into the collection.

Phyllis Ann Karr starts things off for the second volume in a row with “A Night at Two Inns”, another Frostflower and Thorn tale. In fact, this story directly follows the events of my last encounter with the characters, telling of where they went after Dathru’s keep. In this case, they find themselves in the grip of winter, with a choice of two inns. You know the logic problem of the two statues (gargoyles/goblins/whatever) where one only lies and the other only tells the truth? Like that. I don’t know how common the trope was thirty years ago, so I can’t say if this would have been less predictable then. Aside from that, the story is fine.

“The Red Guild” by Rachel Pollack is my only reread for this volume. I originally read it in, aptly enough, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology and it was pretty memorable there too. Although I’m not sure that the tale will stand up to repeated rereads. It’s good, yes, but it just doesn’t feel like something I’m inclined to return to again and again. So, worth reading, but maybe not rereading as often as I could, given that this is my second copy.

Diana Paxson’s contribution “Shadow Wood” is another Shanna story. But where last time she went back and wrote Shanna’s first tale, this is clearly much later on the timeline of adventures. So it’s no surprise that Bradley’s blurb discusses how Paxson had started work on a Shanna novel when the call for submissions went out. This particular tale is interesting in that I think it works well in its length, but I can see how easily this story alone could be expanded into a full-length novel, Shanna’s other escapades notwithstanding.

“Unicorn’s Blood” is Bruce Arthurs taking what we know about unicorns and slanting it sideways. It’s the sort of story that could lead into more…but it doesn’t have to. And it might be best without sequels on second thought. Once he subverted the trope, I wasn’t truly certain where we’d go and that was a nice feeling.

I had mixed feelings about seeing C.J. Cherryh’s name here. Her strong point is science fiction, not fantasy, and I’ve had mixed feelings about her short fiction. Trust her to put together a powerfully bare bones tale that gently leads you into understanding what she’s doing. “The Unshadowed Land” is less than eight full pages long, but it really doesn’t need any more to grip you powerfully.

“Shimenege’s Mask” is another Dossouye story by Charles Saunders. As a reminder, that means its inspired by African cultures and written by someone I presume to be white and therefore I have questions but I am trying to let the tale speak for itself. And it’s not bad. Although that ending. That…that I did not expect and makes everything far more compelling than I could have dreamed.

Stephen Burns also brought back a character from last volume. Now in “The Black Tower” we see what I think might be an earlier adventure of Clea’s, although it isn’t actually clear when the two tales take place in relation to each other. And we get to see things through her eyes this time, instead of her male partner-of-the-tale. Actually, the partner in this case defies the gender binary and is best referred to with they/them pronouns, but that’s besides the point. Either way, it’s a very interesting look at what a bold and determined young woman can accomplish, even when she’s got nothing but her wits.

The blurb doesn’t make it clear if “The Lady and the Tiger”, Jennifer Roberson’s story, is also part of her Cheysuli world. If it is, no Cheysuli shapechangers are involved and this takes place far from their lands. If it isn’t, well, that’s no big deal. This tale isn’t as engaging as the last. It falls into a trope – not one of your standard ones keyed to the presence of women – and it’s not one I care for. I suppose it’s written well enough despite that.

Deborah Wheeler did not submit a second story in the world of the first. “Fireweb” is something completely different and I found myself enjoying it. It’s very much a young adult tale, of someone having to learn a Great Lesson, but there’s so many worse versions. The short story length is an advantage here, because Wheeler doesn’t get bogged down in details or interpersonal relationships the way far too many YA novels do today.

Then we come to “Cold Blows the Wind”, a short and biting tale by Charles de Lint. Also this was one of the stories in this book that made me remember that there’s a fantasy trope of red-haired women. No, I’m not kidding. Redheads aren’t super common in most of the world and for some reason they’ve become overused in fantasy in particular. I don’t know if it was as obvious in the eighties as it is now, but I definitely had alarm bells going off about this trope by the time I got to this story, which I think is the third in this book to star a redhead. The story is good, but I wish he’d changed her hair color. Especially because, unless I overlooked it, he only mentions her hair color once, at the very end. Which only served to make it more obvious than it would have been if he’d never included it at all.

Dana Kramer-Rolls’ story “Sword of the Mother” is fairly basic in concept. A swordsmith makes what will probably be the best sword of her career. Why? Because it’s for her former lover. I do appreciate how many lesbian and gay pairings are shown or alluded to in these tales. Especially because there’s rarely a stigma attached, which is just wonderful. The story also includes glimpses into the smith’s past as well as snapshots of her present, though those mostly revolve around making the sword.

I was fully prepared for “Hunger” by Russ Garrison to go darker than it did. To the point that, when the story ended, I felt somewhat bereft and disappointed. Was the author afraid to go there? Or did he always intend to end on a more lighthearted note? Because, frankly, that ending just…doesn’t really work with the rest of the story. He either needed more levity in the rest of the tale, or a darker ending. I’ll cut some slack given that this was his first sale, but I’m not so sure Bradley called it right in her blurb. She says she thinks that writers who start with something more humorous last longer and, well, I’ve never heard of Garrison before. Nor seen his name. Nor read anything else he’s written. And while this story’s got some good ideas…if he didn’t improve his execution, it’s no wonder I’ve seen nothing else from him.

Elizabeth Thompson’s piece might be the best in the entire book. It’s also the shortest. Entitled “On First Looking Into Bradley’s Guidelines or Stories I Don’t Want to Read Either”, it is a poem briefly explaining why she agrees with the list of “no-nos” that went out with the call for submissions to Sword and Sorceress II. Given my own frustrations with tropes and repeated ideas and nothing new being added, I fully support the idea of Bradley’s list and even more the fact that Thompson broke just about all the rules and was accepted anyway with this piece.

“The Chosen Maiden” by Raul Reyes does humor well, in contrast to the earlier story. Our protagonist is certain she’s dragon-bait in the upcoming lottery, and tries desperately to find someone willing to take her virginity before then. How she avoids being eaten is rather entertaining and not one of the solutions I’ve seen before, which makes it even better.

Richard Corwin is another newbie author (there are a large number of first-time contributors here, as I’ve said) and his “Red Pearls” is not what I’d consider a happy tale. It’s not a matter of a happy ending or anything, but rather the thought of “why is this story taking place”. It’s a testament to human nature, and its darker side, and I’m not sure I’m able to enjoy the story because of it. It’s written in a folktale style and is well done, sure, but I just think the entire concept is a sad commentary. No good can come of what happens here.

“The Wound in the Moon” is the final tale of the volume, from yet another newcomer, Vera Nazarian. Bradley also notes Vera was the youngest contributor in the book, only eighteen at the time of publication. And I can see why she would’ve been very excited. This is a Middle Eastern flavored tale of power and patience, of love and life. I was never entirely certain what to expect, which only added to my interest. And it’s well done. I do have to wonder what her original submission was, rejected for being twice the length of this tale. I’ve not seen her name before, but I do hope I’ll turn it up again.

And that’s Sword and Sorceress II. I’d say that yes, these are still fairly good stories, although with the sheer number of first time authors I did note a number that weren’t as good as they could have been with more experience. I was also grateful that there weren’t too many repeat authors telling additional tales with the same characters as before, if only because Valdemar has wholly soured me on the idea. This volume definitely ranks behind Sword and Sorceress I, and I’m not sure if I’ll be continuing the series tomorrow or not. Frankly, I might be ready for a shift, but I honestly don’t know what I want to read. I’ll have to sleep on that and return to the question in the morning. But I feel like a sci-fi novel might be a good change of pace. We’ll see.