Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Length: 336 pages
Format: eARC
Rating: 4 stars
Publication Date: August 8th 2017
Publisher’s description
Book Review
Tne New Voices of Fantasy is an anthology collecting all sorts of fantastical tales by new(er) fantasy authors: all the stories present in this anthology were previously published in several venues in the last few years You probably have read or at least heard about some of the authors featured in this anthology such as Max Gladstone, Alyssa Wong, Hannu Rajaniemi, Usman T. Malikin, they are all fairly new authors (even if some have been published a lot of things in the last five years) and this anthology is great opportunity to discover really interesting works by auhtors new to you!
This anthology is composed of very different types of fantasy and all the authors here have their own style and stories to tell but, even each short was different from one another, I really enjoyed how well The New Voices of Fantasy flowed . I enjoyed most of the stories which is not always an easy feat for me and I discovered or re-discovered amazing stories. If you think fantasy is only about elves, trolls and witches, you will be impressed to see how extraordinary diversed this collection of stories is. If the future of the genre is sampled in this book, we are in for a treat!
★★★★
Table of Content & Individual Reviews
“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong – ★★★★ – RE-READ
Well, this is now the third time I read this story and the third time I talk about it on my blog! It follows the story of a girl who uses Tinder in order to find the worst dates possibles and feed off their impure thoughts. Until the day her date isn’t a petty criminal but an actual murderer, the one thing her mom warned her against: once your tasted those thoughts, you can’t go back.
I have to say that this story is not the most re-readable story, it is very good but, the third time I was a bit bored since I knew and remembered all the twists and turns. However, I am still glad this story is featured here since it is a very interesting story and I really admire Alyssa Wong’s writing. It’s definitely a great opener (and even more so if it’s the first time you read it!).
“Selkie Stories are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar – ★★★★
This tale is a mesh of stories all focused on the selkie’s myth, creatures able to shed their skins to turn into humans. The writing of this story was amazing and I really enjoyed the quiet and eerie tone of this story. I was a bit confused at the beginning but after a few pages, I was hooked. I definitely need to read more of Samatar’s works (short fiction and novels!).
“Tornado’s Siren” by Brooke Bolander – ★★1/2
It’s a story of a tornado falling in love with a teenage girl. It had a light hearted tone but I found it a bit underwhelming as a whole.
“Left the Century to Sit Unmoved” by Sarah Pinsker – ★★★★
Set in village where a local pond has the bad habit of swallowing people, we follow a group of teenagers as they try to overcome several of their problems, it is a very short but powerful story about love and grief.
“A Kiss with Teeth” by Max Gladstone – ★★★★★ – RE-READ
This modern retelling of Vlad the Impaler follow him as he is trying to live a normal and boring life raising his kid as well as he can while controlling his vampire urges (such as draining of blood his son’s schoolteacher). This was also a re-read and I loved this story as much as the first time, everything about this story worked for me, the writing, the tone, the pacing and the characters were all exactly to my taste! I really need to seek out more stories by Gladstone.
“Jackalope Wives” by Ursula Vernon – ★★★★
This short story is a whimsical tale about jackalopes, creatures able to turn into beautiful girls. Of course, many mens desire them as they are inacessible and magical, however, the only way to caught them is to steal their rabbit coats to force them to remain in their human forms. Jackalope Wives follows the story of such a trapped creature and it is heartbreacking and beautifully written. It was the second Ursula Vernon’s story I read and I really need to read her other works!
“The Cartographer Wasps and Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu – ★★★★
This story follows the interactions between bees and wasps and how one oppress the other, all of this caused by human interventions. I can’t say that I understood everything about this story by the writing was gorgeous and I would have a read an entire book about the subject.
“The Practical Witch’s Guide to Acquiring Real Estate” by A. C. Wise – ★★ 1/2
The Practical Witch’s Guide to Acquiring Real Estate is exactly what it clamied to be: a section by section guide on how to acquire a house when you are a witch! It was lighthearted but a lot of jokes fell a bit flat for me. Compared to the other stories of this collection, this was underwhelming.
“The Tallest Doll in New York City” by Maria Dahvana Headley – ★★
Set in a New York where all the buildings can move on their own, this little story follows the love affair between the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. This story left me a bit indifferent, it might have grabbed my interest more if I could visualize this version of New York better but the first half of the story confused me a lot and after that, I just didn’t care. However, it might just be a personal thing, I have read a few other reviews of this anthology is this story seems to be the favorite of everyone so take that with a grain of salt.
“The Haunting of Apollo A7LB” by Hannu Rajaniemi – ★★★★
A woman has to deal with her dead lover when his old spacesuit comes knocking at her door.This very ell written short story deals with important topics such as love, living our dreams and gender discrimination.
“Here Be Dragons” by Chris Tarry – ★★★
Following two losers who gain money by pretenting to be dragonslayers, this story had very interesting discussions on parenthood. It is probably the most “typical” fantasy story of this collection as it is set in a clearly secondary world and it features classic elements such as dragons and quests. However, it was really interesting to see how the tropes were reversed in this story.
“The One They Took Before” by Kelly Sandoval – ★★★
A woman cannot stop herself from investing all the magical things happening around her and we are here to find out why. This story is about grief, love and finding yourself back after a traumatizing experience. It would have worked better for me if it had been longer because I would have preferred to have some information delivered more slowly but I still liked this story.
“Tiger Baby” by JY Yang – ★★★ 1/2
Felicity has always seen herself as tiger trapped in the wrong body and her boring human life is slowly driving her insane. This story is about dreams and following them in a world where no one want you to be truly yourself. I have mixed feelings about this story, I liked the fact that the main protagonist is middle aged since usually those stories target younger characters but at the same time I had issues connecting with this protagonist as she was pretty unlikeable and crazy. But still, it was an interesting story and I’m glad I read it, I usually like JY Yang’s stories so it was nice to see one of their stories in this anthology.
“The Duck” by Ben Loory – ★★★★
The Duck is the shortest story of the anthology, it’s a couple of pages long and it follows a duck who is in love with a rock. This was a delight to read even if I’d say half of it went over my head, the writing was gorgeous and since I never heard of Ben Loory, I am very glad for the discovery!
“Wing” by Amal El-Mohtar – ★★★★
The more I read Amal El-Mohtar’s works, the more I admire her. Her writing is something from an another world, I swear to god, I don’t know how she does it. This little piece is about secrets and trust and you should read it.
“The Philosophers” by Adam Ehrlich Sachs – ★★★
This is a collection of three separate stories about fathers and sons. It was interesting but I don’t have a lot of things to say about them since I mostly forgot the details of each mini stories. I do remember that the writing was good though so there is that.
“My Time Among the Bridge Blowers” by Eugene Fischer – ★★
A tale about colonialism that could have been much more interesting of the main character wasn’t such a self-centered idiot. It was obviously done on purpose but reading from this perspective wasn’t fun at all and I was bored from the start which is a shame since the themes of this story were pretty interesting.
“The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado – ★★★★★ – RE-READ
This was my second time reading this phenomenal story and it left me in tears like the first time. I don’t even want to say what this story is about because I think it would spoil the pleasure but it is about life and expectations put on women since their birth, it’s about of the society shapes you, consent, motherhood and the freedom to be who you want. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
“The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” by Usman T. Malik – ★★★★★ – RE-READ
Following a man who grew up listening to his grandpa’s tales about princessed, jinns and eucalyptus trees, this novella is a powerful story of love, between lovers, family members and to your home. Highly recommended.
