caseythecanadianlesbrarian's review against another edition
4.0
I was pretty excited to pick up the anthology The Collection, which brings together quite the diverse group of writers all creating narratives, to paraphrase editors Tom Leger and Riley Macleod, featuring trans characters as protagonists, rather than comic relief, or a character used as a tool to further the plot of a cisgender main character. The Collection aims to present trans characters as agents of their own destiny. This anthology has been a long time coming, and a fantastic venue for up-and-coming trans writers, although MacLeod and Leger are explicit in that they “did not police the genders of the authors themselves, and as of the date of publication have not formally inquired about their chromosomes, their genitals, or how many trucks/dresses they own.”...
See the full review at my website: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/black-holes-tim-hortons-chat-rooms-and-competitive-eating-just-a-taste-of-the-random-awesomeness-that-is-the-trans-fiction-anthology-the-collection/
See the full review at my website: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/black-holes-tim-hortons-chat-rooms-and-competitive-eating-just-a-taste-of-the-random-awesomeness-that-is-the-trans-fiction-anthology-the-collection/
joans's review against another edition
4.0
I'm glad that this book exists, and some of the stories were wonderful. It felt like a wonderful bit of insight into how trans people see themselves in the world. Many of the stories were forgettable, though some were remarkably good/interesting/memorable.
jeninmotion's review against another edition
3.0
I had to abandon about 2/3rds of the way through. I think Casey Plett's story was hot, I like K. Tait Jarboe's, I liked Ryka Aoki's story and a couple others, but this is an incredibly uneven (and sort of badly copy-edited) collection, it was hard to be into it.
becleighton's review against another edition
2.0
This was an incredibly uneven anthology, and I was a bit surprised at how dreadful so much of it was considering Topside Press's stellar later record.
There are some I really enjoyed: Imogen Binnie and Casey Plett (of course), Ryka Aoki, Red Durkin, Riley Calais Harris, Cyd Nova, and others in which it was just nice to see some decent representation if it wasn't spectacular. Generally, the stuff by trans women was pretty decent.
But so much of this was just an odd insight into some collective trans dude id: trans dudes with names like "Kant" talking to cis women they call things like "Pussy Chick" (I'm not even making this up), and a wider array of anxious transmasculine Jock Halberslam-esque Lost Boy crap featuring unintentionally terrible characters than I thought I'd ever see in one place. It also could have done with a little less poorly-contextualised experimental work from all sides, from which the second half in particular really suffered.
It was an interesting read and I'm glad that I did read it because there's such a shortage of fiction by trans people, but it meant reading an awful lot of dreck for the gems in the midst of it.
There are some I really enjoyed: Imogen Binnie and Casey Plett (of course), Ryka Aoki, Red Durkin, Riley Calais Harris, Cyd Nova, and others in which it was just nice to see some decent representation if it wasn't spectacular. Generally, the stuff by trans women was pretty decent.
But so much of this was just an odd insight into some collective trans dude id: trans dudes with names like "Kant" talking to cis women they call things like "Pussy Chick" (I'm not even making this up), and a wider array of anxious transmasculine Jock Halberslam-esque Lost Boy crap featuring unintentionally terrible characters than I thought I'd ever see in one place. It also could have done with a little less poorly-contextualised experimental work from all sides, from which the second half in particular really suffered.
It was an interesting read and I'm glad that I did read it because there's such a shortage of fiction by trans people, but it meant reading an awful lot of dreck for the gems in the midst of it.
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