Reviews tagging 'Death'

Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices by Jenn Northington, Swapna Krishna

3 reviews

hanna's review

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emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

Above all, this was a mess. Some of the stories were truly spectacular — Mayday by Headley managed to get me SO invested in reading a simple list of objects and when Plummer publishes her first romcom, I'll be there at midnight buying a copy. But most of the other stories were either too short (not related to length but really ALL of the stories should've been like...1-2 pgs. longer), too long or simply way too removed from the Arthurian legends to be put into this book. News flash: Just because you make something race-bend or queer, that doesn't automatically make it a fantastic retelling. As other reviewers have said, I would have loved some short afterwords by the authors on their pieces.
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rorikae's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

'Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices' edited by Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington is an exciting short story anthology that focuses on retellings of King Arthur mythology through a variety of lenses. The anthology is broken up into three sections: Past, which are all more fantastical tales closer in style to the original myths, Present, which are set in our current times or the more recent past, and Future, which put a sci-fi spin on the myths. It features a great collection of authors that span genres and backgrounds, which created an anthology that spans a myriad of approaches to a classic myth. I liked almost all of the stories and the few that I didn't like as much came back to stories that took an incredibly loose interpretation of the myth or felt as if the mythological elements were not the backbone of the story. The majority of these stories are incredible. A few personal favorites include 'Passing Fair and Young' by Roshani Chokshi, 'I Being Young and Foolish' by Nisi Shawl, and 'Do, By All Due Means' by Sive Doyle. My absolute favorite story in the anthology is 'Mayday' by Maria Dahvana Headley, which uses the items found abandoned on an island as a way to tell a retelling of the Arthur myth in 19th century America.
If you have any interest in King Arthur mythology and retellings, you really must pick up this anthology. 
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ehmannky's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

This book was so great! It's hard for me to find anthologies where I like the majority of the stories in a book, but this one was so good! A few of them were kind of meh, but for the most part they were so fun and innovative and just...a good play on Arthuriana in general. 
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