A review by caseythecanadianlesbrarian
Beyond: the Queer Sci-Fi & Fantasy Comic Anthology, by Ted Closson, Savannah Horrocks, April J. Martins, Lin Visel, K. Copeland, Taneka Stotts, Bevan Thomas, Anissa Espinosa, B. Sabo, Joseph Bergin III, Dylan Edwards, Leia Weathington, Wm Brian MacLean, Rachel Dukes, Kiku Hughes, Niki Smith, Nicasio Andres Reed, Christianne Goudreau, Kate Ebensteiner, Jon Cairns, Shing Yin Khor, Chenoa Gao, Sfé R. Monster, Alison Wilgus, Blue Delliquanti, Kori Michele, Dave C. Mahler, Reed Black, Gabby Reed, A. Stiffler, Kristina Stipetic
4.0
I was super pumped about this book, which unfortunately let me down somewhat. The cover is fucking gorgeous, though; that didn't disappoint me. I guess that's the thing with all anthologies--it's hard for them not to be hit or miss. There are a few Canadian authors in here (one with Indigenous / two-spirit content, although the authors' bios don't identify themselves as Indigenous so I don't know if it's #ownvoices or not) but none of the Cdns were my favourites. There is substantial POC content in here, so that is pretty awesome! Ones I loved were:
- The Next Day by Stiffler and Copeland: dystopian world in perpetual night, two guys fall in love
- They Simply Pass by Kristina Stipetic: women robot society with an unusual same-sex reproductive system and one robot who is rebelling against her role--probably my absolute favourite in the collection
- The Valley of the Silk Sky by Dylan Edwards: totally cool world building that was futuristic but fantasy at the same time, gender neutral beings, scary monsters, and funny inter-species dialogue
- The Monster Queen by Horrocks and Martins: I lie, one of these creators is Cdn. A princess falls in love with the monster. No words! It's awesome.
I guess my problem with the rest of them, is that aside from amazing drawings (with the exception of a couple whose visuals I didn't like) a lot of the other stories weren't really... stories. They didn't have much of a narrative or it dropped you right in the middle of one and you had no idea what was going on. Underdevelopment is the worst, because sometime you can even see the potential! A few stories I literally had to re-read right after I finished it because I was like, WTF just happened? Did anything happen? I know SF/F can be hard to create in a short space because you don't have a lot of room for world-building, but you have illustrations people! And some of the stories did succeed in telling a great narrative in the pages allotted, so it's clearly possible.
Some of these I felt might have made sense if I was familiar with the creators' web comics or other publications. Blue Dellaquanti's piece, for example, refers to her O Human Star series which I fucking loved. But I read the excerpt in here before the first print volume and was kinda lukewarm because the story had no arc and no context. Now I see that it's a backstory to a main character and totally like it more. Editors: you can't assume the readers will have read the creators' other work; it should stand on its own!
I was gonna review this for my blog but decided not to as there's not enough Cdn content that I want to talk about.
- The Next Day by Stiffler and Copeland: dystopian world in perpetual night, two guys fall in love
- They Simply Pass by Kristina Stipetic: women robot society with an unusual same-sex reproductive system and one robot who is rebelling against her role--probably my absolute favourite in the collection
- The Valley of the Silk Sky by Dylan Edwards: totally cool world building that was futuristic but fantasy at the same time, gender neutral beings, scary monsters, and funny inter-species dialogue
- The Monster Queen by Horrocks and Martins: I lie, one of these creators is Cdn. A princess falls in love with the monster. No words! It's awesome.
I guess my problem with the rest of them, is that aside from amazing drawings (with the exception of a couple whose visuals I didn't like) a lot of the other stories weren't really... stories. They didn't have much of a narrative or it dropped you right in the middle of one and you had no idea what was going on. Underdevelopment is the worst, because sometime you can even see the potential! A few stories I literally had to re-read right after I finished it because I was like, WTF just happened? Did anything happen? I know SF/F can be hard to create in a short space because you don't have a lot of room for world-building, but you have illustrations people! And some of the stories did succeed in telling a great narrative in the pages allotted, so it's clearly possible.
Some of these I felt might have made sense if I was familiar with the creators' web comics or other publications. Blue Dellaquanti's piece, for example, refers to her O Human Star series which I fucking loved. But I read the excerpt in here before the first print volume and was kinda lukewarm because the story had no arc and no context. Now I see that it's a backstory to a main character and totally like it more. Editors: you can't assume the readers will have read the creators' other work; it should stand on its own!
I was gonna review this for my blog but decided not to as there's not enough Cdn content that I want to talk about.