A review by kjcharles
Sword and Sonnet by Aidan Doyle, Tony Pi, Margo Lanagan, Kira Lees, A.C. Wise, Malon Edwards, Spencer Ellsworth, Hayley Stone, Samantha Henderson, Anya Ow, Carlie St. George, C.S.E. Cooney, Rachael K. Jones, Setsu Uzume, Victoria Sandbrook, E. Catherine Tobler, A.E. Prevost, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Alex Acks, Cassandra Khaw, A. Merc Rustad, S.L. Huang, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Ingrid Garcia, Suzanne J. Willis, Matt Dovey
An anthology about women and nonbinary battle poets. I wondered if this might end up being a bit samey, given the highly specific brief, but it has stories by Cassandra Khaw and Alex Acks/Alex Wells so one click, and it was excellent. There are a lot of variations on similar themes--word magic and the silencing of women's voices in particular--but it's prevented from feeling repetitive in large part because of the diversity of the authors. There are a *lot* of different cultures and backgrounds here (and tons of queer rep) which means the stories go off in all sorts of fascinating directions using different histories, mythologies and approaches in the fantasy ones, and ranging from deeply emotional and fable-like to rock hard SF at the more SF end.
Far more hits than misses (any anthology that has more than 1/3 hits is doing pretty damn well in my book); I particularly liked Matt Dovey's bear bone-poet, Samantha Henderson's horrifying tale of a doctor inadvertently calling on a god, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali's abused woman turning into a storm, and Alex Acks' Siren, about a dying human who merges with a war robot, but I could name a lot more. Recommended.
Far more hits than misses (any anthology that has more than 1/3 hits is doing pretty damn well in my book); I particularly liked Matt Dovey's bear bone-poet, Samantha Henderson's horrifying tale of a doctor inadvertently calling on a god, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali's abused woman turning into a storm, and Alex Acks' Siren, about a dying human who merges with a war robot, but I could name a lot more. Recommended.