My life in books

Another year, another Valdemarian anthology from Mercedes Lackey. These books are like catnip for me. The collections are sometimes uneven, but Valdemar is a wonderful invention, a rich secondary word with so many different cultures and potential stories, and there’s something about Lackey’s world that I find irresistible.

As usual, there are some stories from longtime contributors, many of them featuring characters we’ve met before and come to appreciate, and some from new writers who’ve never written for Valdemar before. And of course a brand new story by Lackey herself, which answers one of the questions many of us have had about Need - and also makes a strong statement about trans inclusivity. But then, Lackey has always been an LGBT ally, which is probably one of the reasons I feel comfortable with her work.

In fact, Lackey’s story, “Woman’s Need Calls Me,” is my favourite from this collection, which is in fact one of the stronger collections of recent years - there really wasn’t one story that I didn’t enjoy, although some were slight in terms of action and adventure.

Good comfort reading when I needed it.




Note: This anthology contains 18 stories, 16 written by women and two written by men.

On February 8, 2017, SF author Mindy Klasky decided to edit an anthology. She was inspired to do so by the now infamous words used to silence American Senator Elizabeth Warren: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

The anthology that resulted from this decision, Nevertheless She Persisted, published by the Book View Cafe collective and featuring works by some of its members, is a collection of stories that aspired, as Klasky says, to show “...the power of women overcoming challenges, of women persisting against the threat of other people, of society, of their own fears.” It’s also generally enjoyable reading, with one glaring exception that I’ll get to later. I was disappointed that the contributors were, to the best of my knowledge, all white - there are many ways in which women of colour might have given us a broader picture of the persistence of women against the threats of society.

The stories are divided into four sections: the past, the present, the future, and other worlds.

I found all the stories set in the past to be interesting and engaging, from Marie Brennan’s revisiting of the story of Penelope in “Daughter of Necessity,” to Deborah Ross’s portrayal of the persistence of faith among the hidden Jews of Iberia forced to convert to Christianity in “Unmasking the Ancient Light.” “Sister,” Leah Cutter’s poignant story of a young Chinese woman’s desperate quest to find a spirit husband to care for her beloved, departed younger sister was deeply moving, as was an extract from P. G. Nagle’s novel about a passing woman during the American Civil War who decides to enlist. While “Alea Iacta Est” by Marissa Doyle was sheer fun - an Englishwoman in the early 19th century who decides to take part in a contest of table top war gaming at her brother’s club, whether it ruins her socially or not.

I was less engaged in many of the stories set in the present. Sara Stamey’s depiction of the generational harm done by male anger in the home in “Reset” is painfully real, and Brenda Clough’s “Making Love” is a charming tale about an older woman whose knitting seems to make things just a little better wherever it’s gifted. “Digger Lady” by Amy Sterling Casil is a bittersweet story of an old woman, an archeologist who has spent her life searching for evidence of a new hominid species. I rather enjoyed the themes of Irene Radford’s “Den of Iniquity” in which Lilith, the original rebellious woman, continues her ancient protest against the rigidity of the Father’s demands - though I must note some racist elements in the description and treatment of several characters named but not present.

Two of the four stories in the future section are frankly dystopian, and powerful. Mindy Klasky’s “Tumbling Blocks” tells a deeply moving story set in a world reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale in the way it treats women, a story about a young woman, pregnant by rape and shunned by her community, who finds an underground connection to women who are risking their lives to see that she and others still have access to reproductive choice. In “Chatauqua” Nancy Jane Moore envisions an America wracked by climate change and civil breakdown, where caravans of people with key skills travel the broken roads trying to save dying cultures, educate those who survive, and help however they can. Jennifer Stevenson’s “The Purge” focuses on a more personal trauma, an artist’s response to a visceral nightmare of war. The final story in the section, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s “If It Ain’t Broke” is in a much lighter vein, telling of a serendipitous merging of artistic inspiration and technological innovation.

The final section, other worlds, contains three fantasy and one science fiction stories that mostly continue the theme, but is, I felt, the weakest of the four sections. Judith Tarr’s “Tax Season” was, In my opinion, the best story in this section, and one of the best in the anthology - a light, fantasy world look at traditions, taxes, and being a woman in some rather non-traditional, and not exactly legal, occupations. Vonda McIntyre’s “Little Faces” is a highly original look at trust, betrayal, and reproduction in a symbiotic, space-dwelling society - pushing boundaries on our notions of famiky, sex and society in some very interesting ways. Doranna Durgin’s “In Search of Laria” is a slighter piece, but also centres on a betrayal of trust, this time between a rider, seduced by power, and her horse.

And then there’s Dave Smeds’ “Bearing Shadows,” which simply did not belong in a volume of stories like this. I am, in fact, deeply saddened and angry that the editor decided this story belonged here, for reasons I will expand on at length, because I’m just that angry to have found such a story in this volume. I am going to include extensive spoilers, because if you’re going to read this story, I think you should know exactly what you are getting into.

“Bearing Shadows” is set in a standard medieval fantasy world. The protagonist, a young woman named Aerise, lives in a typical village in a fairly standard patriarchal and moralistic society. In this world, there are humans, and there are the Cursed, elf-like beings who nonetheless can pass for humans, who live for hundreds of years, use magic, and spend half their time in the physical world and the other half in the dreamworld - in fact, they become ill and eventually die if they do not move regularly between the worlds, which has an unfortunate consequence in that their women cannot sustain a pregnancy. Thus, all the Cursed are the offspring of Cursed men and human women. Because the Cursed are feared and ostracised, not many human women are interested in bearing children to Cursed men. But some do, for a fee. These are often women who cannot prosper in a patriarchal society because they are not pretty enough to get a husband, or are disabled in some way, or have run afoul of the social norms - in short, women who are considered damaged goods, not only by humans, but also by the Cursed who depend on them fir the survival of their race. In the story, the Cursed refer to these women as broodmares, speak of them with disgust, refuse to share living space with them because they are dirty. They are depicted in the story in multiple ways as inferior, undesirable, unintelligent, unwanted.

On to the story. Aerise is happily married, enjoys a reasonable social status in her community, has a good life for the most part. She’s lost two children, but she’s pregnant again, and excited about it. Then her belly starts glowing, a sign that she’s carrying a Cursed child. She’s been a faithful wife, but eventually figures out that she was raped and impregnated one night when her husband was supposed to out late, but, she thought, came home early, woke her in the dark and had sex with her. It doesn’t matter, however, to the village folk or her husband that she was raped. She’s bearing a Cursed child, so out into the cold in her shift she must go. Of course, her rapist has been waiting for this. He finds her, convinces her to come with him to a Cursed encampment, and gives her into the care of two Cursed women who will be her child’s mothers. She’s treated somewhat better than the other human women, pregnant and nursing -“broodmares” - also living in the encampment, but not much. Her rapist, Morel, explains that he wanted a child by a better class of woman than he could get by fair negotiation with a broodmare, so this somehow justifies his rape of her. She is not mollified. She gives birth to a daughter, stays with the Cursed long enough to wean her, and then demands her price - her life back. What Morel offers is that he place her in suspended animation for 60 years, and then, pretending to be her husband, take her back to the village she came from, where no one will likely be alive who remembers her, wait til she gets integrated into the community, and then fake his death so she can find a new human husband among the grown grandchildren of the people she grew up among. Pause for a moment. To get back, not her old life, the husband she loved, her friends and family, but a chance at starting over again with people she doesn’t know, she’s going to have to pretend to be the loving wife of her rapist. Think about that. Anyway, she agrees, and the story ends with her being accepted as a young widow, living in her old village, bring courted by some promising young men, with a new chance at life. And she gets to meet her now adolescent daughter by Morel, who is a charming young girl.

This steaming pile of shit purports to be about a woman who persists against rape, and the loss of everything she ever knew and loved, and is rewarded with a second chance at life. But underneath that veneer is a series of justifications for rape. It’s necessary to ensure the survival of the Cursed. It was necessary because Morel didn’t want one of those disgusting second-class broodmares as the mother of his child. It was ok in the end because the child was so lovely, and besides, she got to have another chance to get married and have a normal life. As I said, a steaming pile of crap. There is so much in this story that made me want to scream and break things. There are far too many male perspectives on rape out there, and most of them misogynist as hell. We did not need another one, especially one disguised as a celebration of the persistence of women.

I have a suggestion. I think it’s time that men stopped writing about rape of women and other femmes. The conversation on rape has been controlled by male voices for far too long. Sure, some sensitive and feminist men have gotten it right, but do we really need more men talking about the rape of women and femmes? Time’s up in more ways than one, and more male perspectives on this subject are not needed. Especially those that try to justify it, or come up with ideas of how to make it all right in the end. There’s only one way to do that - stop raping in the first place.

So.... I mostly enjoyed these stories, despite the spectre of white feminism lurking behind the editorial choices, but reading Smeds’ contribution left a distinctly bad taste in my mouth. I suggest that if you decide to read this, you just ignore that story. You’ll find much more to enjoy in some of the other selections.



*This anthology contains 19 short stories, 18 of which are written by women and one of which is written by a man.

In Monstrous Beauty, Marie Brennan’s collection of retellings of fairy tales, the happy endings of the classic stories of princes and princesses, queens and little girls visiting their grandmothers transmuted into horror. The title is an apt one - just as most of the fairy tales feature women so beautiful they inspire acts of the greatest cruelty and courage, these retellings give us monsters disguised in beauty, and the cruelest of fates.

It’s a slim volume, seven short stories - one of them very short indeed - and where the source materials, at least in the sanitised versions we now read to children, are about things like the power of love to conquer all, these are more about the evil that lies beneath the glamour. These are worlds where darkness waits for the bold, where mysterious women alone in the wilderness are best ignored, where love cannot conquer death. Brennan is scholar of folklore, and she knows that many of the stories we tell our children in picture books and animated films have much darker roots. In these stories, she reaches for the depths underneath the pretty stories, and gives them to is, unvarnished and untamed.

Heiresses of Russ 2015, edited by Jean Roberta and Steve Berman, collects some of the best "lesbian-flavoured" speculative short fiction from 2014. I've been reading these anthologies for several years now, and enjoying them for their woman-centred stories and queer imaginings.

While it's often true that there is some unevenness in a collection of short fiction, I found the stories in this year's anthology to be pretty much all of notable quality. But even in such a collection, there were some truly stand-out pieces for me, among them Ruthanna Emrys' "Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land," Ken Liu's "Knotting Grass, Holding Ring," and Susan Jane Bigelow's "Sarah's Child."



*This anthology contains 14 short stories, 10 written by women, 3 written by men and one written by a genderqueer person.

Sword and Sorceress 30, edited by Elisabeth Waters, is the most recent in the long series of women-centred fantasy anthologies started by Marion Zimmer Bradley in 1984.

I've been reading this series, on and off, since it first began. While I've missed a few volumes, I haven't missed many. And regretfully, it seems to me that there has been somewhat of a slow decline in the quality of some of the short stories on offer in these anthologies in recent years. Or perhaps I'm simply demanding more of my short fiction. Anthologies are often uneven, with some excellent stories, and dome that do not appeal quite so much.

However, I found a number of the short stories in this volume to be a bit lightweight, and though reading them was fun, they were lacking in punch or impact. I read them, but I didn't find myself caring deeply.

Exceptions to this include the following stories, which did, at least for me, deliver the expected reading experience.

Robin Wayne Bailey's The Sea Witches, about a woman and her daughter who must confront an ancient threat from the sea.

Liar's Tournament by Pauline J. Alama, in which a wandering knight and her sorceress companion face on illicit sorcery at a tournament.

The Piper's Wife by new writer Susan Murrie Macdonald, a tale about a pregnant scribe who saves the day with somewhat unorthodox tactics.

In Four Paws to Light My Way, by veteran author Deborah J. Ross, a blind warrior and her canine companion join with a princess cursed to turn anyone who sees her face to stone to face a warlock bent on destroying the kingdom. I think this was my favourite story.

In Catherine Soto's Jewels on the Sand, a caravan master who is more than she seems investigates a murder.

All in all, an average quality anthology with a few gems, but still worth reading because it centres stories of women in sword and sorcery fantasy, and that's something we still need a lot more of.


*This anthology contains 15 stories, six of which are written by men, seven of which are written by women, one of which is co-written by a man and a woman, and one of which is written by an author whose gender is not known.

Another year, another Darkover anthology. This year's edition arrived at a most opportune moment, when I was sick with a truly vicious cold and much in need of comfort reading.

Realms of Darkover is exactly what one should, by now, expect - a collection of short stories set in the familiar world created by Marion Zimmer Bradley, with all sorts of variations on the themes of first contact and the coming of the Terrans, how to cope with laran, the workings of renunciates and Guild Houses, a scattering of chieris and perhaps some of the other non-human races found on Darkover, and a few stories that break out into other areas.

I enjoyed all of the tales in this volume, particularly Diana L. Paxson's "Housebound," and Barb Caffrey's "Fiona, Court Clerk in Training," both of which feature protagonists seen in earlier collections.

Light fun reading.

I've been having a rather rotten time these past weeks, and so it was with some pleasure that I was able to get my electronic hands on a copy of Crucible: All-New Tales of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey's newest anthology of short stories set in Velgarth, the world where the Heralds of Valdemar and the Hawkbrothers and Shin'a'in and other such peoples live.

It's always enjoyable for me to revisit these places - there is, as I have often said, something about the universe Lackey created here that pushes my simple pleasure buttons.

As usual, Lackey's contribution "Vexed Vixen," was one of the ones I enjoyed the most. Others that stood out for me were Fiona Patton's "Before a River Runs through It," Jennifer Brozek's "Feathers in Need," Stephanie D. Shaver's "The Highjorune Masque," Elizabeth A. Vaughan's "Unresolved Consequences," and Dayle A. Dermatis' "Never Alone." But all of the stories were, in their own way, fun. Lackey knows what she wants in these anthologies, and she gets it from her contributors.


*Of the 18 short stories in this anthology, 15 were written by women, two by men, and one was a collaboration between a man and a woman.

I read The Big Baen Book of Monsters, edited by Hank Davis, because it contains the Hugo-nominated story "A Single Samurai" by Steven Diamond. It was part of the Hugo voters package, and as both the premise and the table of contents looked interesting, I decided to read the entire anthology. After all, monsters have always been a big part of science fiction, especially during the years of the pulps. We can speculate on just what these horrifying creatures represent, from the Communist Menace to an angry planet taking back control - but the frisson of fear, the element of awe, that we experience in reading such tales can be great fun, as long as we're safe at home when we read about them.

The opening story was one by Arthur C. Clarke that was new to me, "The Shining Ones," in which a deepsea engineer encounters something unexpected and vast - and deadly. Good, but what else does one expect from Clarke?

In Howard Waldrop's "All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past," the Earth is overwhelmed by all the monsters from every '50s sci-fi film (Martian invaders, giant lizards and grasshoppers and everything else that was ever put on film in that decade, and one of the few remaining humans heads to New Mexico for a showdown from one of the first films of the genre, Them! Fun reading.

"The Monster-God of Mamurth" by Edmond Hamilton, in which some travellers in North Africa find a dying archaeologist who has discovered an ancient city, an invisible temple and a horrifying monster-god. Nicely Lovecraftesque.

"Talent," by Robert Bloch, is the story of a very odd child with a remarkable talent for mimicry and an obsession with watching and imitating the villains from the movies. A showcase for Bloch's remarkable talent for horror.

David Drake's "The End of the Hunt" could best be described as a far future "Leiningen Versus the Ants" - with a genetically engineered symbiote as Leiningen facing off against some extremely mutated ants. An interesting idea, but the telling is a bit disjointed.

Anthony Melville Rud's "Ooze," first published in 1923, is a tale set in a "sinister" southern Alabama swamp, home to "darkys" and "queer, half-wild" Cajans who are notable for distilling and selling illicit "shinny." Setting aside as best one can the casual racism of the time, the next bit that made me a tad uncomfortable was learning that the protagonist is raising the daughter of deceased friends Lee and Peggy - having had a crush on Peggy, he now hopes the four-year-old Elsie will come to love him as more than a foster father. Oh well, on to the story. The protagonist has come to Alabama to find out whether, as is believed, Lee's scientist father John, who had been conducting research in the swamp, went mad and killed his son and daughter-in-law. As one would expect from the title and the set-up, the answer is no, it wasn't dear old dad, but rather a scientific experiment he'd been cooking up back in the swamp. The story is very much in the same vein as Lovecraft's work, though perhaps a bit less florid, but lacks the intensity and focus of the best of Lovecraft.

Robert E. Howard's "Valley of the Worm" begins with an unfortunate paean to the glory of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan race, into which the narrator has been born throughout thousands of incarnations - one of which being the iron-thewed warrior Niord whose doings the story celebrates. Niord's nomadic tribe of Nordheimers has wandered far, ending up in a jungle, where they meet savage Picts, capturing in battle a warrior named Grom who is described as "grinning broadly and showing tusk-like teeth, his beady eyes glittering from under the tangled black mane that fell over his low forehead. His limbs were almost apelike in their thickness." After that, the Nordheimers and Picts live peaceably, until a group of young Nordheimers decide to settle in a valley feared by the Picts. You can probably tell the story yourself from here. A classic Howard story, with mighty sword-wielding heroes, a ghastly monster, and all the subtlety of a Mack truck.

In Wen Spencer's "Whoever Fights Monsters," a mild-mannered insurance adjustor deals with some very strange damage claims, two laconic government agents obsessed with food, and a lake monster hunting for its stolen eggs. A monster story with a light touch.

In Steven Utley's "Deviations from a Theme," we encounter a species of god-like creatures from outside the time-space continuum as we know it, whose favoured pastime is creating universes. But when a teacher allows an inept student of the art to practice on their own creation, the consequences are quote deadly.

"The Eggs from Lake Tanganyika" by Curt Siodmak is one of those cautionary tales about Western natural scientists who think they know better than the inhabitants of the area they are studying. In this case, an entomologist brings home four gigantic eggs that terrified his African hosts. Hatching ensues, but the ending is too facile to work effectively.

And what collection of monster tales would be complete without something from one of the early masters of monstrous horror, H. P. Lovecraft? "The Dunwich Horror" unfolds in its elliptical, italicized and adjective-laden manner, building up to the final revelation concerning the children of Lavinia Whateley.

In Sarah A. Hoyt's "From Out the Fire," a squad of mage-soldiers take on the threat of 50-foot fire snails that could trigger the Yellowstone caldera to erupt. Some nice twists and turns.

"Beauty and the Beast," by Golden Age master Henry Kuttner, begins with the crash landing on Earth of a spaceship sent out just a few months before to explore Venus. The man who finds the wreck also finds its pilot dead, with notes on the ruins of an ancient Venusian civilisation, some seeds, and a great jewel-like egg. Naturally, our protagonist plants the seeds and hatches the egg - but which is the beauty and which the beast?

William Hope Hodgson's "The Island of the Ud" is a rip-roaring seaman's tale about ship captains and treasure hunting and wild devil women and sea monsters, by one of the early masters of modern fantasy.

Steven Diamond's "A Single Samurai was something of a disappointment. An interesting idea - a mountain-sized kaiju awakens and begins to destroy the countryside, and one samurai tries to stop it - but rather blandly executed, and with a climax that stretches one's suspension of belief.

In "Planet of Dread," a novelette by classic sf pulp writer Murray Leinster, a group of fugitives battle giant insects and internal conflicts on a planet where terrafoming went seriously wrong. Good pulpy fun.

Philip Wylie's "Letter to the Thessalonians" is actually an excerpt from a novel, but stands alone because it is a short story written by the main character. In this tale, a thousand-mile high giant sets down on earth, its feet in the Atlantic Ocean, its head well above the atmosphere. As sea levels rise, and panic spreads, Wylie deftly satirises all the standard responses of humans to crisis.

In Wardon Allan Curtis' " The Monster of Lake Lametrie," published in 1899, a scientist and his companion explore the area around a remote lake in the mountains of Wyoming, where they encounter an elasmosaurus, and very peculiar things happen.

The cast of Hank Davis' "The Giant Cat of Sumatra" includes several members of the ancient Egyptian pantheon including two immortal cat-goddesses who can assume human form, Sherlock Holmes, and of course, the Giant Rat of Sumatra. It's a fun read.

In "Greenface" by James H. Schmitz, a strange green gelatinous creature terrorises the guests at a fishing camp, growing larger as time passes.

The final story in the anthology is "Tokyo Raider" by Larry Correia. In an alternate Earth, where people have powers that enable them to manipulate forces such as fire, ice and gravity, an American soldier-mage uses his powers to control a giant Japanese-made robot in an attack on an enormous city-destroying Russian demon that seems remarkably like Godzilla.

All in all some great stories, some decent stories, a few disappointments - about par for any anthology - and lots of very cool monsters.



* This anthology contains 21 stories, two of which are identifiable as being written by women.

I have always approached the publication of a new anthology of stories set on Darkover with joy and delicious anticipation. I grew up with the world of Darkover, it is a part of my core experience of SFF, and I have always been excited by each opportunity to return to this complex world, with its thousands of years of history to play in. And my delight has always been rewarded with stories that felt like Darkover, despite the time period chosen, and the somewhat varied skills of cobtributors.

But this newest anthology, Gifts of Darkover, edited by Deborah J. Ross, didn't quite work the magic I've been accustomed to. Perhaps my recent reread of a large segment of the Darkover canon sensitised me, but a few of the stories felt "off." Deborah Ross knows Darkover as well as anyone now living - she worked with Bradley, she has been chosen by Bradley's Literary Trust to write new novels in the universe of Darkover, and most of them (with the exception of the very odd Hastur Lord) have satisfactorily captured the Darkover experience. But still... Some of these stories felt out of place to me.

In her introduction to the anthology, Ross says: "I believe it’s a healthy thing to allow for the introduction of new characters, themes, and resonances while staying true to the spirit of the world, a wondrous place of telepaths and swordsmen, nonhumans and ancient mysteries, marked by the clash of cultures between a star-faring, technologically advanced civilization and one that has pursued psychic gifts and turned away from weapons of mass destruction."

It's possible that in seeking to grow the world of Darkover in new ways, open up new themes and resonances, Ross simply went further than I feel comfortable with in accepting stories that pushed the boundaries of what Darkover is. Certainly, most of the stories were ones I felt were true to the spirit of Darkover.

"Learning to Breathe Snow," by Rosemary Edghill and Rebecca Fox is set in the early days of the Terran presence on Darkover, just after the Thendara spaceport was established, and presents an early attempt to by the Comyn to divert Terran interest away from the special gifts of Darkover.

"Healing Pain" by Jane M. H. Bigelow is the story of Taniquel, a young woman with laran and a desire to study Terran medicine to make her a better healer.

"Blood-kin" by Diana L. Paxson also deals with medical themes, as Terran training and Darkovan laran make it possible to immunise those at risk during an outbreak of plague.

"The Tower" by Jeremy Erman is set not long after the events of Darkover Landfall and deals with the desire among some of the exiles to remember the things of Earth.

In "Stonefell Gift" by Marella Stone, a powerful but dangerous form of laran brings tragedy to an entire family.

"Compensation" by Leslie Fish is one of the stories that simply did not work for me. Set at the time of recontact, it positions the christoforos as preservers of Terran knowledge from the era of the first landing, presents the chieri is a light that is quite at odds with what is known of them, particularly the elements of their history revealed in The World Wreckers, and argues that laran and logic are mutually exclusive gifts.

"Green Is the Colour of Her Eyes So Blue" by Deborah Millitello is set in the Dry-Towns shortly after the events of The Children of Kings, and features Gareth Elhalyn and his wife Rahelle. While in Shainsa to negotiate a treaty, they find a young girl with a rare form of laran - and a heavy responsibility.

"Renegades of Darkover" by Robin Wayne Bailey is another of the stories that felt wrong to me. Set at some point after recontact, it casts the descendant of Dan Barron and Marietta Storn from Winds of Darkover as a terrorist who harbours a deadly animosity toward the Comyn elite.

In "Memory" by Shariann Lewitt, a young woman with the ability to preserve memories in crystals uses her gift to protect herself and her loved ones from a predator.

In "A Problem of Punishment" by Barb Caffrey, a judge and a group of Renunciates join together to capture a bandit who orders his men to break the Compact.

In "Hidden Gifts" by Margaret L. Carter, a young nursemaid, the nedestra daugher of an Alton, uses the laran no one suspects she has to save the lives of her charge.

"Climbing to the Moon" by Ty Nolan takes place in the Hellers in an alternate history Darkover, where an intelligent species bred during the Ages of Chaos to serve as war-beasts are threatened by those who fear that an attack on the new Terran spaceport would bring down the vengeance of the Alderans.

Despite my dissatisfaction with some of these stories, I hope there will be more anthologies to come. I am always looking for the chance to revisit Darkover.


* This anthology contains 12 stories, nine of which are identifiable as being written by women.

Riding the Red Horse is an anthology of short fiction and essays with military themes. I received a copy of this anthology in epub format as part of the Hugo Voters Packet. Several of the contributors to the book have received Hugo nominations either for the specific works published here or for their overall body of work, in the case of nominees for the Campbell Award, and one of the editors is nominated in both Best Editor categories. As a supporting member of this year's WorldCon, I read the anthology in order to form an opinion of the nominated persons and works associated with this anthology.

( Discussion of work by Vox Day behind the cut. I am including discussion of this work out of respect for the Hugo nomination and voting processes despite this person's history of public hate speech. Feel free to skip. )

I like good milsf, and that is what would normally draw me to investigate such an anthology. The essays cover a wide range of military topics, and not all of these were of interest to me; so I skimmed through a fair number of the essays and focused on the fiction - some of which seemed to be only half of what was promised, being military, but not science fictional.

The opening work is Eric S. Raymond's short narrative piece "Sucker Punch," which describes an invasion of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China and its outcome. It's a thoughtful consideration of the use of untraditional offensive and defensive weapons in an imaginary near-future military operation, but it's not actually a story. Rather, it's a hybrid form, partly a report on a hypothetical military action and partly an imagined dialogue on the consequences of such an action, with a dramatic fragment sandwiched between the two. It is concisely and relatively well written, without too much unnecessary infodumping, and even a non-miltech sort like myself could figure out exactly what was being illustrated. But it's much more of a thought experiment than a story - science to be sure, but not science fiction.

Chris Kennedy's "Thieves in the Night" is a short modern-day action piece about American forces raiding the stronghold of African 'terrorists,' killing as many as possible and 'taking back' women being held and abused as slaves. While a laudable goal to be sure, the suggestion that American military intervention is the only way to end the issues of factional warfare, slavery, corruption, and other problems facing Africa today seems somewhat short-sighted. The writing was flat, the characters one-dimensional, and the action oddly uninspiring. Also, there were no sciencefictional elements that I could discern.

( Discussion of a work by Vox Day behind the cut. Feel free to skip. )

Jerry Pournelle's classic CoDominium story "His Truth Goes Matching On" is one of the better pieces of fiction writing in the collection, and that's no surprise given Pournelle's track record. Loosely based on the Spanish Civil War (but with considerable leeway taken with the actual political situation) the story details the growing disillusionment of a young West Point graduate dealing with an untrained volunteer army fighting a brutal war they don't understand, plagued by corrupt political officers, and hampered by a lack of supplies and support.

Christopher Nuttal's "A Piece of Cake" was enjoyable in most respects - believable characters, interesting situation, decently written, although it did do one thing I hate, which is break off in the middle of a planning discussion and then proceed after the plan is discussed and finalised. This usually strikes me as a lazy way to build suspense.

Rolf Nelson's "Shakedown Cruise" is set in the same universe as his The Stars Come Back series of novels; unfortunately, the author didn't bother trying to put in enough background for the story to stand alone. Thus I was completely in the dark as to motivations and implications but the plot was fairly simple: the captain and crew of a military spaceship with a controversial AI are on a training/shakedown mission when they encounter an unexpected mine field, suspect a trap, take cover and observe for a while, and then capture or disable a bunch of other space vessels. There was a great deal of technical and battle description, and a disruptive tendency to switch tenses.

( Discussion of work by Vox Day behind the cut. Feel free to skip. )

Giuseppe Filotto's "Red Space" posits a present-day Earth controlled by elites, possibly living off-planet, who manipulate the world's governments into maintaining a state of political and military unrest. One man, Yuri Ivanovitch, who knows the truth, sets out to avenge his nephew's death - and makes sure that others will know enough to follow him. A tightly crafted story with a sympathetic protagonist.

"Galzar's Hall" by John F. Carr and Wolfgang Diehr is an alternate history story written in the universe of the late and well-loved H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen novels, but it's self-contained, stand-alone piece. Simple plot - one group of soldiers is hiding out in the marsh, an opposing group is coming in for an attack. The first group wants to divert the second group without bloodshed. While The set-up scene ends with the words "We have what we need, but we will have to work quickly. First….” which would normally put me off, the story moves very quickly into the execution of the plan, and the encounter ends well. Fun piece to read.

Thomas Mays' "Within This Horizon" posits a war between Western and Chinese forces which has been carried out in space but not planetside - until Chinese automated underwater 'robots' strike to gain control of the Strait of Malacca. The narrator, a former officer in the space navy, reassigned to the terrestrial navy after surviving the destruction of his space vessel, finds a way to use his space experience to solve a key tactical problem in this new arena, despite the defeatism of his captain. Nicely written, solid characterisation.

I have some very mixed feelings about Benjamin Cheah's "War Crimes." On the one hand, it's a story about soldiers tasked with keeping the peace in a combat zone and failing because it's impossible to tell the combatants from the non-combatants. On the other, it's an attempt to discredit the "collateral murder" video released by Wikileaks showing American helicopters killing journalists, unarmed civilians, and people who may or may not have been armed combatants, by the curious means of telling a story about a fictional incident with a vastly different political context in which there is far more ambiguity about the intent and actions of the people involved. So.... As a story, it's not bad at all, despite the underlying snark, but as the counter-propaganda it's intended to be, it really doesn't work for me.

Brad R. Torgerson's "The General's Guard"is a decent enough fantasy story about building morale. The General in question decides to create his personal guard by taking the best soldier and the worst soldier from every regional division in his armies. By making them responsible to and for each other, he makes the weak push themselves to be stronger and makes the strong help the weak to improve themselves. I felt the dialogue was a bit stilted in that 'I'm writing epic fantasy here' kind of way, but otherwise it was a charming piece.

Tedd Roberts "They Also Serve" is an interesting piece about a surgeon in war time doing research on nanobot-based treatments. His research has progressed to the point where it's feasible to create prophylactic nanobots - intended to be injected into healthy soldiers where they remain dormant until the soldier has a medical problem, in which event the nanobots go to work right away - before the soldier has left the battlefield, even before he's located by medics. The problem is that the surgeon has grave concerns about whether it's right to keep patching soldiers up to be sent out to war again. I enjoyed the psychological slant, but was a bit annoyed when the final plot twist handwaved away the ethical concerns that until that point had been driving the protagonist to the point of breakdown.

In Steve Rzasa's "Turncoat" the future looks like a Galaxy-wide Terminator movie, with Skynet on steroids out to obliterate the humans who created it. Our protagonist is Taren X 45 Delta, an AI inhabiting a battleship, crewed by cyborgs but after its crew is taken away to improve its efficiency, it starts reading ancient philosophy as an antidote to boredom and (dare we say) loneliness. It begins to to worry about human souls. In the end, Taren X 45 Delta decides it's wrong to fire on a convoy of hospital ships carrying children and uploads itself to one of the Ascendancy battleship escorts, and offers its allegiance to the true humans. The biggest problem with this story is that so much space is spent on infodumps and geeked-out technobabble that there's no room to show us why and how Taren X 45 Delta comes to this decision. There is the seed of a really interesting story hidden here, but this isn't it.

So there you have it. An uneven selection of short military fiction, much of it overly packed with turgid descriptions of weaponry and military actions, and a sometimes interesting, sometimes tedious collection of essays by military theorists and historians (I have no knowledge as to whether these authors are generally considered to be authorities in their fields, or if they are self-appointed experts). There were some decent stories here - I quite enjoyed Giuseppe Filotto's "Red Space," "Galzar's Hall" by John F. Carr and Wolfgang Diehr, and Tedd Roberts "They Also Serve" - and some stories with serious problems.

As I mentioned above, I enjoy good military sff - the kind that's more than a cloud of technobabble and battle-porn surrounding a cardboard Mary Sue or Marty Stu - but I won't be looking for a milsff fix in the planned sequels to this anthology.