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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Heroic fantasy curio,
By the_smoking_quill (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Amazons (Paperback)
Amazons! (edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson) is a curious fantasy antique, the winner of the 1979 World Fantasy Award for a short-story anthology that still offers some decent reading (outside of the editor's long, intrusive commentaries). It contains:
* The Dreamstone, C.J. Cherryh: a nicely written, if slowly paced, tale of the haunting faerie, Arafel * Wolves of Nakesht, Janrae Frank: visceral, swords-against-sorcery tale starring the fascinating Chimquar the Lionhawk (a woman usually mistaken for a man); more background as to the setting and culture would have helped ... and perhaps this is found in Chimquar's collected tales (In the Darkness, Hunting)? * Woman of the White Waste, T.J. Morgan: unremarkable revenge tale * The Death of Augusta, Emily Bronte: excerpts from a heroic poem by Bronte; either filler or a scholarly addition to the anthology, depending on one's perspective * Morrien's Bitch, Janet Fox: mediocre tale made engaging by its shocking anti-heroine * Agbewe's Sword, Charles Saunders: very good quest-tale set in a mythic Africa; one of the best tales here * Jane Saint's Travails (Part One), Josephine Saxton: a bloody mess (one part too many); the editor included it to diversify the book, while at the same time defending her choice: "zealot loyalists [will] condemn the piece as polluting heroic fantasy with higher ideals of breadth and experimentation ..." While not a zealot loyalist, I simply found it bizarre and unclear. * The Sorrows of Witches, Margaret St. Clair: decently written but distant and forgettable tale of necromancy * Falcon Blood, Andre Norton: long and descriptively vague tale of a girl shipwrecked with a man from a misogynistic culture * The Rape Patrol, Michele Belling: not quite as horrible as "Jane Saint" but equally out of place; some women in a contemporary city become vigilantes and hunt rapists (and one uses voodoo to qualify it as fantasy) * Bones for Dulath, Megan Lindholm: the utterly determined heroine Ki stalks a monster in a desperate effort to save her dying lover, Vandien; a true sword-and-mind-against-monster tale, and one of the best tales here--and the most unjustly introduced. In a highlight of the editor's intrusiveness, she spends a paragraph explaining how she almost chose another story over this one. Fortunately, justice has been served, as this was the first published story by the popular author now known as Robin Hobb. (Her first novel, Harpy's Flight, concerns the meeting of Ki and Vandien.) * Northern Chess, Tanith Lee: Jaisel, a tomboy-swordsman extraordinaire, aids a camp of knights against a seemingly unbreakable curse; although the plot is not especially innovative, the setting, descriptions, and characterization made this my favorite in the anthology. * The Woman Who Loved the Moon, Elizabeth Lynn: lovely tale in an Asian setting, though I had to raise my eyebrows at the editor's prophecy, "If only two stories in this book prove long-standing classics of fantasy, [this] will be one." (Why only two? And please tell me the unnamed other wasn't "Jane Saint"!) A satisfying, bittersweet conclusion to the anthology. Overall, an uneven collection worth browsing by dedicated fantasy fans, feminists, and those interested in the history of fantasy. Recommended as a library loan or dirt-cheap used purchase. Three stars.
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