Customer Reviews

The Fate of Mice

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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The first two stories in this collection, made me feel as though I had been pushed under by a large wave and no matter how much I'd want to breath, I could not. Perhaps a bit overblown, but the stories in this collection are nothing short of remarkable outstanding. From the titular The Fate of Mice and the poignant and heartbreaking Ginstella. Each story is a stand-out and examples of what fine short story writing truly is. I wonder why I had never heard of Susan Palwick before but I will certainly be looking to purchase more of her work in the future.

I don't read a lot of fiction but this book was recommended to me by someone on the subway.

Best book I've read in a long time.

I love a well written, compelling story. This book delivers.

The stories are kinda sci-fi ish but grounded. It's about the characters and the author creates some compelling ones.

I had never heard of the author but she deserves praise. It's a book of great stories that are short enough to keep your attention and compelling enough to keep you turning pages.

Susan Palwick has over twenty years of outstanding short stories to her name and THE FATE OF MICE gathers the best under one cover, including three original new pieces. These are stories of angst and adversity: from a businessman who is resurrected to play at politics to a dreaming mouse. Any collection strong in short stories will find THE FATE OF MICE uses many twists and turns of plot to provide vivid reading.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This may be the best collection of short stories I have ever come across! The stories are consistently well rendered, imaginative and, most important to me, emotionally charged. I found myself having to stop reading after each one to ponder and better absorb its impact. Needless to say (but I'm saying it anyways :-)), this book is a keeper and I very highly recommended it.

Note, as a token of my objectivity, that I do not know the author nor do I have any interest, financial or otherwise, invested in this collection (contrary to some incensed reviews one can find on Amazon...) I simply loved this book. Read it, you won't be disappointed.

I've been wracking my brain over how to review this book, aside from grabbing passerby and random and asking them if they've read Susan Palwick yet. "And if not, what are you waiting for?" I love Palwick's novels, as well--she's a lovely, nuanced writer whose characters seem to go on living and breathing even after you close the book--but this short story collection was how I found her first, and it's stayed my favorite. There are eleven short stories here, and they're all gems.

Palwick has the gift of maintaining a distinct style of her own while still approaching many different subjects and types of stories--there's never the sense, as you're reading this, the next story will simply offer more of the same. There are continuities, of course: one of my favorite things about Palwick is the worldview that surfaces throughout the stories. So many authors seem to believe in "good" or "bad" worlds, where the evil is cartoonish and far away or the good is simplistic and blind to problems. Palwick isn't like that. An initially antagonistic character in "Going After Bobo" has more complexities--in a very believable way--that initially meet the eye, for example, and "GI Jesus" has a miracle occurring in exactly the right way but in what seems like exactly the wrong place after exactly the wrong things have happened in order to bring it about. These stories also have marvelous characters: Gestella, in particular, is unforgettable, but Palwick also brilliantly rewrites Jo March, everyone's favorite literary heroine (except the ways in which she isn't that tend, as "Jo's Hair" indicates, to be forgotten or dismissed).

It's hard writing about a short story collection without saying much about any of the individual pieces, but all of these sparkle, and I don't want to give the details of any of them away. So I'll just conclude by saying that if you like well-developed characters (and have ever mourned a dearth of well-developed female characters in literature in particular), realistic conflicts, and mind-expanding speculative fiction, you can't afford to pass on this collection.

This collection of stories is one of the best I have had the pleasure of reading and is on the (very) short list of books I recommend to people. The stories are beautifully crafted, with powerful characterization, and well realized ideas. They are not only great as stories, but really speak to real world problems and issues. I will certainly be looking for other short stories (or perhaps if I am lucky a novel) by this author.
If you want something fun to read, entertaining, at times amusing, yet still thought provoking, and beautifully written, this is what you are looking for. Highly recommended.