Customer Reviews

Sword and Sorceress XIX (Sword & the Sorceress)

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4 star:		(1)
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The "Sword And Sorceress" series is a series of collections of short stories set in the "Sword And Sorcery" genre, except that in this series, all the protagonists are female. The is because, as Marion Zimmer Bradley has always explained in her introductions, historically in the "Sword And Sorcery" genre, the only female characters were "Bad conduct prizes" for the heroes.
The series as a whole is very good, although some volumes were stronger than others. I would rate this one at about the middle of the series, which is not bad at all especially considering that it is the first published after the death of MZB; her assistant (Elisabeth Waters) has continued compiling collections of stories sent in before MZB's death, and may continue to compile new collections after the backlog has run out if good stories keep on coming in.

I found this book as a whole to be quite disappointing. The stories are mostly very short -- there are 25 stories in a book a bit more than 100,000 words long. Now there are plenty of outstanding stories at lengths less than 4,000 words, but in this case too many of the stories are sketches. Often, key details are baldly told, not shown. Often, the backstory is quickly sketched in, not developed. Often, the heroine's abilities are arbitrarily revealed, not in any sense organic or believable. Most of the pieces are competently assembled sentence by sentence, but too many are poorly structured scene by scene, or are unconvincing as to plot logic.

I'll mention a few of the better pieces. Dorothy J. Heydt's "Lord of the Earth" has Cynthia travelling to Corinth, and there encountering Poseidon in a bad mood. Two stories use very similar twists involving magical familiars, though they are otherwise quite different: both were light and enjoyable: "Familiars" by Michael H. Payne, set at a magic school with a squirrel as the familiar; and "All too Familiar" by P. Andrew Miller, in which a hedge witch inherits a variety of familiars whose wizards and witches have been killed by an evil sorcerer. Laura J. Underwood's "The Curse of Ardal Glen" is a bit darker than most of these stories, about a town which has had to sacrifice a young woman to a mysterious smith every seven years for decades. Dorothy J. Heydt's daughter Meg Heydt contributes "Openings", which I liked for its engaging main character and her slightly unexpected talent. Esther Friesner is usually reliable, and her story, "Grain", is solid entertainment, about a girl apprenticed to a brewer woman, who encounters a goddess with a god problem. But these storeis, the best in the book, are no better than decent -- there is not a single excellent story in the book, no story that thrilled me.

So if the book isn't entirely a loss, it is very disappointing. I think Bradley had rigid ideas about story structure, and about story content, and her editing projects suffer from including too many stories that read too similarly, and from being too forgiving of competently written stories which fit her template but which have no fire -- no originality -- no special reason to make one want to read them. If you've been reading these books with enjoyment all along, this one may satisfy, though I don't think it's as good as some of the earlier volumes. Otherwise, I can't really recommend the book.

This series of fantasy stories with women as the heros is as good as ever. This years mix of tales has a lighter more upbeat feel. All of the stories are good. Some years it seemed as if the editor was trying to do stories with a certain type of message, which always annoyed me, but not this year. Or, at least not that I could tell. In the intro it is stated that MZ Bradley has passed away. I hope her ideas for more collections hasn't.

A wonderful collection, and a wonderful tribute to Marion Zimmer Bradley. Too bad there's only one more to come. Her skill for finding new talent will be missed.