Fledgling is Ms. Butler’s foray into the vampire-novel genre. The main character–also the narrator–is Shori, a young vampire who survived a vicious attack on her family that left her very much injured and suffering from amnesia. The rest of the story details her fight to save her family, and her re-learning of what exactly she lost by not remembering the rest of her life.

I probably should have been tipped off by the quote from Gerald Jonas of the New York Times on the back of the book, saying that, “[Butler] never asks easy questions or settles for easy answers.” Since I was not, and being that I know I’m not the only person who wouldn’t want to be blindsided by this, I should mention that Shori, the main character, is 53 years old in actuality, but looks like she’s ten or eleven. Before we learn that she’s fifty-three, she engages in consensual (on her end, at least; it might be considered ‘dubious’ consent on his end) sexual activity with a 23-year-old man. He doesn’t know she’s actually fifty-three, either.

Now, again: she’s fifty-three, and more importantly, she’s a vampire, who are in this mythos an entirely different species that may have evolved simultaneously with humans on Earth. (They call themselves the Ina.) It’s perhaps ridiculous to apply my moral code to them, but of course, Butler intended this discomfort. It’s intended on multiple levels; Shori makes almost everyone in the story uncomfortable for many, many reasons.

She’s actually an experiment in genetic engineering: the Ina want to be able to go out in the daytime, so they are experimenting with including human DNA along with theirs. Shori has human DNA that makes her shorter than most of the female Ina. She’s also dark-skinned–that is, her human DNA is from a woman of color. Some of the older Ina are not sure she qualifies as a proper Ina. She’s also precisely at the stage in her development where she’s starting to make sexually-mature male Ina uncomfortable because they crave her as a mate (in a sort of Lolita fashion, only actually biologically explainable). She makes humans uncomfortable because she is stronger and faster than they are, and in some cases makes them uncomfortable because they desire her even though she looks like a child. Basically, no one is comfortable around Shori, and why should Ms. Butler let the reader be any less unsettled?

Ms. Butler uses this book to answer the question of what are the Ina, through two major methods: Shori’s amnesia, and Shori herself. The amnesia allows her to be told things she probably should already know, and thereby the reader can learn these things. We learn history, language, and basic societal structure this way. Shori herself provides for more metaphysical questions: is someone who doesn’t look like how we expect, maybe because of some DNA changing or manipulation, still a member of that group? The Ina are largely tall, thin, pale white people. Shori is thin, but short and dark, and it is actually at least partially her looks that cause the conflict.

This is actually the first book I’d ever read by Ms. Butler, which is a shame, and I’ll definitely be looking for more. Her writing style has been described as spare, and that’s certainly true, but that doesn’t mean that she leaves any words out. It was an easy read in terms of language, but a little difficult in terms of questions raised. This is a vampire book, I think, that would definitely be interesting to those who don’t like vampire books commonly, but I’d definitely say it’s for older YAs and adult readers due to the need to handle the sexual content in a mature fashion. 5/5 stars.

Ewen Young is a painter by day and a kung fu master by night. His uncle Jimmy is his teacher, and one night, after an art show, several thugs jump him outside as a ‘message’ to said uncle. Soon thereafter, he goes to the kung fu studio and finds Jimmy shot in the head; the man who did it is still there and shoots Ewen in the heart. The next thing he knows, he’s in the hospital, on morphine. But every so often, he — isn’t there. Or particularly anywhere. The nurses accuse him of pulling out his IV, despite the fact that it’s out cleanly. Where is he going? And what’s going on?

This is a really short book — 98 pages — and it reads fairly quickly, as one might expect. It feels like a prequel; like this book was all the setup to explain why Ewen Young will be important in the next volume in which one encounters him. There were so many ideas contained in this book that feel like they should be expanded, from Ewen’s bamboo issues, to his relationship with his sister, and the mere presence of his brother-in-law. Actually, the bamboo and a related bonsai tree only appear in a few scenes but they were appreciated touches of humor in a story that, well, contains a fair amount of death and pain otherwise.

Ms. MacAvoy even admits that Ewen was based on Jet Li, and the story was highly influenced by kung fu films. Readers familiar with the genre will almost be supplying the narration and music on their own. Other than relatively few fight scenes, this would make an excellent movie. Her combination of humor, action, and Zen Buddhism make for a thrilling ride, and the fantastic elements (mostly related to the aforementioned Buddhism) add an otherworldly spice to an otherwise straightforward narration. The adaptation, of course, would require Ewen to heal from his gunshot wound a lot more quickly, in order to flip and kick his way to an appropriate conclusion.

I cannot, unfortunately, find any indication that there will be more in the series. Ms. MacAvoy’s productivity has slowed down over the last ten years, and she does not appear to have her own website. Although it is a complete story in and of itself, I do so wish that we would see Ewen and his family more. As a lead character, I enjoyed him — the seeming conflict between his painting career and his kung fu calling kept me interested, and now that he seems to have some extra powers, I definitely feel that he could sustain an entire full-length novel on his own. 4.5/5 stars.

The Cinderella story is a common one throughout many cultures, and Ms. Napoli has chosen to set her variant of the tale in Ming-Dynasty China. Xing Xing’s mother dies when she is very small, and her father remarries, to a woman with a daughter close to Ping’s age. The stepmother (called Stepmother) has decided to bind her daughter (Wei Ping)’s feet, in order that she will be able to attract a man of a much higher social status. And of course, once the father dies, Stepmother treats Xing Xing as if she’s the lowest kind of servant, even so far as to sending her off to try to sell green dates as some sort of false miracle cure to raise money. One day, there is a fair in town, and Xing Xing finds some of her mother’s old clothing (including shoes) to wear into town . . .

As with most (if not all) of Ms. Napoli’s books, this is a short volume, barely two hundred pages. However, the story and the characters are, as usual, extraordinarily well-developed in such a short time period. Xing Xing’s father, who barely shows up, is shown to be a great father, albeit a bit ineffectual in reining in his second wife; Stepmother is, of course, cruel, but it is all with love for her daughter. There’s a secondary character, a doctor, who helps Xing Xing considerably, and whose presence I enjoyed for the short time he appears. The details — Xing Xing’s father’s pottery, a fish in a pond, the help that a neighbor gives them — are wonderful, and add crystal points of light to the narrative.

I’m not necessarily one to judge other cultures prematurely and I do understand some of the sociological reasoning behind foot-binding, but from all descriptions that I’ve read (including this one), it’s a painful, torturous practice that generally involves breaking, healing, and rebreaking the feet. There are a lot of places in which the process can go wrong, and it does — Wei Ping’s feet are infected more than once. There’s also an awful scene — straight out of original versions of the tale, I’ll mention — where Stepmother cuts off Wei Ping’s toe. Fortunately, we don’t see much of it on stage, but it still made me cringe. There’s also more cruelty to animals than I’m generally comfortable with. It is, as a matter of fact, a rather violent book, but a good deal of that is in keeping with the original story.

With this story, as per usual with Ms. Napoli’s books, I didn’t feel that I was reading the story for enjoyment so much as edification, and watching the author show off her linguistic and cultural knowledge. Although I do often read books for both edification and enjoyment (look for a review of George Eliot’s Middlemarch before too long), sometimes one overtakes the other and it nearly feels like a chore to read it. I can certainly appreciate her technical skill, but the book felt almost soulless to me. I suspect that other readers may have a different experience, and I will still recommend it highly, but while I could see the emotions intended in the text, they didn’t pull on me as much as I might have liked. 4/5 stars, mostly for achievement rather than enjoyment.

Felix Gomez is in the U.S. military, and while he is in Iraq, he comes back with what he tells people is “Operation Iraqi Freedom Syndrome.” Except it’s nothing of the sort; he got vampirism instead. Fortunately, some of the weaknesses of being a vampire can be mitigated by 21st-century technology, such as Dermablend and high-octane sunscreen. Now Gomez is a P.I., and one of his old friends from college has called him up to find out why something very strange has happened at his DOE base (i.e., somewhere where they do nuclear research) — the women appear to have been infected with something that is causing them to be, ahem, hyper-interested in a certain sort of physical activity. Can Gomez figure it out? And why are vampires in the area dying?

I absolutely admit that I misjudged this story, prior to reading it, because of the title. I thought it would be significantly more misogynist. It wasn’t — I don’t think any women were even killed, and while the nymphomania did, of course, only affect the women (at least at first), that was not because of any inherent flaw in women; it wasn’t particularly explained, but it certainly wasn’t their fault. The female characters of note — Wendy and Carmen — weren’t so bad; while they weren’t that well-developed as characters, that was mostly the limitations of the plot, the first-person narrative, and the main character being, well, a guy’s guy more than anything else.

The new twists on vampirism I generally didn’t mind. The contact lenses (to hide the reflective layer in the back of the eye, like a wolf) constantly being removed and, presumably, thrown out was decently done, although having worn soft contact lenses myself, I know it takes more than a millisecond to get them in or out — even if you’re good at it. Perhaps vampiric reflexes make the suction factor less of a problem. I actually liked the makeup-and-sunscreen idea, although I understand it has its problems. (For example, one’s scalp, or one’s eyes, or the inside of one’s mouth.) Dumping blood over food in order to eat it (and being required to eat non-blood food) took a little more suspension of disbelief. I didn’t consider it beyond belief, certainly (unlike, say, the sparkles), but it was a bit more of a stretch than makeup and sunscreen. The blood thing turned out to be nothing, in terms of suspension of disbelief, as far as the plot was concerned, but I will say no more.

Mr. Acevedo has created a convincing and interesting character in Felix Gomez; I’d be quite interested to read future books in the series. He has just barely scratched the surface of the setup of the vampire world in his reality, and the paranormal world, as well. The government involvement, as well, was intriguing and thought-provoking; I believe he’ll be able to mine that territory for many more plot ideas. The titles will certainly draw some readers in, although probably not the right kind. I’d recommend it to those who preferred the plot over the sex in the Laurell K. Hamilton books, and fans of other urban fantasy authors such as Kelley Armstrong and Jim Butcher. 4/5 stars.

Sophie Katz (also half Eastern-European Jewish and half African American) is at an open house one day when she runs into her ex-husband, a realtor. He tells her of a dream house, a three-bedroom Victorian being sold for well under market value, and she reluctantly agrees to meet him there. Turns out there’s a catch: When they get there, the owner is found dead of a heart attack. The owner’s son still seems likely to sell, provided that Sophie joins the Spectre Society. Also, the house may or may not be haunted. Add that to some odd characters in the Spectre Society itself, her ex-husband’s jealous new girlfriend, and Sophie’s mother, and Sophie finds herself in another uncomfortable situation . . .

No, I actually haven’t read the previous books in the series, but it didn’t really seem to matter. Ms. Davis gives just enough of the backstory to make things make sense, and enough hints of what happened in previous novels (apparently Sophie and her boyfriend Anatoly each thought the other was a murderer) to whet my appetite for reading the other novels. It’s often interesting to read a novel in a series that has a romance involved and a couple at the heart of it, and Sophie and Anatoly’s relationship progressed nicely during the course of the novel. There was, of course, a Misunderstanding, but it felt a good deal more authentic than the fake misunderstandings that could be solved by about thirty seconds of conversation that populate other romantic stories. It also didn’t make up the majority of the plot; it was merely a side dish, and therefore worked much better for me.

It’s obvious to some degree that Ms. Davis used elements of her own biography (heritage, early marriage, mystery-novel-writing career) to make Sophie, and while this tells me exactly what Sophie looks like (there’s an author picture in the back of the book, as well as on her website), it also makes me have to remind myself that it’s not terribly likely that Ms. Davis has been around that many corpses. However, obviously the author has much more experience being half Eastern-European-Jewish and half African-American than not, and she did mention the hazards of being a bit exotic-looking: being asked what one is, as if ‘human’ and ‘American’ (by accent) aren’t enough, and attracting stares when one is with a partner who is fair, blond, and blue-eyed. I wonder if she’s covered this topic in a bit more depth in the previous volumes.

I was actually kind of surprised by the depth in this book. Having read none of the other books in the series, nor anything else by the author (and very little by the imprint), I was expecting something . . . different. Perhaps a story that put Sophie through a little less, in terms of personal hell. Learning what she did, and I obviously won’t go into it, is a hard lesson, and it was difficult to see her go through it, but ultimately quite rewarding. I’m not even sure this book falls on the list for ‘a good beach read,’ being that that would be a little too dismissive of what this novel has going for it, which is excellent characters, an interesting murder, and emotional depth. It’s a good character study in addition to a great story, and I’d recommend it, with or without its predecessors, to fans of light-to-moderate mysteries with emotional depth; or, you know, Nora Roberts fans. 4/5 stars.

Estrella de Madrigal is a young woman in sixteenth-century, small-town Spain; her best friend is Catalina, who lives nearby. The girls are very close to each other until Estrella pays a little too much attention to Andres, Catalina’s cousin whom she is intended to marry. Unfortunately, this sets off a streak of jealousy and vindictiveness in Catalina. The town, Encaleflora, is undergoing some awful changes; it’s the time of the Inquisition (although they don’t call it that) and all the Jews and Muslims in town are suspect, even the ones who converted years and years ago. Estrella’s family behaves strangely — is it possible that they are secretly Jewish? And how will they survive?

This is not a happy book. The Inquisition rarely made people happy (that’s an intentional understatement, by the way), and being that our main character and her family are, in fact, secretly Jewish (it says so on the back of the book; this is not a spoiler), it’s obvious that there can be no purely happy ending. Early on, we see a non-secret Jew have all his books burned — religious treaties and medical volumes, mostly — in a public ceremony, of sorts. Later on, we see the dreadful treatment of the Muslims, who live in a cordoned-off section of town, and then, finally, we see the actual results of a trial for heresy on account of being a secret Jew. Obviously we don’t see much of the questioning, torture, and death, but we do see the motivation behind the accusers, which is mostly the 50/50 division of the accused/convicted (same thing) family’s belongings between the accuser and the state.

That having been said, there are some moments of absolute joy and clarity in the story. Andres and Estrella have a lovely relationship. There is a Muslim doctor’s wife who knows of Estrella’s mother’s predilection for the color blue, and the doctor’s wife sends Estrella’s mother some hens that lay blue eggs (and the associated rooster). Eventually Estrella and her grandfather — a surgeon and teacher — come to an understanding, and it is also lovely. Many of the interpersonal relationships in the de Madrigal family are strong and loving, and even despite the horror that is surrounding them, they find the ability to keep their faith strong.

Ms. Hoffman states in the Q & A at the end that she wrote the book as a way to consider many of the issues facing America today, and I can see the obvious parallels between the ‘terrorist hunting’ and the way that the Jews were treated. She also feels that teenagers are certainly old enough to handle thinking about this topic and all the implications, and I certainly agree. Although the book is only 166 pages long, it’s probably best read by those in sixth grade or older, due to the violence. I also feel it’s very important for young readers to realize that what they are reading is a parallel of the current times, and I’m glad that the Q & A and reading-group guides are included. 4.5/5 stars.

The stories include: “Wolf Night,” by Martha Wells; “Seasonal Work,” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman; “Janet, Meet Bob,” by Gavin J. Grant; “The Great Conviction of Tia Inez,” by M. Thomas; “Angels of a Desert Heaven,” by Marguerite Reed; “The Disembowler,” by Ekaterina Sedia; “A Night in Electric Squidland,” by Sarah Monette; “Thread: A Triptych,” by Catherynne M. Valente; “The Frozen One,” by Tim Pratt; “Dragon Hunt,” by Sarah Prineas; “Manuscript Found Written in the Paw Prints of a Stoat,” by Samantha Henderson; “Giant,” by Stephanie Burgis; “When the Rain Comes,” by Josh Rountree; “The Hangman isn’t Hanging,” by Jay Lake; and “The Oracle Opens One Eye,” by Patricia Russo.

First, I have to talk about the high quality of the PDF. I’m assuming it’s a direct copy of the insides of the book, and I’m very happy when e-books look just as good as the print form. Mr. Marin (or his book designer) used drop-caps (big letters at the beginning of each story that go below the base of the first line), a lovely font, and pencil or charcoal drawings at the beginning of each story. Each page has either the name of the author or the name of the story, depending on whether it’s a left or right page, and overall, it was definitely a pleasure to read. I wish more e-book publishers would take such care with their e-books as designers do with their print volumes.

The title of the anthology is a bit misleading; not all the stories are set in Texas. Actually, I can’t think that any of them are. A few are set in the Southwest, and a couple are set in the Old West, but those who might be a little bit put off by the idea that it’s a book of stories set in one location need not worry. However, of those that were set in the Southwest, some were my favorite. What I felt was the most substantial story in the book — and incidentally my favorite — was “Angels of a Desert Heaven,” by Marguerite Reed. It involves a young, moderately self-destructive musician who apparently has been chosen in some way by the Native American (Indian) powers, and the woman who is trying to help him with his situation. The story’s emotional depth was breathtaking, and I hope to read more by the author in the near future.

Other stories were certainly interesting and of note; another one of my favorites was “The Disembowler,” which took on the relationship between souls, machinery, and human beings. I thought the setting was wonderful, and I quite enjoyed the resolution. I also really loved the first story, which actually is set in the old west. It was the perfect story with which to open the anthology, I think; it grabbed me and entertained me quite a bit. Sarah Monette’s club-set story had a good setting, interesting characters, and a great plot. Were she to try a modern-set fantasy story, I would be very excited to read it. “Dragon Hunt,” one of the rare secondary-world fantasy stories in the collection, had some interesting twists to it, and although I’d never heard of the author, I’ll be on the lookout for more of her works.

In short, this is a lovely, varied collection of stories by some well-known authors and some not-so-well-known ones, and I’d highly recommend it for any speculative-fiction reader. There is much to discover, and each story — as well as the actual physical collection itself — is a pleasure to read. Well done, to the editor and publisher, as well as each of the authors. 5/5 stars.

Minke (which, I believe, is Dutch for “monk,” and a nickname) is a young man just before the turn of the 20th century, towards the end of his schooling, when, on a random invitation from a friend, he meets the most famous concubine in Indonesia and her family. Nyai Ontsoroh has been running a business empire for years, and she has been teaching her daughter Annelies — who is, of course, half Indonesian, half Dutch — how to run a business herself. Minke himself is entirely Indonesian and the son of a man with some political power, but he attends the Dutch school in a different town. There are all sorts of racial tensions going on, because Minke has fallen in love with Annelies and her with him, and she is considered significantly too good for him, being half Dutch — although she is the daughter of a concubine, which complicates things. How will their love survive?

Just as a warning and a reminder, there are spoilers after the cut, and some rather frank discussion of unsavory topics.

Obviously the main strength of the book is the fact that it’s a dissection of another culture in another time. There are essentially three castes in Indonesia at the time — the Dutch, the mixed-race (almost always half Dutch, half Indonesian, called Indos), and the pure Indonesians, called natives. The Dutch almost universally feel that the natives are of a significantly lower order — generally stupid and untrainable, despite significant evidence otherwise. The Indos, being half Dutch, are significantly better — not, of course, quite good enough, but better. There are other foreigners in the land — one of the significant secondary characters is French, and there are many Asians — but the Dutch rule the roost, and their laws supersede all other laws. It is, of course, completely barbaric, being that the Indonesians had not only their own social structure but many thousands of years of history. Apparently all they didn’t have was gunpowder, and that was enough to justify their subjugation in the minds of the oppressors.

While I enjoyed the dissection of colonization and castes, I hated — HATED — the ‘love’ story. Minke is about eighteen when the book starts and maybe 19 or 20 when he and Annelies get married, and at that point, she’s still considered underage. (I don’t know how old that would make her, but I was under the impression that she was somewhere between fourteen and sixteen when the book starts.) Minke falls in love with her primarily because she is so beautiful, and secondarily because she’s so child-like and delicate, which he loves. I hate that with a passion. I am completely aware that we’re talking about a different culture AND a different time, but the main reason that Annelies is so childlike (her age aside), with (essentially) a broken psyche, is that her brother raped her about six months before the story began. This is apparently a common reaction to sexual abuse — a kind of reversion — and — ugh. It does not make Annelies proper sexual-partner material, let alone spouse material.

Of course, Minke discovers the rape with a lot of horror and victim-blaming (autre temps, autre mores, I keep reminding myself, but the first words out of his mouth after she says that her brother raped her are “You lie!”) after they have sex, which is so amazing that he has no ability to control himself and describes both of them as “raped” by their animal natures. (This is another old romance-novel trope that drives me crazy — a man’s ability to detect the presence of a hymen while having passionate, out-of-control sex. Secondarily, if this was Annelies’s first time having sex other than the rape, even if she loved and trusted Minke with her entire life and soul, she would still most likely be flinching with pain the whole time — even if it’s just psychic pain. People don’t recover from rape overnight.) Overall, I didn’t find Annelies a strong enough character to have ANYONE fall in love with her, let alone consider as a proper life-mate. She seemed more like a little-sister sort of figure that Minke should have felt the need to protect, not marry.

Obviously I’m having a lot of trouble separating my twenty-first-century morals and feminism from my enjoyment of the book. I cannot think of any other non-Western literature that I’ve read from the middle of the 20th century, well, period (I think I’ll rectify that later), so I don’t know if I’m just being overly sensitive, but in general, I tend to avoid books that fetishize victim-like and overly childish behavior in women who are sexual objects. It should also be pointed out that the other factors as to why Minke fell in love with Annelies are the fact that she’s Indo but would rather be a Native and treats Minke like an equal; and her mother is an extraordinary woman. I suppose they do spend some time together talking, but Annelies never demonstrates any great capacity for depth of conversation or knowledge. I would even postulate that she falls in love with Minke because she wants a protector — one who is Native, like her mother — against the lighter-skinned inhabitants of their world. Therefore, although they may be ‘in love’ and all, I find the love story partially unconvincing but mostly repulsive. Other readers may be less sensitive and disagree; some people do consider Romeo and Juliet a love story, after all.

It is absolutely, entirely possible to be non-Western and from prior to 2000 and to write novels that involve strong female characters — ones who do not capitulate completely when the going gets tough, and ones who are not sexually appealing due to mental illness. I’m certain of this, despite a lack of examples coming readily to hand. I absolutely will do my best to find these novels in the near future.

That having been said, I wasn’t terribly fond of any of the characters in the book, either. The Nyai (Annelies’s mother) was okay, but I didn’t see what was so compelling about her. Even attempting to ignore my 21st-century notion that those sold into slavery are not different from those who are not, I still cannot find any character traits — other than perhaps directness, generosity, and some mild infamy — that would cause Minke’s near-obsession with the woman. Obviously, that aspect of the narrative didn’t work for me. Minke himself was moderately interesting; a quiet rebel, what he mostly appeared to want was to be left alone to produce his political writings and to live with Annelies. I can respect that, and I found that everything he did was clearly in line with my expectations of his character. Nearly everyone else in the book was unlikeable for one reason or another — being obviously racist, a past history of rape, the need to force Minke into roles he didn’t want, etc.

I am completely willing to own up to the fact that my lack of enjoyment of the book is entirely the fault of my privilege and culture, and not Mr. Toer’s writing. It is, of course, a fascinating view into another world and another time, one of which I knew next to nothing. Some books, I understand, should not be pleasant to read, and since I am definitely in a very high position of privilege compared to all the characters in the book (other than a few Dutch men), I probably should read the rest of the books. I definitely respect Mr. Toer’s dedication to his cause and his willingness to sacrifice so much for that in which he believed. I absolutely understand that his works are very important and that under no circumstances should they (or any other work of literature, for that matter) be censored — in fact, one of my core beliefs is that no work should be censored. However, when it comes down to it, I did not find Mr. Toer’s story enjoyable to read, and although I would recommend it as an important work, I would not suggest that anyone reads it merely for the pleasure of the story. This is a book to read to force one to think about the effects of colonization and consider how those effects might still be affecting countries today. So, 5/5 stars for importance, but 2/5 stars for my personal enjoyment.

This is, as the title says, a collection of new fiction and memoir by Black women (published since 1990; capitalization is the editor’s). It includes, as Ms. Danquah says in the introduction, younger authors: generally under 40 at the time of publication. The table of contents is fairly long and complicated, since many of the works are excerpts from longer pieces, so I will provide a link to the Google Books version of it: here. I had not heard of any of the authors prior to reading this volume, partly because the women included are all younger than the Alice Walker-Toni Morrison-Maya Angelou-Gloria Naylor bunch. Many of them were born after Dr. King was assassinated, and all of them have received acclaim as writers from many different sources.

Easily my favorite story in the book was Itabari Njeri’s memoir excerpt, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” from Every Good-bye Ain’t Gone. It’s about her relationship with a man who was willing to say anything to get into a woman’s bed, and while she certainly succumbed to his charms more than once or twice, eventually she found out that not only was he cheating on her, but he’d gotten two women pregnant in the same very short period of time (she was one of them). Her revenge — half of which was publishing this story — is sweet and well-deserved. If the author hadn’t indicated that it was memoir in her intro, and if the main character hadn’t had the author’s name, I would have assumed it was fiction, because it’s such a well-done tale.

A lot of the other memoirs are the same: I wouldn’t have known they were memoirs if the main character hadn’t shared the name of the author. It demonstrated for me the fluidity of the form; I’d barely read any memoir prior to this, and I think I had the idea that it was a drier form, more like a biography than fiction. Except for the first entry, which is an excerpt that reads more like a personal essay (on how the author could come to fall in love with a murderer), the fiction is nearly indistinguishable from the memoir. I say that, it should be noted, as a compliment: I love fiction in all its forms because it tells a story, and so do the memoirs of these women.

One thing that the editor elucidated in the introduction but that also stuck out to me in all of the stories was how disenfranchised these women writers felt, as in school they never read any books or stories written by someone who looked like them. I am about ten years younger than most of these women, and I went to a standard decent city public high school where about twenty percent of the students weren’t white, in the late 1990s, and I still can only think of two volumes that I read in four years of English class that weren’t written by a white man. (Black Boy, by Richard Wright, and To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I do understand that the latter brings up racial issues, but the author is white and a white man is still the hero.)

It’s rather sad that things haven’t changed all that much in such a short period of time. I do know that I noticed the lack of class-read books written by women, and I did a report on Sylvia Plath to counterbalance this, but it’s still unfortunate that we didn’t read any of the aforementioned authors: Maya Angelou, who read a poem at the presidential inauguration when I was in elementary school; or Alice Walker or Toni Morrison, both of whom have won Pulitzers (the latter also won the Nobel Prize in Literature). To top it off, any of the stories in this volume would have fit incredibly well in the short-story fiction/nonfiction collection we called our English textbooks, and these are second-generation authors.

All that having been said, though, I am painfully aware that me noticing that we didn’t read enough books by women pales in comparison (no pun intended) to a young woman of color realizing that we read no books written by women of color. Overall, though, both experiences indicate a need for greater diversity in the books chosen for classroom use on a high school level. It’s almost amazing that so many young women of color had enough inspiration to become authors, in the face of overwhelming whiteness and maleness. The fact that these women, in general, decided to write realistic fiction or memoirs is quite telling: more than anything, it seems that they are compelled to tell their stories, the stories that are left out of American literature almost entirely. This collection comes highly recommended, but it is not a light set of stories. While some are more enjoyable to read, and even have happy endings, even those remind the reader of so many points that one might miss with a standard education. It will definitely cause re-evaluation of one’s own experience, but I wouldn’t have skipped any of these for the world. 5/5 stars.

The titles of the stories that I reviewed are as follows, with a short description:

“Autumn’s Country” (Asian-set story about arranged marriages and the possible results)
“The Dancer’s Gift” (Dark secondary-world fantasy about destructive empathy)
“Through the Obsidian Gates” (Sort of an Orpheus-in-the-Underworld story, but with Mayans)
“Obsidian Shards” (Aztec death priest fights crime!)
“The Lost Xuyan Bride” (Alternate-history Dashiell-Hammett type mystery)
“The Dragon’s Tears” (Asian-set death, riddles, and [obviously] dragons story)
“Beneath the Mask” (Aztec death priest fights more crime!)
“Sea Child” (Secondary-world fantasy with high cliffs and dangerous waters)
“The Naming at the Pool” (Different secondary-world fantasy, with different riddles and changes of identity)
“Weepers and Ragers” (Future-set science fiction with melting brains and murder)
“For a Daughter” (Literary flash fiction about China’s one-child policy)
“Citadel of Cobras” (Hermits, forests, and magic)
“The Triad’s Gift” (Novella-length story about riddles, losing one’s kingdom, and nagas)

The first story I read was “Autumn’s Country,” and while it was interesting, I wasn’t that enthralled. I read on, though, and discovered her Aztec stories. The main character of these tales is Acatl, a death priest, who somehow gets roped into investigating crimes. I love what are essentially gumshoe tales set in fantasy lands (some of Terry Pratchett’s qualify, as well as Tamara Siler Jones’s Dubric Byerly novels), and this was, in addition to being a mystery, a great fantasy land. I don’t think that Central and South America have been mined nearly enough for fantasy. Not only does Ms. de Bodard make great use of it as a historical kind of world in this story, but she uses the trappings of the empire to make a more current fantasy story.

That story (“The Lost Xuyan Bride”) is set in an alternate reality where China, Europe, and the Aztec empire (called Mexica) share North America. the Europeans (“Americans”) have the eastern chunk, the Chinese (the Xuyans) have west of the Rockies, and the Mexicans have the south. There’s a great deal of xenophobia, especially the Americans; the main character had the misfortune to fall in love with a Xuyan woman, and he was nearly put in jail for it. This story is also a detective tale; it starts out with the traditional beautiful woman coming into the office to ask for help, and the private investigator almost refusing the case. It’s a little longer than some of her other stories, and probably the best of them so far. Her website indicates that she will be publishing many more stories in this world, and I look forward to it.

The other stories have various settings which, while all quite detailed and impressive, are perhaps not quite as appealing to me as her alternate reality. I do admire her breadth of settings, and if she were to choose to write a novel, I very much hope it would be set in the alternate reality. However, if she continues writing short stories, I would not be in the least disappointed. Her character types are rich, as well — while most of her main characters seem to be male, they aren’t one-dimensional in the least, and most aren’t even the least bit similar to each other. Even the detectives don’t resemble one another at all. In short, I’d recommend searching out her works, and I very much hope that she wins the Campbell, so a publisher will take a chance and put out a collection of her short works. 4.5/5 stars for the group.