Review: Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

Title: Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

Author: Kim Fu

Genre: Short Stories/Magical Realism

Trigger Warnings: Vary by story; see end of review for list

Back Cover:

In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll; a runaway bride encounters a sea monster; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman. These visions of modern life wrestle with themes of death and technological consequence, guilt and sexuality, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.

Mesmerizing, electric, and wholly original, Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century blurs the boundaries of the real and fantastic, offering intricate and surprising insights into human nature.

Review:

Admittedly, I have not read a ton of short story collections. However, in my limited experience I’ve never encountered a short story collection where every single story is spectacular. But Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century contains twelve stories that are weird, vivid, occasionally disturbing, brilliant, and unforgettable.

Some of them were disturbing or just plain weird (“Sandman,” “Scissors,” “Bridezilla”). Some inspired a lot of emotions, sometimes very intense ones (“Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867,” “Time Cubes,” “June Bugs”). Some of them left me feeling like there was some meaning just beyond the written words that I wasn’t quite getting (“Liddy, First to Fly,” “Twenty Hours,” “In This Fantasy”). And some were just perfectly good short stories (“#ClimbingNation,” “The Doll,” “Do You Remember Candy”). But all of them were great in their own way.

Personally, I love the off-kilter feeling of the normalized weirdness in magical realism. And even though many of these stories don’t fit into strict magical realism territory (there are several that could be better categorized as science fiction, horror, or even contemporary), they all have that same vibe. They are infused with a feeling that everything is a little strange, a little off, a little not quite what you expected and that you’re the weird one for thinking it’s strange. If anything connects these stories, it’s that feeling, and I loved it.

If I had to pick a few favorites, I would go with “Sandman” (surprisingly emotionally compelling despite being very weird in concept), “Do You Remember Candy” (is there a word for the grief of losing something you haven’t actually lost yet? Because that’s what this story inspires), and “Time Cubes” (vividly sad with a dark but bittersweet ending). (June Bugs” does get an honorable mention for its heart-poundingly realistic depiction of the more subtle kind of abusive relationship.) But like I keep saying, there are no bad stories here. All of them are great in their own way. This short story collection is definitely worth reading.

Trigger Warnings:

• Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867: Parent death, unreality (minor)
• Liddy, First to Fly: Body horror
• Time Cubes: Mental illness, suicidal ideation, suicide
• #ClimbingNation: Death, sibling death, grief
• Sandman: Unreality, body horror (kinda)
• Twenty Hours: Death, romantic partner death, murder, gun violence, infidelity (mentioned as hypothetical), blood (mentions), body horror (mild)
• The Doll: Child death, death, suicide
• In This Fantasy: Domestic abuse, death, blood, murder, infidelity, unreality
• Scissors: Sexual content
• June Bugs: Domestic abuse, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, guns, insects
• Bridezilla: Animal death, ecological disaster (mentions)
• Do You Remember Candy: Loss of senses, strained parent-child relationship

Review: The Tangleroot Palace

Title: The Tangleroot Palace: Stories

Author: Marjorie Liu

Genre: Short Stories

Trigger Warnings: See end of review for breakdown by story

Back Cover:

New York Times bestseller and Hugo, British Fantasy, Romantic Times, and Eisner award-winning author of the graphic novel, Monstress, Marjorie Liu leads you deep into the heart of the tangled woods. In her long-awaited debut story collection, dark, lush, and spellbinding short fiction you will find unexpected detours, dangerous magic, and even more dangerous women.

Briar, bodyguard for a body-stealing sorceress, discovers her love for Rose, whose true soul emerges only once a week. An apprentice witch seeks her freedom through betrayal, the bones of the innocent, and a meticulously-plotted spell. In a world powered by crystal skulls, a warrior returns to save China from invasion by her jealous ex. A princess runs away from an arranged marriage, finding family in a strange troupe of traveling actors at the border of the kingdom’s deep, dark woods.

Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Marjorie Liu’s first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings.

Review:

I so badly wanted my Monstress fix that I went and read an entirely unrelated short story collection just because it was written by the same author. So do with that what you will.

This whole collection has a vibe like a dark fairy tale. Even though three of the stories are ones I would not label “fantasy,” they all had the same mood of magic gone dark and twisted and violent even when there was no magic in the story at all. Several of them also contain forests that are magically twisted and/or otherwise dangerous, but I’m not sure what to make of that theme.

The emphasis in these stories is on the darkness in humans. A lot of the worlds are magical and twisted, but it’s the humans who make them violent and dangerous. There are things out there that can hurt you, but the ones who will do the most damage are frightened and angry people, and you won’t see it coming.

Personally, I like stories that aren’t afraid to go dark. Every single story in this collection goes hard on blood and trauma. That makes it a very intense reading experience – not the kind of book it’s easy to read straight through. The breaks between stories provide a nice opportunity to take a break from all the feelings and trauma in the stories.

None of these stories particularly stood out to me, but none of them were bad. Each was unique and compelling and did a great job grabbing my emotions. It’s not really the Monstress fix I wanted when I picked it up, and I think that prevents me from unequivocally saying it’s awesome, but these stories are all very good.

Trigger Warnings:

Sympathy for the Bones: Death, death of parent, child abuse, body horror, gore

The Briar and the Rose: Violence, blood (brief), rape, mind control/someone controlling someone else’s body without consent, suicidal ideation

The Light and the Fury: Death, death of children, blood, gore, body horror, war, imperialism

The Last Dignity of Man: Injury, excrement, vomit

Where the Heart Lives: Death, body horror, abandonment

After the Blood: Death, blood, gore, violence, fire/fire injury, parental rejection, body horror, rape (implied)

Tangleroot Palace: Death of parent (mentions), forced marriage, body horror, existential horror

Review: Literature from the “Axis of Evil”

Title: Literature from the “Axis of Evil”: Writing from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Other Enemy Nations

Author: Various (anthology)

Genre: Poetry/Short Stories

Trigger Warnings: Vary between stories; include poverty, child abuse, sexual content, excrement, death, blood, injury, and war

Back Cover:

In thirty-five works of fiction and poetry, writers from countries Americans have not been allowed to hear from-until the Treasury Department revised its regulations recently-offer an invaluable window on daily life in “enemy nations” and humanize the individuals living there. The book includes works from Syria, Lybia, the Sudan, Cuba, as well as from Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. As editor Alane Mason writes in the introduction, “Not knowing what the rest of the world is thinking and writing is both dangerous and boring.”

Review:

This book is utterly fascinating. It contains thirty-five works of poetry, short stories, and excerpts from longer fiction from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Lybia, Sudan, and Cuba, all nations considered enemies of the United States, where I live. Each country’s section starts with a bit about the countries themselves and the cultural context the works were written in, and each work begins with a short biography of each author (excepting North Korea, where biographical information for most authors is not released by the state).

It’s hard to talk about these stories without rambling on, and it’s easiest just to have the experience yourself. They are windows into life in these countries, stories of real people with real feelings from countries that I had been taught were peopled with faceless Evil Enemies. I found the North Korean works especially interesting (and most especially “A Tale of Music” by Kang Kwi-mi, the longest of the four) – though North Korean fiction is regulated by the government, it gave a fascinating insight into how the government wants people to view living in North Korea, whether or not it reflects the reality of North Korean citizens.

Another thing I found interesting was how many of the Middle Eastern/North African sections were written by writers who had grown up in the countries in question but had either left or were in exile and wrote about their homeland from outside its borders. The context notes point out that most of these countries don’t look kindly on dissenting writing or the writers behind it, so it makes sense, it was just surprising.

And I will admit that even with the context notes in each section, sometimes I just didn’t have the cultural understanding to grasp the significance in some stories. “The Vice Principal” (Iran), for example, is a story of a boy who wrote an essay for school saying that the town body-washer performed the greatest service to society and nearly got expelled over it. I am still very confused over why this essay would warrant that large a punishment – or any punishment at all, really. The teacher was definitely expecting essays on doctors, teachers, soldiers, and such, but he did say that the students could make their own choices, and body-washers do perform a great service (taking care of corpses so they don’t lay around stinking and causing disease, providing proper respect to the deceased, preparing them so the grieving family can bury them properly) and yet are reviled for it. My American sensibilities finds it an unorthodox choice, but the boy’s essay (printed in the story) has a well-reasoned argument and the teacher did say the students were free to write their own opinion. My only conclusion is that I must be missing some piece of cultural context that would make this essay unacceptable for some reason.

I highly recommend this book. It voices almost never heard in the United States, insights and context to cultures Americans have been raised to think of as The Enemy, and works to humanize these perspectives that are often invisible to us. (I also think it would be an excellent book to discuss in a literature class.) If you want to broaden your perspectives, Literature from the “Axis of Evil” will do so.

Review: Dragons at Crumbling Castle, and Other Tales

Title: Dragons at Crumbling Castle, and Other Tales

Author: Terry Pratchett

Genre: Fairy Tale

Trigger Warnings: Mild cartoonish violence

Back Cover:

This never-before-published collection of fourteen funny and inventive tales by acclaimed author Sir Terry Pratchett features a memorable cast of inept wizards, sensible heroes, and unusually adventuresome tortoises. These accessible and mischievous tales are an ideal introduction for young readers to this beloved author. Established fans of Pratchett’s work will savor the playful presentation of the themes and ideas that inform his best-selling novels.

Review:

These are very much stories for children. All of them are incredibly short and straightforward, full of Pratchettly witicisms but devoid of complexity. (I have decided that Pratchettly/Pratchetty is a word now, meaning something amusingly absurd but that makes sense in its own way, like Terry Pratchett might write.) I didn’t mind being much older than the target audience, though, since I mainly picked it up to be a quick “palate cleanser” between some heavier and more serious books.

Usually with sort story collections I like to talk about each story individually, but there are fourteen of them and that would make this review incredibly long. So I’m just going to hit a few highlights.

• “Dok the Caveman” was one of my favorites. The story of Dok inventing all manner of ridiculous things like “cooking” and “the wheel” to the great frustration of his tribemates was witty and highly amusing.
• “Hercules the Tortoise” was the anomaly of this collection. It didn’t read like a Terry Pratchett story and was, quite frankly, boring and forgettable.
• “The 59A Bus Goes Back in Time” is what would have happened if Terry Pratchett wrote the Magic School Bus, and though I would have liked more out of it I still found it highly entertaining.
• “Edwo the Boring Knight” was another favorite, because I found the idea of a prince being sent off to seek his fortune while his only skill is being impossibly, mind-numbingly boring, completely hilarious.

Any one of these stories could be expanded into an enjoyable full-length book, and I would enjoy more from each of these zany ideas. Part of what made them feel so much like they were for children was the way they were so stripped down and lacking the complexity of most of the other Terry Pratchett books I’ve read. But on the other hand, most of them were quite fun to read, and I now have some stories in my back pocket for next time my husband’s little cousins ask me to tell them a story.

Review: Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel

Title: Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel

Author: Julian K. Jarboe

Genre: Science Fiction/Short Stories

Trigger Warnings: Transphobia, prejudice/bigotry, ableism, menstruation, body horror, self-harm

Back Cover:

In this debut collection of body-horror fairy tales and mid-apocalyptic Catholic cyberpunk, memory and myth, loss and age, these are the tools of storyteller Jarboe, a talent in the field of queer fabulism. Bodily autonomy and transformation, the importance of negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and bad situations amidst the staggering and urgent question of how build and nurture meaning, love, and safety in a larger world/society that might not be “fixable.”

Review:

I had never heard of Julian K. Jarboe before picking up this book, likely because they are mainly a short fiction writer and the only time I read short stories is when they’re collected into books like this. But I think I’m going to have to keep an eye out for new work from them, because these stories are so wise and insightful.

The main theme across all of these stories is queerness, especially transness, and what it’s like to be trans in a world that’s not friendly to transness. Only-slightly-less-main themes are neurodivergance and poverty and the experience of being neurodiverse and poor in a world that’s not friendly to either. It’s very raw and very powerful and very real, capturing much of the nuance of those situations. All of these stories are 100% written by someone who knows what it’s like to be trans, neurodiverse, and poor.

All of these stories are great (although I did think the title story, “Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel,” was a little longer than it needed to be), but I want to touch on a few of my favorites.

• “Self Care.” Raw and full of anger – at capitalism, religion, transphobia, and being poor. Relatable and validating.
• “The Heavy Things.” The sad truth that sometimes even people who should (and said they did) love you unconditionally care more about what they can get from you than you yourself.
• “Estranged Children of Storybook Houses.” The changeling myth made real. For all the children whose parents feel like they are owed someone different than the child they have.
• “We Did Not Know We Were Giants.” I’m still not completely sure of the philosophical or emotional meaning behind this one but I love it. It may be my favorite in the book.

Saying that these stories are “deep” sounds weird and cheap, but they’re full of layers of emotion, philosophy, and wisdom. I highlighted so many quotes from so many of the stories. The stories don’t always make a lot of sense to my head – full of tangents and strange turns of phrase, feeling no need to include any “traditional” elements like plot or character arcs – but they felt real and they hit hard. These stories are fantastic.

Epistolary, the cutest short story you will ever read

I have just discovered “Epistolary” by Sacha Lamb, which is a rather uninteresting title hiding the cutest story I have ever encountered. Leo, a trans Jewish kid, makes extra money rescuing stuffed animals from thrift shops and reselling them online with stories about them being haunted. Another trans Jewish kid finds their lost stuffed frog listed for sale on Leo’s site and wants it back. And so begins the story that’s told mostly through email and text exchanges tied together with some narration from Leo.

It’s a little bit enemies to lovers (although more accurately rivals to mutual-crush-but-too-shy-to-actually-admit-we’re-dating), both of these kids are so sweet with their own distinct (and adorable) personalities, Leo has an amazing voice, and it’s awkward but in the cutest possible way (no cringe at all). I just can’t get over how sweet and cute and adorable this story is.

Here is the link, go read it now!

Review: How Long ’til Black Future Month?

Title: How Long ’til Black Future Month?

Author: N.K. Jemisin

Genre: Short Stories/Science Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Varies between stories; see end for list

Back Cover:

In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Review:

I don’t read a lot of short stories, mainly because with so many stories in one volume it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m not going to love all of them. Except this volume. I don’t think there was a single story in here that I disliked. Some of them were a little hard to follow due to the format (“Henosis” is told out of order, “The Evaluators” is told through mission logs, and “The You Train” is a transcript of one side of a phone conversation), but none of them were bad.

There are 22 stories in this anthology, so in an effort to not make this review ridiculously long, I’m not going to go through them one by one. Besides, I’d say the same thing about pretty much all of them. The concepts are unique and fascinating, the stories are well-written, the characters are complex and well-drawn despite the stories being short, and there’s not a single bad story here. Some are less memorable than others, but there wasn’t a single one that I didn’t enjoy reading.

The concepts are so diverse, too. There’s witchcraft in the Jim Crow south, a chef learning to cook with magical ingredients, an alternate-history steampunk-esque version of New Orleans, AIs in a virtual world, space exploration, utopia, dystopia, apocalypses, hard sci-fi, science fantasy, dragons, goddesses, aliens, lucky charms, the personification of Death itself … And, of course, humanity. Love, death, hope, fear, food, longing, pain, striving, overcoming, living and being and continuing on in weird and wonderful and sometimes frightening worlds.

N.K. Jemisin packs so much into such short stories. I’m honestly blown away. Not only can I not pick a least favorite, I can’t pick a most favorite. These stories are all just so stunningly good, in concept and in execution. I am so glad I read this.

Trigger Warnings:

• The Ones Who Stay and Fight: Death
• The City Born Great: Poverty, homelessness, sex work (mention)
• Red Dirt Witch: Racism, Jim Crow, slavery
• L’Alchimista: None
• The Effluent Engine: Racism, segregation, guns, death, blood
• Cloud Dragon Skies: Loss of home
• The Trojan Girl: Mild body horror, brain death
• Valedictorian: None
• The Storyteller’s Replacement: Death, death of non-human animals, gore
• The Brides of Heaven: Death of children, pregnancy
• The Evaluators: Death (mention), mild body horror
• Walking Awake: Death, death of children, imprisonment of children, blood, murder, body horror, mind control, ableism
• The Elevator Dancer: None
• Cuisine des Memoires: Divorce
• Stone Hunger: Death, injury (broken bones), mild body horror, imprisonment, death of parents/family
• On the Banks of the River Lex: Death, death of non-human animals, human extinction
• The Narcomancer: Death, rape (mentions), sexual desire, heterosexual sex (implied)
• Henosis: Threat of death, murder (mention)
• Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows: Loneliness, non-existence
• The You Train: None
• Non-Zero Probabilities: Masturbation (mention), heterosexual sex (mention), vehicle crash, death, broken bones (mention)
• Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters: Blood, death, gun violence (mention), police brutality (mention), corpses, flooding, death of non-human creatures

Review: No Man of Woman Born

Title: No Man of Woman Born

Author: Ana Mardoll

Genre: Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: See review

Back Cover:

Destiny sees what others don’t.

A quiet fisher mourning the loss of xer sister to a cruel dragon. A clever hedge-witch gathering knowledge in a hostile land. A son seeking vengeance for his father’s death. A daughter claiming the legacy denied her. A princess laboring under an unbreakable curse. A young resistance fighter questioning everything he’s ever known. A little girl willing to battle a dragon for the sake of a wish. These heroes and heroines emerge from adversity into triumph, recognizing they can be more than they ever imagined: chosen ones of destiny.

From the author of the Earthside series and the Rewoven Tales novels, No Man of Woman Born is a collection of seven fantasy stories in which transgender and nonbinary characters subvert and fulfill gendered prophecies. These prophecies recognize and acknowledge each character’s gender, even when others do not. Note: No trans or nonbinary characters were killed in the making of this book. Trigger warnings and neopronoun pronunciation guides are provided for each story.

Review:

This book is a collection of seven short stories that asks the question, where do trans and nonbinary people fit into gendered prophecies? As you might guess, the propecies in this story always affirm the trans/enby identity, but it’s how they do that makes these stories interesting.

Tangled Nets

Trigger warnings: Violence, bloodshed, community ableism, sacrifical victims, self-sacrifice

The dragon that demands a sacrifice from the village each year cannot be killed by man nor woman, and I bet you can guess where this is going. Wren’s sister was the sacrifice last year, in exchange for food and medicine to keep their sick mother alive, and xie is (understandably) still upset. I never really got much of a feel for Wren xerself, but the world was well-drawn for a short story and the descriptions were wonderfully vivid.

King’s Favor

Trigger warnings: Border walls, population purges, violence, mention of self-harm

What’s better than magic and spies? Magical spies. Caran is on a spying mission to a country that’s killing all magic-users – nee’s just a barely-magical herbalist, but the witch queen still considers that a threat. Nee gets captured, but it’s ner knowledge of plants that saves ner (and the kingdom). One of the longer stories, and definitely worth it. Caran was great and I loved reading about ner. Plus there was a twist at the very end that I didn’t expect.

His Father’s Son

Trigger warnings: Violence and sexualized violence, bloodshead, death of family, parents, and minor children

Nocien’s family was killed by a warlord because of a prophecy that only one of his father’s sons could kill the warlord. But the warlord didn’t know that Nocien is actually a trans man, and Nocien is out for revenge. This story covers Nocien’s present and past, with an extended flashback to the night the warlord attacked. It has a very happy ending, and if you like stories where a weaker protagonist has to be clever to best a stronger enemy, this story will be your jam. A great read.

Daughter of Kings

Trigger warnings: Misgendering, parental bigotry, mention of parental death

The propecy says that only the warrior queen’s granddaughter can pull her sword from the rock and unite the kingdom. But the king only has sons – or so he thinks. Finndis is a (closeted) trans girl, and a large part of this story is her wondering if the propecy will apply to her since she wasn’t “born a girl.” You can probably guess what happens. I found this story overall unremarkable, but it was still nice in how trans-affirming it was.

Early to Rise

Trigger warnings: Magical curses, non-consentual kissing, mention of self-harm

What happens to Sleeping Beauty when they’re genderfluid and the curse is specifically for a princess? This story explores that, and I loved it. Prince/ss Claude has been pressured all their life to find their “true love” to break the curse, but they don’t like that idea much at all. (They might be ace/aro? Not confirmed in the text but I definintely got vibes.) This is easily the most creative of these stories (can we talk about that ending? perfection) and by far my favorite. Read this one.

No Man of Woman Born

Trigger warnings: Governmental oppression, mention of emergency ceserean births, mention of rape

The propecy says that no man of woman born can kill the evil king. So women, nonbinary people, and boys (too young to be considered “a man”) train in secret to try and be the one who can kill him. Innes is a man (he thinks), but he trains anyway, only to find out he may not be a man of woman born after all. And no, the twist isn’t that he’s not a man – at the end of the story, he’s still unsure. This story was good – not stellar, but good. It had a lot of philosophical questions about the importance of prophecies, which I thought was cool. (It’s also possible it felt a lot less interesting coming directly after “Early to Rise.”)

The Wish-Giver

Trigger warnings: None

The dragon on top of the hill will grant you any wish if you best her in combat – but if she bests you, you’re dead. A little “boy” who desperately wants everyone to recognize her as a little girl decides to take her chances. If I were the editor for this book, I would have recommended cutting this one. It’s super short, with no characterization (not even character names), the barest sketch of a world, and not much of interest except “dragon says trans rights.” I thought it was a disappointingly weak note to end an otherwise solid anthology on.

Review: Street Spells

Title: Street Spells: Seven Urban Fantasy Shorts

Author: Various (see back cover)

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: See review

Back Cover:

Magic stalks modern streets.

Werewolves and witches. Demons and elves. Street Spells compiles seven new and exclusive short stories featuring mythical beings hidden in plain sight.

Aimee Easterling: “Scapegoat”

Tori Centanni: “Dead Goblins and Overdue Rent”

Rachel Medhurst: “Magically Hidden”

Dale Ivan Smith: “Siloed”

Becca Andre: “Alchemy and Destiny”

N. R. Hairston: “Dirty Magic”

Kat Cotton: “Run Away”

Break out of jail, hunt down magical art thieves, and dabble in alchemy as you discover a new author (or seven) in this page-turning collection of paranormal shorts.

Review:

This book is a mixed bag – three of these stories I really liked, and three of them I didn’t even finish. Literally the only thing these stories share is genre, and since my opinions on them vary greatly, I’m going to tackle them all individually.

“Scapegoat” by Aimee Easterling

Trigger warnings: Attempted sexual assault, mild whorephobia

I did not finish this one. It’s one of the longer ones and I didn’t get very far into it. It started with a nineteen-year-old stripper getting almost assaulted on her way home, then she gets saved by a werewolf who turns into a guy that she knew from the strip club, who then asks her to leave town with his pack … because he wants her to be his mate or something? It was like the cringiest werewolf romance ever in the first five pages and I just skipped ahead to the next story.

“Dead Goblins and Overdue Rent” by Tori Centanni

Trigger warnings: Death, blood, zombies

This was one of my favorites. It had the urban fantasy idea of a character with powers navigating a supernatural world while still trying to do ordinary things like make rent. The story was creative, the mystery aspect was good, and I just love characters that win because the antagonist didn’t know they had some sort of ridiculously strong power. The story was left weirdly unresolved, which is my only criticism, but I enjoyed this one.

“Magically Hidden” by Rachel Medhurst

Trigger warnings: Guns

Another longer one, and another one I didn’t finish. The concept was actually interesting – two agents from “Magical MI5” are trying to prevent a museum robbery, and they think they succeeded until they realize they were outwitted. But I couldn’t stand the “romance” between the two main characters, which mostly consisted of the narrator lusting after her partner. I gave up at the line “Mr. Hunky Pants – that’s short for Gerard -” The only thing the narrator seemed to care about was getting in her partner’s pants and I couldn’t tolerate it even to figure out what happened during the museum robbery.

“Siloed” by Dale Ivan Smith

Trigger warnings: Magical torture, blood, death

Another favorite. A very creative story about a guard at a prison for supernatural criminals who gets caught up in a betrayal and escape plan. The world (or at least, the tiny part of the world that was the supernatural prison) was well-developed for as short as the story was, the main character was sympathetic, and the plot is really good, including unexpected enemies and an unexpected ally. I was impressed with how much the story managed to do while still being fairly short.

“Alchemy and Destiny” by Becca Andre

Trigger warnings: None as far as I read

This one I didn’t finish, but I think that might just be me, since it wasn’t a content issue at all. The story started okay, if bland – one brother in a family of Hunters being picked on by his other brothers because he’s more skilled than them. I stopped reading because the way the characters and story were written was something I would expect to see in something I wrote when I was 13. The style was more like my middle school fanfiction than anything I would expect to see published, and I didn’t enjoy it.

“Dirty Magic” by N.R. Hairston

Trigger warnings: Violence, blood, death, organized crime

This is another one that I really enjoyed. It’s one of the longer ones (I think the longest), and deserved the page time. The main character has the ability to open portals between worlds, and uses that ability to hide criminals on the run (who pay her well) and victims of violence (which she does pro bono). When one of the victims she hid goes missing again, she sets out to find and rescue the woman. The setting is great, with several interesting worlds, and I really liked the main character. There’s also something bigger going on than just one missing woman, and overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable story.

“Run Away” by Kat Cotton

Trigger warnings: Homelessness

I am not really sure how I feel about this story, and I think part of that is because it was so short. The main character is a homeless minor (15 I think) who gets chased by some sort of red-eyed shadow entity. She randomly bumps into this adult man who takes her home, feeds her, and helps her deal with the demonic thing. I just couldn’t get over how weird it was for this adult man to take this minor girl home, and even though nothing happened, it still made me super uncomfortable. The story never tells you anything about this man. Why is his house a safe place from the shadow thing? How does he know how to help the main character deal with it? You never find out anything about him besides his name. He’s just … there, with no answers, and it left me unsure how comfortable I really was with the whole situation.

Review: Tales from Perach

Title: Tales from Perach

Series: Mangoverse #5

Author: Shira Glassman

Genre: High Fantasy/Short Stories

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, rape mention

Spoiler Warning: Even though this is the fifth book in the series, it’s a collection of short stories and there actually aren’t any spoilers for the previous books.

Back Cover:

Seven queer fantasy shorts set in the tropical Jewish world of the Mangoverse novels.

“Your Name is Love”
An energetic royal guard takes her artist wife on a scavenger hunt around the city so she can stop having artist’s block about the lesbian graphic novel she’s supposed to make for the queen.

“No Whining”
Trans woman Chef Yael dithers over whether to switch wine sellers, at the urging of her husband Aaron, when her regular vendor is incompetent but the delivery girl is a trusted ally.

“Every Us”
A prince with anxiety is comforted in the arms of his partner when he wakes up from a nightmare.

“Take Time to Stop and Eat the Roses”
A trans teenager and his girlfriend go on a midnight quest for flowers for her sister’s wedding.

“The Generous Princess”
A royal family with two moms and two dads puts their own special twist on celebrating Purim.

And now, bundled with Tales from Outer Lands, two contrasting stories of heroic Jewish womanhood:

“Rivka in Port Saltspray”
Trapped in a seedy port town because an innkeeper is holding her shapeshifting dragon-horse hostage until she can pay all the charges he invented, nomadic warrior Rivka finally has a chance at some decent money when a wealthy but weak man hires her to rescue his fiancée. But she has to think on her feet when she learns there may be more at stake.

“Aviva and the Aliens”
On the night before the royal Passover seder, Aviva has to outsmart the aliens who abducted her to cook for them because they had grown sick of their spaceship’s food replicators. Will she get home before Queen Shulamit wakes up and panics from her absence?

Review:

This is a collection of short stories set in the Mangoverse universe. If you’ve read the previous Mangoverse books, you’ll be familiar with at least one character in every story, but you really don’t need to read the previous books to follow what’s going on here.

I want to touch on each story individually before I move on to general thoughts.

Your Name is Love: Cute, fun, not a lot of plot. Mostly an excuse to follow to minor lesbian characters around and see them be romantic.

No Whining: Probably my least-favorite of these stories – not that it was bad, but I found Yael’s consternation a little irritating. The incompetent wine seller is damaging her business, but she resists switching to a better one because she likes the delivery girl. On one hand I understand, but on the other the restaurant is literally her livelihood and the delivery girl has other deliveries besides Yael’s restaurant.

Every Us: Suuuuper short. Felt more like an anecdote or a scene from something else than a story in its own right. Does show the dynamic between two characters from earlier books, though.

Take Time to Stop and Eat the Roses: Fun and cute, not much of a plot but doesn’t really need it. A feel-good story if there ever was one.

The Generous Princess: The least memorable of these stories for me, but that’s possibly because I don’t know much about Jewish holiday traditions. Likely to be much more interesting to someone familiar with the Purim celebration.

Rivka in Port Saltspray: A really enjoyable story from Rivka’s past, highlighting not only her experience as a warrior-for-hire but her integrity and drive to do the right thing. The longest of these stories and definitely worth the page time.

Aviva and the Aliens: I really didn’t expect aliens in this universe, and that felt a little jarring to me. But the story itself highlighted Aviva’s cleverness and was a quick but fun read.

This is really a light, fun, feel-good story collection. All of these stories have happy endings, and several of them don’t have much of a plot to speak of. Like the rest of the Mangoverse books, it’s meant to be simple, light, and enjoyable, without intensity or too many negative emotions at all, really. Which can be really nice and refreshing, especially if you tend towards dark and emotional reads like I do.

The Mangoverse Series:

1. The Second Mango
2. Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story
3. A Harvest of Ripe Figs
4. The Olive Conspiracy
5. Tales from Perach