Tag: Fantasy

GIRL, SERPENT, THORN — Melissa Bashardoust

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“Even if she’s upset with you now, if you do right by her, she will forgive you.”

— Melissa Bashardoust, Girl, Serpent, Thorn

This is the spoiler-free review of this novel. If you’d like to read my full reading journal, you can check it over on my Ko-fi.

Girl, Serpent, Thorn is a magic, fantastic story about legends and the way they are told: we are, and we aren’t, and what we do with out gifts/curses is up to us. Those who loves us will seek to protect us, and sometimes our choices will lead us astray. But if we do right by each other, love and forgiveness are our reward.

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OUT OF THIS WORLD — Catherine Lundoff

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If I said I met my vampire prince at a ball at the King’s palace, would you believe me?

— OUT OF THIS WORLD

OUT OF THIS WORLD is an excellent anthology — crucially in that it introduces new readers, such as me, to such a wide variety of stories by a single author. The short stories selected for this each are set in its own, sometimes fantastic, sometimes magical, often dark sort of world; drawing on their own tropes and genres. The distinctions of each are easily grasped, so deft is Lundoff in crafting the impressions of those worlds. I could see the cushy, Victorian furniture in Medium Méchanique in front of me as well as the mean streets a femme private eye walks in Red Scare.

I may have not connected with every single protagonist in each of the stories, and such is the nature of anthologies especially when the stories contained are not all of one genre and style. But more than that, it’s down to the diversity of Lundoff’s characters that you’ll meet some you don’t vibe with and others you immediately want to go sit down for coffee (or something stronger, your mileage may vary) with. Even more decidedly so, however, I can name my favourites.

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