Susan M. ShwartzCritiques

F/SF

Space

Short stories about witches by well known women writers including Diana Wynne Jones and a couple of unfamiliar male writers. Entertaining but seven months later I've completely forgotten the stories.

This novel is supposed to be a reinterpretation of [a:Joseph Conrad|3345|Joseph Conrad|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1198538984p2/3345.jpg] novel [b:Lord Jim|12194|Lord Jim|Joseph Conrad|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327936119s/12194.jpg|2578988]. It's at least made me want to dig up a copy and read that too. The premise is right up my alley - I love Horatio Hornblower and David Feintuch's Seafort Saga which is just Horatio Hornblower in space. This sounded great.

There are scenes in this novel that are really wonderful. A slow build up, beautifully detailed surroundings, believable emotion and intriguing backdrops suck you right in to the story.

Then you get an abrupt shift into the next one.

Over and over again the scene changed long before I was done with it. I was always wondering if I really understood what was going on.
I wanted to love this, but never got there. I'm not sure if the problem was the authour, the editor or just me, but the end result was was only so so. Perhaps you'll fare better

Susan Shwartz (b. 1949) co-authored five Star Trek novels and has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. Hostile Takeover, her most recent stand-alone novel, is structurally flawed but still worth reading. In the near future, corporations have replaced traditional governments. Execs travel in luxury to colonies in the asteroid belt, while steerage-class passengers travel to the belt as “shipcicles” to be thawed out only when their indentured labor is needed. Protagonist C. C. Williams is sent to the Vesta colony to quietly audit its books but soon finds herself the target of an assassination. Most of the action is packed into the last quarter of the plot, and I wish that C.C. had more scenes in which she exercised her forensic talents.½

Nice encounter with Spock, and his history. An excellent use of a Jewish character and references to the Tanach. And listening to Leonard Nimoy read it was wonderful.

My review disappeared during saving, so I am writing only a brief review (and now know to use a word processor so I can copy and paste). I like anthropology, history, and fantasy. This story depicts Asian cultures and folklore, is based on a historical personage, and is a fantasy. With all that and also good writing, I enjoyed it.

Another single character Star Trek novel, focussing on the iconic Vulcan, written by two Spock-obsessed female writers. There was a lot to be wary of here. But actually I quite enjoyed it. The parallel storylines, one from Spock's adolescence and one from his adulthood, after the Enterprise years, work well. There is only a limited amount of new material that you can bring to a franchised character, but this novel does a good job of finding and filling in the few gaps left in Spock's biography (e.g. the circumstances around his decision to join Starfleet and his career change in later life).

Not bad, if a little disjointed.

Imperial Lady by Andre Norton and Susan Schwartz is a historical fantasy that was first published in 1989. It is based on an actual piece of Chinese history about a Han princess that was sent into the west to marry and cement a treaty with the Mongols in or around 40 BC.

By taking this story and enlarging on the characters and adding a touch of magic, they have produced a spellbinding tale about Silver Snow, daughter of a disgraced general who accepts her fate to be used as a political tool in a marriage to an aging barbarian chief and, who works to bring both honour to her family and also to avert a war. She is accompanied by her maid, Willow, who is a magical being. She can turn into a fox and talk to the small animals, she has a vast knowledge of spells and herbs to assist her lady. They need all of Willows skills to fight the barbarian’s first wife, who is working her black magic against them in order to secure her son as the heir. She would like to wipe out both her husband and this new wife.

Imperial Lady was my introduction to the writing of Andre Norton and I thoroughly enjoyed this light, quick fantasy read. Descriptive, lyrical language unfolds a tale that totally absorbed me from start to finish. It nicely combined history with fantasy and added a touch of romance to deliver a fun story about a dainty Chinese lady who became a barbarian queen.

A robust Star Trek novel, with authentic characterization and a thoughtful structure. The action doesn't move particularly quickly, but the real plot isn't in the action. It's the exploration of Spock's motivations, how he decided to join Starfleet, and then how he transitioned from a Captain in the movie era to an ambassador to the Romulans in the TNG era. Plus a lot of desert survival, with an original character who ought to seem like an expy of Kirk but emerges as his own person, reminding Spock just enough of his other friend. (And I loved the meaty role for McCoy, and the way their relationship works not only after all this time, but after McCoy has carried Spock's katra.) I also really liked the use of Rabin's Jewish heritage and how it resonates with Leonard Nimoy's own life and what he brought to Spock's character. It adds an extra dimension to Spock and Rabin's relationship, and how Rabin is able to reflect on Spock. A very enjoyable and readable story, despite the slow pace.

Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz's Vulcan's Heart follows Spock on an early mission to explore the possibility of reuniting Vulcans with their Romulan "cousins." Sherman and Shwartz draw upon a wide range of background material, including the Romulan commander from The Original Series episode, "The Enterprise Incident," Jean-Luc Picard's meeting with Sarek from The Next Generation episode "Sarek," the Enterprise-C's role at Narenda III and the fate of Tasha Yar from the alternate timeline as covered in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Redemption II," and Spock's relationship with the Romulan Senator Pardek in "Unification." Additionally, Sherman and Shwartz include references to their previous novel, Vulcan's Forge. Their story effortlessly links these pieces of background information from the various Next Generation episodes to create a novel true to the characters and interesting for its examination of Vulcan and Romulan culture. The authors manage to create suspense despite the fact that fans of the franchise know the fates of many of the characters in advance. Nor do they waste cameos; instead, they demonstrate an almost encyclopedic knowledge of background so that it makes sense for characters to appear where they do in the narrative. While the canonical nature of many Star Trek books is often in doubt, this ranks among the best for the authors' story and their use of the television and film material.

This book took me way longer than I expected to read because, honestly, I didn't like most of it. The reason I got it in the first place is because there is a Diane Duane story in it and I liked that one, but most of the others were really a pain to slog through. Usually I stop reading books I dislike that much, but I wanted to actually finish it for some reason. What a waste of time.

dry & boring as the desert the story took place in

This is a good book featuring Spock. The audiobook is narrated by Leonard Nimoy, himself, which is reason enough to listen to it, IMHO. There is some assumption made that the reader knows exactly what happened before, which is confusing if you're coming to the book without knowledge of previous events - i.e. - Kirk's death (which one?), Sarek is alive and well, so that presumes a timeline squarely in TNG, but if Kirk's death is Generations, this is confusing. You have to be forgiving of the context in which this book is written, but it's still a very enjoyable book.

A collection of short fantasy stories by female writers. A mixed bag, but overall better than most fantasy collections. The styles range from noir detective to high fantasy, but nearly all are in some way a twist or subversion on popular tropes.

My faves:
Jo Clayton's "Hallah's Choice", about a middle-aged assassin who finds that her long-lost daughter and granddaughter are in trouble. In exchange for their safety, she swears herself into the service of a mysterious chess master. The world building here was really fascinating, and this story felt like a little glimpse into a much larger tale. I'm intrigued!

Tanith Lee's "Felixity", about the drab daughter of two wealthy, beautiful, charming people. When she falls prey to a con man, only her own imagination and desperation saves her. Beautifully written.

Nancy Kress's "Unto the Daughters" is one of my very favorite versions of "the serpent tells its side of the story of the fall of Man" story. Heart-felt without being schmaltzy, clever but also earthy. Lots of impact from little background details.

My least favorite:
Andre Norton's "The Way Wind" in which an annoyingly perfect herbalist/witch saves a few people from a bunch of women-hating fanatics. I liked nothing about this.

Oh dear. The first [b:Sisters in Fantasy|720683|Sisters in Fantasy 2|Martin H. Greenberg|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1243382956s/720683.jpg|706925] was a pretty solid collection. This is not: it has a few stand outs and a few truly awful stories, and then a load of completely forgettable tales. The truly weird thing about this collection is that there were a number with no fantastical elements: Nancy Springer's "The Way Your Life Is," Gael Baudino's "Bitterfoot" (a good piece about a woman fighter pilot dogfighting with the enemy), Martha Soukup's "Fuzz". There is a lot of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in these stories, and a lot of the time it felt totally gratuitous.

My favorites:
"This Fair Gift" by Pamela Dean. Told from a secretary's point of view, the tale of a law office and magical garments. I really liked the magic in this book, which sometimes felt fantastic & inexplicable, and in other cases seemed almost mundane.

"Vashti and God" by Valerie Freireich. A cool retelling of Esther--the previous queen receives messages from God telling her how to gain equality for women, and in obeying God loses her place and enables Esther to become queen. I love the different facets to this tale.

"Volsi" by Diana Paxson. While the king tries to spread Christianity, one family holds out and continues using fertility magic. This felt like a window into another time and place.

"Stone Whorl, Flint Knife" by Rebecca Ore. In the strange area that is Bracken county, where magic works and logic doesn't, one woman seeks vengeance for her son's accidental death. The way people think about vengeance and consequences in this county fascinates me.

"The Witches of Junket" by Patricia McKillip. A dark magic that was banished thousands of years ago has returned, and old Granny Heather is the first to know about it. McKillip is fantastic at working magic with mundane items like fishing hooks: at one point the witches literally knit (using knitting needles!) a protective shield out of trash. McKillip is also the best at creating creepy fantasy moments:

"What she had caught turned to her.
She felt it as she had felt it looking out of the moon's eye. She went small, deep inside her, a little animal scurrying to find a hiding place. But there was no place; there was no world, even, just her, standing in a motionless, soundless dark with a ghostly fishing pole in her hands, its puny hook swallowed by something vast as fog and night, with the line dangling out of it like a piece of spaghetti."

My least favorites:
"Angel of the City" by Susan Shwartz. Uriel is on patrol in NYC, and he and the other angels grouse about God and humans. Tries to be funny but fails, then ends on a schmaltzy note.

"A Night at the J Street Bar" by Susan Casper. Three page story set in a rundown bar, where the denizens bemoan that it will shortly be shut down. At the end of the story, the bar owner shuts off the lights and then switches off the perpetual drunk who sits on the same stool every night. I have no idea what the point of this story was.

"The Way Your Life Is" by Nancy Springer. Five page story told entirely in the second person, about a guy who gets a snake to look cool and then throws a wild party. No magic and deeply annoying.

"Fuzz" by Martha Soukup. A young woman tries to be an actress, but then she gets drunk with her friends (the "amusing" drunk bit takes forever) and then a friend has sex with her against her will. No idea why this was a story, let alone included in this collection.


The worst of the worst:
"Wet Wings" by Mercedes Lackey. Sometimes a story is so self-indulgent that I actually feel embarrassed for the author. "Katherine" is one of the few true mages left in an age when Political Correctness destroys magic. My first clue that this would be terrible is when "Katherine" sadly says to her pet butterfly: "'We always knew that there would be repression and a burning time again,'" which is swiftly followed by such gems as

"They had decreed that everyone must be equal, and no one must be offended ever. And then they had begun the burning and the banning...She had known that her own work was doomed when a book that had been lauded for its portrayal of a young gay hero was banned because the young gay hero was unhappy and suicidal. She had not even bothered to argue. She simply announced her retirement and went into seclusion, pouring all her energies into the magic of her butterflies."

You hear that? If you don't like Vanyel then Mercedes Lackey will take her ball and go home, you book burners! Then the "Psi-cops" break down her door and "Katherine" thinks, "in a way, she had expected it. She had been a world-renowned fantasy writer; she had made no secret of her knowledge of real-world magics." So "Katherine" pours the last of her magic into her butterfly, and the story ends "And she turned, full of dignity and empty of all else, to face her enemies."
Damn those Politically Correct cops, who will arrest you if you call your cat a "pet" instead of an "Animal Companion" and who forbid nice white ladies from wearing Native American jewelry! The whole thing is so horribly obviously wish-fulfillment and wallowing in self-pity that I could hardly bear to read it.

Definitely a cut above the average anthology, this book includes stories by mostly well-known and respected writers, including: Jane Yolen, Jo Clayton, Janny Wurts (sadly I'd just read this story a few months ago in another collection), Andre Norton (RIP), Josepha Sherman, Phyllis Eisenstein, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Tanith Lee (yay! wonderful story from one of my favorites!), Elizabeth Moon, Nancy Kress, Judith Tarr, Katharine Kerr AND OTHERS!
Oh, it's all women writers, and the introduction is boring-ly devoted to justifying that, but that doesn't diminish the stories themselves.

An anthology of short fantasy stories inspired by the Arabian Nights. Some decent stuff, some mediocre stuff, like many 'theme' anthologies.
contents:

Editor's Note by Susan M. Shwartz
Tales Told at Ramadan by Susan M. Shwartz • [section introduction]
The Tale of the Djinni and the Sisters by Larry Niven
The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It) by Gene Wolfe
Foolish, Wicked, Clever and Kind by Tanith Lee
The Caravan's Tales by Susan M. Shwartz • [section introduction]
Memoirs of a Bottle Djinni by Jane Yolen
An Eye for the Ladies by Esther M. Friesner
Truthseeker by Nancy Springer
Toward the Realm of Jade by Susan M. Shwartz [section introduction]
The Dowry of the Rag Picker's Daughter by Andre Norton
Kehailan by Judith Tarr
The Elephant In-Law by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Tales of the Mongol's Guards by Susan M. Shwartz [section introduction]
The King Who Was Summoned to Damascus by Melissa Scott
The Truthsayer by William R. Forstchen
The Banner of Kaviyan by Harry Turtledove
The Consolations of Philosophy by Susan M. Shwartz[section introdoction]
The Lovesick Simurgh by M. J. Engh
Ramadan, Again by Susan M. Shwartz • [afterword]
To Learn More About the World of The Arabian Nights by Sandra Miesel • [bibliography]
About the Authors • Misc. Material • [biography]

Urban fantasy does not always age well.The stories set in rural areas seem to be out of time while fantasy-historical works well nearly always, but "contemporary/modern" can age badly. One story in this collection, set in an office, fits only in the narrow range of years when a "word processor" was a fancy electric typewriter with memory cards. The tech is so outdated and so central to the story, that the story no longer works. My two favorites were both humor tales of vampires out of their expected surroundings: "Why is This Night Different" by Janni Lee Simner and "Moonlight in Vermont" by Esther Friesner. I didn't even like the depressing Mercedes Lackey story and she's one of my all time favorite authors.

What if McGovern had won the 1972 election? This story tells the story through the eyes of a World War II veteran living in Youngstown, OH. Very effective story.

A marvelous collection of stories about and by women. As with any anthology, some are better than others, but overall this is a good collection. Similar to MZB Sword and Sorceress Series. If you enjoyed that, you will adore this.

I absolutely adore this book. It is exciting and engaging, and the romantic struggle between Spock and Saavik makes me positively giddy.

Epic fanwank! And I say that with love. Though the series has its missteps (Uhura and Chekov living in Picard's day? Really? Spock married Saavik? Yuck?) it provides an interesting angle on the Romulan origin story, divergent from Diane Duane's Rhihannsu mythos. Provides the kind of story-building, creating a new angle to the familiar story, that is relatively rare on modern Trek fiction. Makes the execrable film Nemesis almost palatable. No, not really. It's nice to imagine this trilogy as the lost film that ended the TNG movie saga.

This novel is bolstered by some obviously thorough research, and benefits from being set in a period not overly-trodden by modern authors (the fascinating, little known later Byzantine period, just before the Crusades). It also mixes its history and fantasy concepts in an interesting fashion. However, it's marred by some bizarre (and jarring) narrative jumps and recursions that made it quite hard to read at times.