| Title | : | Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0756403693 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780756403690 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 307 |
| Publication | : | First published July 5, 2006 |
Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy Reviews
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Hags, Sirens, & Other Bad Girls of Fantasy / 0-7564-0369-3
"What kind of stories are the most entertaining ones? Well obviously the most intriguing tales feature characters that don't walk the straight and narrow, those that get into or cause trouble rather than avoid it. And now some of fantasy's most troublesome gals have their chance to shine..."
This anthology fails to live up to the alluring siren call on the back cover. Ultimately, this anthology suffers from wanton inclusion of too many tales which simply do not fit the theme of the work and from surprisingly poor editing within the stories as a whole, including numerous spelling and grammatical errors (such as "Cindy'a body" instead of "Cindy's body") that break up the reading more than I would have expected. The stories in this anthology are:
- "Shall We Dance" by C.S. Freidman
- "Bitter Fruit: A Tale of Crownland" by Rosemary Edghill
- "The Light of Ra" by Phaedra M. Weldon
- "Time and Memory" by Leslie Claire Walker
- "Band of Sisters" by Allan Rousselle
- "Mother of Monsters" by Greg Beatty
- "Sisters of the Blade" by Loren L. Coleman
- "To Ride the Serpent Once More" by Terry Hayman
- "Lilith" by Peter Orullian
- "Homeless" by Annie Reed
- "Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth" by Christina F. York
- "Tsonoqua" by Nathaniel Poole
- "Banished" by Jane Toombs
- "Soul Taker" by Lisa Silverthorne
- "Heart of Stone" by Scott William Carter
- "Black Annie" by Jean Rabe
- "The Amphora" by Steven Mohan, Jr.
- "Dust" by Michael Hiebert
- "The Last Ride" by Douglas Smith
- "Greek to Me" by Laura Resnick
The stories themselves vary widely in terms of location, setting, tone, and so on, as is usual with these "theme" anthologies. Problematically, though, the underlying theme of Bad Girls doing Bad Things ("Bad girls have more fun," editor Denise Little notes in the introduction) is rarely actually here in the stories. Though I won't review each story in the anthology, I'll try to review the first half-dozen stories or so, to illuminate what I mean.
The first story, "Shall We Dance" is actually one of the worst short stories I've ever read. The conceit of the story is that an immortal sorceress exists in our modern world (she was once called Lilith, and then Circe, and then Medusa, and so on) who reflects in herself the purest sexual desires of the men around her. She lets them vie for her attentions, selects the most alpha of the males as her lover, and after spending several nights with her... he loses his alpha male gusto and stops winning at the weekly office poker parties. I wish I was making this up, but seriously, that's the gripping tale of Lilith/Circe/Medusa. I mean, for comparison, "Charmed", did the 'Siren who picks men up in a bar and destroys them' much, much better than this. The story told here is 100% male centric (narrated by a man, and about the poor male victim, with nice potshots at the narrator's ex-wife - a trifecta of male-centrism), the gripping writing consists of pages and pages of boring depictions of what exactly constitutes alpha male behavior (much of it bordering on sheer magic, such as their ability to stare other men into folding at poker even when they are holding four aces), and you may notice that absolutely nothing is said about the woman at all in terms of her motivation, her feelings, her life. Nothing. She is a non-event in this story, in an anthology that is supposed to be about the Bad Girls of stories.
As a side note, I wish someone would mention to Freidman that if you're going to compare human alpha male mating rituals to animals, a little research will prevent you from the embarrassment of using the *monogamous* wolf to explain the behavior of your *promiscuous* human alpha male.
Next up is "Bitter Fruit" and we're zero-for-two on the Bad Girl front. The tale is a fairly interesting one - a giant serpent god is using hypnotic powers to seduce "brides" from the local peasantry to give up their lives in order to allow special fruit trees (the source of the serpent's food) to grow from their dead bodies. A woman lawgiver determines to fight back and burn the serpent's grove to the ground, but must find a way around the serpent's magical shields. Somewhat interesting, although heavy on flashbacks and flash-sideways and a very slow starter, but it really has no place in this anthology.
Third up is "Light of Ra", which is an interesting take on the old Isis-Osiris-Set myth, but once again we are bereft of a Bad Girl. In this tale, Isis is a loving wife to Osiris and a loving sister-lover to Set, intent on doing her best to harm neither. When Thoth murders Osiris and pins the crime on Set, Isis steadfastly believes in her lover, even though she is powerless to aid him until she can return Osiris to life and remove Thoth from power. In addition to the lack of a Bad Girl, the resolution is also problematic in that if Isis could restore Set's missing tongue with Thoth's tongue, why doesn't she restore Set's other...missing...pieces with pieces borrowed from Thoth's body? Still, the retelling is interesting and would go far in a Bad Boys anthology with the re-imaging of Set.
"Time and Memory", next on the list, marks our first sort-of Bad Girl, but at this point frustration is high and the result is rather lackluster. The story centers around the Queen of the Fae who kidnaps men into her realm in order to share her gifts and magic with them, before turning them back loose into the human world to enrich the lives of others. Kidnapping is bad, and it's interesting to see an apologetic tale for the fae that makes the relationship out to be symbiotic for both races, but the tale is rushed and sloppy and the cliched ending of the Queen's frozen heart melting for the first time in years just feels way too Harlequin.
Next is "Band of Sisters" which I really, really wanted to like. Told from the point of view of the Sirens, the tale tells how they came to be, how they dealt with their fate, and how they came to forge their own futures. But campy and frequent references to the women singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Chatanooga Choo-choo" just set my teeth on edge; others may find this story delightful. Still, points for having Bad Girls in the story, even if it turns out they were really Good Girls Cursed To Do Bad Things Against Their Will. We're still waiting for an unrepentant Bad Girl to enjoy, though.
Next is "Mother of Monsters" which is an absolutely wonderful story and the one story in this anthology which I truly enjoyed. I might *almost* recommend this anthology for this story alone, it's that wonderful. Echidna, the half-nymph, half-serpent descends at last to hades, only to find that since monsters do not traditionally have souls, they do not know what to do with her. She must be judged by the ghosts of hades to determine her fate. Author Greg Beatty shows true understanding of women when Echidna, asked if she has ever "known love" sneers that hasn't she just been weeping for her lost children and isn't that proof of love? Love, she reminds them, isn't just the love a woman feels for a man. As she rages her defiance at her fate and rails that all she ever wanted was to be *whole* - a whole woman, a whole serpent, either would suit her - the reader is touched by the bravery and courage of poor, tortured Echidna. Truly, this story is a rare gem.
We must move on, but this review is getting far too long. The next story, "Sisters of the Blade" brings renewed disappointment. The point of view is Morgana, but we find that she was not a Bad Girl, but rather a Good Girl Who Was Framed, in this case by Guinevere. Well, may we please hear about that Bad Girl, please? No.
And so on. Largely, the rest of the stories are forgettable and very few of them actually involve a Bad Girl doing (and enjoying) Bad Things, which is a shame. Very few of them involve a Bad Girl doing Bad Things for Good Reasons, which would also be very interesting. The only decent stories in the anthology are "Mother of Monsters", "Homeless" (a look at Hera as a modern-day homeless woman, filled with regret - if you liked Odin and Thor in "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul", this will seem very familiar), and "Lilith" (a decent treatment of the dark goddess, although again she is largely a Good Girl here, sacrificing her own demon child to save a human infant, but still interesting).
I wouldn't really recommend this book. The majority of the stories were a chore to wade through, which was a shame. Still, this might get you through a long airplane ride.
~ Ana Mardoll -
Out of 20 short stories, only three didn't induce nausea or boredom. Rosemary Edghill's "Bitter Fruit: A Tale of Crownland" was a grown up and viscerally disturbing story about a woman who seeks justice. Scott William Carpenter's "Heart of Stone," in which a calculating Medusa experiments with what permutation of love will set her free of her killing curse. And Michael Hiebert's "Dust" is a slightly trippy look at a tooth-fairy accidentally bound to the will of a vapid human child. The rest are banal, trite and dull re-tellings of all the usual tales. Cinderella's "evil" stepmother tells her tale. A Valkerie falls in love with a mortal soldier and begs Odin to let her live a "real life," which apparently means a wedding and babies. Morgan le Fey's oh so selfless desire to save Britain. On and on and on, one uninspired plodding story after another. These are the worst kind of pseudo-feminist revisionist fantasy.
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Is this the best collection of fairy tale retellings? No. The book is about half good and half bad.
Stand out stories include:
"Shall We Dance" by C. S. Friedman. This is story has a very good line about dung. Honest.
"Bitter Fruit" by Rosemary Edgehill. The type of spooky story you have to read twice.
"Band of Sisters" by Allan Rousselle. A nice story about sirens, including the fact that one of them is called Big Lou.
"Dust" by Michael Hiebert. The tooth fairy's revenge. She ain't Dwayne the Rock Johnson either.
"Greek to Me" by Laura Resnick. Predictable but good point of view.
"Mother of Monsters" by Greg Beatty. The mother of monsters goes to Hades. She isn't on the list.
The rest of the collection is a mix of predictable and bad. -
I don't understand the issue that so many people have with this book. Yes it tends to border nightmare land with its editing and sure some of the stories are a bit dull but there aren't many compilation books that DON'T have these faults. Maybe it's my enjoyment of good Greek/Roman tales and other such legends that are often hard to find (at least for me). It gets a solid 3.5 stars from me.
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I read this flying to Oregon - a desperate catch from the library as I was leaving, and needing something for a 9 hour flight. It was surprisingly good - every story in the anthology captured my attention and entertained me, though I've been more "bad" than some of these ladies.
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An interesting collection of stories. Some good, some just OK, but none of them stood out as bad, just not to my taste.
It seemed about half were of the Greek/Roman baddy tradition, and the rest were a smattering of other known baddies from fantasy and lore.
Definitely worth the read, but I'm not sure if any of the stories are strong enough to keep it on my shelf. -
Argh! What went wrong with the editors?
Does no one proofread anything anymore? The errors in this book are appalling and unforgivable! In one story the MAIN character's name is spelled differently in sections of the story! How can a book go to print with such serious problems?
This book seemed like it was thrown together in a hurry without much thought at all. Some of the stories made no sense, or had no point. Considering the poor editing, one has to wonder if whole paragraphs or even pages were left off in order to fit the book into some pre-determined size.
A few stories were OK, but overall, a waste of money and time. -
Made it through half the stories and they're just not that good. Mostly boring and/or poorly written. The concept of the book is good, but the reality leaves much to be desired. Just can't push myself any further.
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This book was quite entertaining, and most of the stories were strong. These short stories were a great twist to the old myths - ranging from funny, to mildy chilling, to downright silly. Definitely a great light read!
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A number of these stories lacked originality, but even those stories had their surprises. Overall I enjoyed this book and recommend it as light reading for the school year that will refresh your memory of mythology.
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One of my favs. Its one I go to for fun. I've read it multiple times.I even tell some of the stories to my kids but, of course make them more child friendly. Its one where girls totally rule the world. But of course we already knew that!
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Quick thoughts: Love mythology and fantasy, so expected to be really into this collection. Not so much. The few stories I've read are just ok and I'm not compelled to read more at the moment. Will chip away a story at a time here and there as I'm in the mood.
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Short stories, a lot involving greek mythology. Its s good bedtime reader if you want to be able to put the book down between stories.
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Some of the stories in this collection are a little darker than most fantasy collections, but I very much enjoyed it because of that.
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Quite a few of these short stories are interesting takes on familiar mythological/storybook females, often with a special twist.
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An anthology of short stories. Some are better than others. I gave up on the book however at about the halfway point.
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As with most short story collections, some of the stories were hit or miss, but overall a fun read.
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It was ok. Some stories were better than others.
