| Title | : | Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 47 |
| Publication | : | First published March 8, 2020 |
She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history.
Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale.
We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project Reviews
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"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."
Eleven women meditate on
these pernicious, oppressive words, with grace and rage. They set their stories within imagination's deepest crevices to explain or ponder, but always to protest, the stupidity of being limited, disallowed from fully Being Yourself. Being unique, each voice will appeal to some more than others. I don't want you to think I am ungrateful for all the stories in this anthology, but the chef d'oeuvre is Nisi Shawl's perfect and timeless story of the wife's unloved twin sister...the "two mints in one" as she puts it...finding fear and freedom in the same escape.
There is no reason y'all should wait another minute to get and absorb these perfectly sized, beautifully written petits fours. -
She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
This book was my introduction to flash fiction. While I probably would have read this collection anyway, especially since it’s currently free to download
here, it was the inclusion of a Seanan McGuire story that sealed the deal for me.
I usually find short story collections a bit hit and miss, and this quick read was at various times, ‘I love it!’, ‘It was okay’, and ‘What did I just read?!’ I’ve marked the ones I loved with 💜 and have included a short quote from each.
Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light! by Kameron Hurley 💜They came to extinguish light, and hope. She was here to remind them they wouldn’t do it unchallenged.
God Product by Alyssa WongCaroline hated having been chosen by a small god, whose presence was so quiet that most people forgot she was there.
Alchemy by Carrie Vaughn 💜(“You’ll never find what you’re looking for,” they told her. “Nevertheless,” she replied.)
Persephone by Seanan McGuire 💜I wasn’t supposed to see that. I don’t believe anyone was supposed to see that.
Margot and Rosalind by Charlie Jane Anders“Plus you start to ask questions, and the worst thing about questions is that sometimes, they have answers.”
Astronaut by Maria Dahvana Headley 💜Miss Baker was on a mission to defy gravity.
More Than Nothing by Nisi Shawl“But you ain’t gonna lemme keep you from doin magic. Is you?”
The Last of the Minotaur Wives by Brooke BolanderOnce you’ve been in the light for awhile, Blue finds, it’s hard as hell to willingly walk back into darkness.
The Jump Rope Rhyme by Jo WaltonShe was warned, and explained at, and patronized
Anabasis by Amal El-Mohtar
But persisted still, against their lies,
For you, the future, she in the past
Persisted, to make things good at last.A warning is the same as a threat. Television teaches this. Is that a threat / call it a warning. Call it by a different name, and it changes.
The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor by Catherynne M. ValenteWhen he was a young man, the Unquiet Emperor had banned questions, inquiries, curiosities, rhetoric, and finally question marks entirely, for such things were surely the source of all the mistrust and isolation in modern society.
I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars. -
Read for International Women's Day!
Flash fiction is something special. It is so extremely short, the words that are put into them must be powerful enough to carry an entire story. For me, it was the first such collection I read, and I had some troubles to feel the stories because of their length.
Mind you - I am someone who actively had to learn how to read novellas and short stories because I always used to think they were way too short. Flash fiction is just taking it to the next level.
This collection is all about powerful women, and all stories are built around "Nevertheless, she persisted." Concept great of course, but stories too short to really stand out. -
Are you tired hearing me saying 'this story collection is uneven' or the variation of that? Well, get ready coz here comes another one.
Just kidding. Wait, no I am not. There are some I truly enjoyed, like the ones by Maria Dalvana Headley and Catherynne Valente, but some stories my brain just could not process.
Glad I read this finally, thanks to the buddies at the Worlds Beyond the Margins group who let me nominate it for our weekly short story (which apparently could include a novelette, yay). I had it for two years in my shelf.
Nevertheless, keep persisting in reading this collection! It comes for free and only took 15 minutes or so. -
Kameron Hurley - Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light! (4 stars)
Alyssa Wong - God Product (3 stars)
Carrie Vaughn - Alchemy (3 stars)
Seanan McGuire - Persephone (4 stars)
Charlie Jane Anders - Margot and Rosalind (2 stars)
Maria Dahvana Headley - Astronaut (3 stars)
Nisi Shawl - More Than Nothing (3 stars)
Brooke Bolander - The Last of the Minotaur Wives (5 stars)
Jo Walton - The Jump Rope Rhyme (3 stars)
Amal El-Mohtar - Anabasis (3 stars)
Catherynne M. Valente - The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor (4 stars) -
That was definitely fun, the only one I did not like was the one by Jo Walton. Poetry, yuck! :)
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My first encounter with flash fiction.
I wasn't sure if this shorter than short format would be for me, but I was surprised how aptly the authors built their stories proceeding from the lines "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." in various ways.
My favourites have to be the contributions from Maria Dahvana Headley, Alyssa Wong and Jo Walton.
A short collection that is well worth the read - and it is free, so no reason not to give it a try. -
"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nonetheless, she persisted."
This is a really good opening line for a story. Heck, it can be a really good opening line for a couple of stories. For the greater part of 11 very short stories, though... it gets to be a bit much.
To be clear: I'm not blaming the authors themselves here. Some of the stories are rather nice. But the prompt itself draws too much attention to the whole point of the book, until it's a bit like being hit over the head repeatedly with the same feminist point.
There are some worlds built here, and the authors have different styles, so I guess that's nice, but I feel like this collection is flawed from its conception. -
Each story starts with:
She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
Eleven wonderful short stories that made me think and smile. -
"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."
Apartir de ese fragmento las autoras tienen que desarrollar una pequeña pieza de ficción corta. Desde dioses hasta cerebros hyperdesarollados, desde relatos de género hasta incluso un poema, esta pequeña antología que edita de forma gratuita Tor es un claro ejemplo de la calidad asombrosa de muchas autoras de la ficción fantástica.
Ya llevan dos años con esta iniciativa, y sinceramente espero que sigan haciéndolo muchos años más. -
Worth picking up for the excellent group of authors all giving a flash fiction take on "Nevertheless, she persisted." And, it's free.
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These three phrases have become famous for all the wrong reasons. The quietest of war cries or maybe just a cry of futility for daring to be a woman in the toxically sexist world of American politics. So to commemorate the Sisyphean labors of Elizabeth Warren and the like Tor.com decided to create this mini anthology with a message, comprising a number of best female genre authors working today offering their take on the feminist message featuring those three famous phrases. Much like any attempt for a woman to get elected into a position of proper power in the US, it’s brief. Only 47 pages. And, although uniformly well intentioned and infinitely qualified, slightly uneven quality wise. But at least reading this book isn’t nearly as frustrating as watching the attempted political ascendancies of women fizzle out and come to nothing. In fact, it’s a pretty entertaining read with many recognizable names. I kind of thought flash fiction was shorter than this, one or two pages instead of several, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s just a weird length to tell a story. Though everyone managed. I really loved the Astronaut story, that one was by far by favorite and alone worth reading the entire thing. Plus this book was free and only took about 30 minutes to get through. Sad (meant to be optimistic and inspiring, but when you get right down to it...sad) cause. Fun read.
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"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's patronising admonishment of Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2017.
In honour of International Women's Day,
Nevertheless She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project is a
free flash fiction (under 2,000 words) collection from
Tor.com inspired by McConnell's description of Elizabeth Warren. It contains the following:
“Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Are Full of Light!” by
Kameron Hurley
“God Product” by
Alyssa Wong
“Alchemy” by
Carrie Vaughn
“Persephone” by
Seanan McGuire
“Margot and Rosalind” by
Charlie Jane Anders
“Astronaut” by
Maria Dahvana Headley
“More than Nothing” by
Nisi Shawl
“The Last of the Minotaur Wives” by
Brooke Bolander
“The Jump Rope Rhyme” by
Jo Walton
“Anabasis” by
Amal El-Mohtar
“The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor” by
Catherynne M. Valente
These tales depict the defiance, bravery and the curiosity of women, who don't necessarily meet happy endings, even if they'd succeeded in the pursuit of their (sometimes destructive) goals.
The book opens with Hurley's Buffy character, perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the stories. Wong's 'God Product' is a moral tale warning that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. 'Alchemy' is the pursuit of scientific truth in the face of derision. The exploitation of 'Persephone' sparked the desire to read more based on this story. The surprising revelatory ending of 'Astronaut' reflecting the real-life history of a particular female. 'The Last of the Minotaur Wives' was another Buffy-like character in an escape room-esque adventure in ancient Greek myth, and is another tale I'd like to read more on. Valente's Ordinary Woman living in a dystopian world created and governed by the unsatisfied and unloved Unquiet Emperor choosing unknown destruction over the status quo.
Although I liked the vignettes I've described above, I couldn't always fully grasp what was going on. Sometimes being vague works, especially if you make a revelation at the end a.k.a. 'Astronaut', but sometimes it doesn't. -
4.5 stars.
Favorites:
"Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Are Full of Light!": The imagery in this was surprisingly strong and vivid. I immediately imagined it illustrated in the style of/occurring in the worlds of Evan Dahm or Shaun Tan. 4.5 stars.
"Persephone": Very sad and sweet. 4 stars.
"Astronaut": Where do I send money to see a tv show made about Miss Baker? This was unique and nerdy and adorable and badass. 4.5 stars.
"The Last of the Minotaur Wives": The whole premise of this has such potential as a whole novel(la). 4 stars.
"The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor": O Ms. Valente, how do you write in a Boschian-painting style so well, so truely, so matter of factly, blatantly, harshly melancholically hopeful?? 4.5 stars. -
This free flash fiction collection will be available to download on the 8th of March (or you can just preorder it now!)
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Short, sharp, often sad but always defiant pieces from three years back, now collected. If only they'd become any less relevant in the meantime.
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Sorry. Most flash and very short fiction that I enjoy knows how to focus, to get the job done and get out. These tended to try to build worlds, to set up a suggestion for a story of at least novella length... far too much was suggested and the point itself was rather lost.
Still, for free and for about 20 actual pp of text, give it a shot yourself. -
A quick read (as one would expect) but a fascinating one - collected together there are so many ways that three-sentence phrase can describe women taking action. I really enjoyed it!
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This was a neat idea for a flash fiction collection - a set of short stories and poetry centred around a politically infamous phrase said of Elizabeth Warren - "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." All the stories feature that phrasing and interpret it in different directions.
The most amazing thing about this collection, though? The authors! What an incredible, all-star collection of writers of both the present and future of the sci-fi and fantasy community. Reading through the table of contents felt like looking at my recent reads and TBR pile. -
13 Autorinnen verfassen eine Kurzgeschichte zu dem Satz "Nevertheless, She Persisted".
Für meinen Geschmack waren die Kurzgeschichten zu kurz und außer Amal El-Mohtars Geschichte haben mir die anderen nicht gefallen.
Was ich auch erstaunlich fand, dass ich von den Autorinnen nur Seanan McGuire bereits kenne.
Von Catherynne M. Valente habe ich zwar mal was gehört, aber noch nichts gelesen.
Und all die anderen 11 Autorinnen sind mir vollkommen unbekannt, obwohl diese bereits für ihre Werke in irgendeiner Form nominiert waren.
Da gilt wohl einiges aufzuholen. :) -
Super interesting mix of flash fiction by different authors all imagined around “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” I loved how imaginative all the stories were and I was surprised that they managed to be so complex even though they were so short. My personal favorites are The Jump Tope Rhyme by Jo Walton and Anabasis by Amal El-Mohtar, I’m sure I will revisit them many times going forward.
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Disappointed on the whole. The stories are so short that there's very little to get your teeth into and feel. Yes, there were empowering moments for women in some stories but I didn't feel moved. Some of the stories were 3 star but overall less than that. More word count per story would have made an improvement to what could be accomplished.
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Free from Tor starting March 8, 2020. Not sure how long it'll last, but it worked on the 12th. Just go to
Nevertheless She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project at Macmillan Publishers and select the place (all those red buttons) where you want to read/download your DRM-free epub. Or read more about the collection at
Tor.com. -
This was my first time reading a flash fiction collection. It included 11 super short stories. The entire book was about 32 pages, so you can imagine how short the individual stories were. I really liked the concept of flash fiction. Great for short attention spans! But this particular collection only had two stories that grabbed me. God Product by Alyssa Wong and Astronaut by Maria Dahvana Headley. The collection was free when I got it, but I wouldn't waste money on it.
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Cool idea, just okay execution. I like flash fiction and it's neat to give those famous lines to a bunch of well-known female sff authors and ask them to write something short based on it. But it's also quite hard to write a very short story that truly grabs you, and so most of the pieces here are just ...okay.
What I liked:
The Minotaur Brides by Brooke Bolander
Anabasis by Amal El-Mohtar -
Excellent collection
of short stories each of which takes off from the opening quote in different directions. Very imaginative and very recommendable. -
Strong 4.5 stars, particularly for Astronaut by Maria Dahvana Headley and The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor by Catherynne M. Valente.
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This is a collection of eleven flash-fiction pieces by as many writers, all taking off from the words:
_She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless she persisted._
Flash fiction does not often offer the reviewer a lot to say about it beyond "I liked/didn't like it" and "It worked/didn't work", unless you want to go the Roland Barthes route and analyze each sentence semiotically.
I don't.
So I'll just say that I enjoyed eight of the eleven stories, two of them (by Kameron Hurley and Charlie Jane Anders) quite a lot. I only actively disliked one, which is a pretty good score for an anthology of stories written to such specific, well, specifications.
