Seize Sword And Sorceress XII Designed By Marion Zimmer Bradley Distributed As Interactive EBook
tumbl Some powerful women: some sisters, a sorceress, a seeress, and a spellgifted swordswoman are only some of them in this series of short stories! Love all her SampS books of short stories.
Have read each one probablyotimes, Love them. /review to come
Notable stories include:
"Skins" by Heather Rose Jones Another in her set of stories about shapeshifters,
"Winter Roses" by Patricia Sayre McCoy How many died in the search for blue roses Antologia decisamente scadente: su ventidue racconti, ne ho trovati solo una manciata godibili gli altri mi hanno fatto sbadigliare.
Demone sotto vetro: insipido e raccontato maluccio,
Ti va ancora bene la scarpetta, adesso: spassoso, molto spassoso, Però il finale arriva inaspettato, proprio quando la storia si fa interessante,
Una lince e un bastardo: la trama non sarebbe neanche da buttare, ma è scritto incredibilmente male,
Stivali di pelle di drago: molto originale ed ironico, Una bella sorpresa.
La verità: breve ma intenso, con finale a sorpresa,
Pelli e piumaggi: un pò confusionario nella prima parte, e frettoloso nel finale, Si rivela comunque originale e abbastanza godibile,
Anche se il mondo è buio: ambientazione carina, avrebbe meritato più pagine,
Hemparius il mercante: scenario stuzzicante, trama non banale,
Chance: bel racconto, più lungo dei precedenti avrebbe dovuto essere più lungo, per essere migliore,
Baciato dagli Dei: così così, Non sarebbe male, ma la trama scricchiola in un paio di punti,
Una promessa è una promessa: decisamente bello, Ampliato, avrebbe potuto essere un buon romanzo,
L'ombra del suonatore d'arpa: noioso dall'inizio alla fine,
Faccia di pietra, il gigante e il paradosso: una bella sorpresa, Canovaccio classico, ma raccontato in modo gradevole e con una bella sorpresa finale,
Assenzio: corto ed incisivo,
Lama d'argento: noioso, noioso, noioso, E scritto abbastanza male.
Un drago angosciato: sconclusionato ed insignificante, tranne per il modo ironico con cui affronta il tema dell'omosessualità,
Lo spirito della pietra: bel racconto, onirico e d'azione al tempo stesso, incastonato in uno scenario affascinante,
Un giardino glorioso: originale, Ma a chi interessa, se è raccontato male
Ladro di poteri: corto, niente di eccezionale,
Il sentiero perduto: prevedibile e scontato, dall'inizio alla fine,
Rose d'inverno: comincia bene, si sviluppa altrettanto bene, ma il finale è troppo affrettato,
Ambra: breve e splendido, uno dei migliori racconti di questa antologia, WOMEN OF POWER
Two sisters, one a mercenary, one a practitioner of earth magic, learn that the irony of love knows no justice.
. .
A sorceress must come to the aid of a creature out of legend, . .
A seeress has her life forever changed by a "voice" she never dreamed she would hear, . .
A spellgifted swordswoman learns that even an ancient magical inheritance can change in nature, . .
Join Mercedes Lackey, Elisabeth Waters, Jennifer Roberson, Diana L Paxson and their fellow venturers to the lands where women of power whether practitioners of the magical arts, or professionally trained with sword and dagger need ask no protection from any man, inoriginal stories of honor, bravery, justice, and adventures Another reliable winner from Bradley's longrunning anthology series, with a good mix of genre stalwarts and talented newcomers.
For once, I read this volume without interspersing it between other books, and read the stories almost entirely in order, In this case, the really outstanding stories tend to be clustered closer to the back but most of the earlier ones are also solid, competentlytold tales of their type.
The one worthless clunker in the collection, IMO, is Carolyn J, Bahr's "Does the Shoe Fit You Now" a cynical and predictable reimagining of the supposed situation some time after the part of the story of Cinderella that we know, from an antimale, antimarriage standpoint.
It preaches to the choir of women who've married selfcentered drunks and given up on the male gender as a result but like most tracts in the form of "fiction," it doesn't succeed well as either, unless the aim was solely to resonate with that audience.
And news flash: physical work is going to a part of ANY lifestyle, married or single, that involves earning one's keep and contributing to the world.
Nor does it really fit the collection theme: it has no fantasy element apart
from the nominal "fairytale" connection, Cinderella is neither warrior woman nor sorceress, and stealthily running away from a bad situation without trying to change it especially when that involves reneging on a commitment is not a strong or "empowering" action.
However, the other selections more than make up for that one,yearold at the time this was published, inKaren Luk and L, S. Silverthorne contribute good exercises in humorous fantasy with "A Lynx and a Bastard" and "Dragonskin Boots," respectively, Luk's title characters would make series protagonists that I'd enjoy seeing more of, I can say the same thing for Kaitlyn and Alvyn in Patricia Duffy Novak's "The Lost Path" and Novak was, at publication time, working on a novel featuring them! "Though the World Is Darkness" by Lisa Deason pits her protagonist against a challenge more intimidating than firebreathing dragons or pillaging hordes, and one far more obviously relevant to the real world loss of eyesight.
Heather Rose Jones' "Skins" is a new twist on the shapeshifter theme, and very well done, One of two male authors represented here, John P, Buentello, makes use of the craft of glassblowing in "Demon in Glass" to tell a satisfying tale, though exactly how the magic system works there was a bit murky to me.
Mercedes Lackey collaborates with Elisabeth Waters here to produce, in "Dragon in Distress," another wellcrafted yarn featuring Tarma and Kethry, whom I first encountered in an earlier volume of this series.
That's also a story with a humorous touch,
As usual in these volumes, a number of the stories struck me as truly outstanding, with a seriousness of tone and an evocative power that went straight to my heart.
Several of these were by other veteran writers whose work I've also enjoyed in one or both of the earlier volumes in this series that I've read: Diana Paxson, Jennifer Roberson, Deborah Wheeler, Vera Nazarian.
Like her earlier "Beauty and His Beast," Nazarian's "The Stone Face, the Giant, and the Paradox" explores the difference between physical appearance and moral worth.
The story here also pushes the limits of language to try to convey mystical experience that doesn't translate well to language, but manages to do it without alienating the reader.
Paxon sets her "Stone Spirit" in a stillpagan Dark Ages Norway, where things like trolls and draugs are real, and people think their lives are ruled by Wyrd Fate being of Scandinavian descent myself, that background strikes a chord with me.
Patricia Sayre McCoy, on the other hand, draws as successfully on ancient Chinese culture to create the world of her "Winter Roses, " Wheeler's "Silverblade," besides being a gripping story on its face, makes particularly striking use of symbol and metaphor to say things about challenges, obsessions, and parentchild relationships.
One of my favorite stories here, "Garden of Glories" by Roberson, has very little fantasy element at all, The culturalhistorical background is one we can't identify in the real world, and one of the two sisters depicted here has a talent for mending things that's more than figuratively magical, as one minor incident shows but basically this is "just" a story about human relationships sisterly, filial, romantic, marital, about choices, about being true to our nature, about growing and changing above all, about caring and love.
It could easily have been written as descriptive fiction very, very good descriptive fiction! Two of our protagonists here the title characters of "Chance" and "Amber", by Tom Gallier and Syne Mitchell, respectively, are assassins by trade, trained to be good at a morally dark and lethal profession, and whose lives haven't offered them much in the way of other options but that doesn't mean that either of them are sadistic, nor lacking in a sense of honor or capacity for love.
Chance in particular is one lady you won't soon forget, and her story is another of my very favorite ones here but be warned, it's not a sweet and warmfuzzy tale, and her path in life isn't an easy one.
My comments haven't touched on all thestories, but hopefully I've touched on enough to convey the flavor of the collection, In many of these selections, the quality of the worldbuilding and character development cries out for expansion into a novel or story cycle, If swordsandsorcery, or just good storytelling in the short format, is to your taste, then this is a collection well worth your time! No gems but readable.
Demon in Glass/ John P, Buentello. Does the Shoe Fit You Now/ Carolyn J, Bahr. A Lynx and a Bastard/ Karen Luk, Dragonskin Boots/ L. S. Silverthorne. Truth/ Lynne ArmstrongJones. Skins/ Heather Rose Jones Skins, Though the World is Darkness/ Lisa Deason, Hemparius the Trader/ Valerie Atkinson Gawthorp, Chance/ Tom Gallier. Touched by the Gods/ Deborah Millitello, Promise to Angel/ Stephanie Shaver, Shadow Harper/ Cynthia McQuillin. The Stone Face,the Giant,and the Paradox/ Vera Nazarian, Wormwood/ Laura J. Underwood. Silverblade/ Deborah Wheeler. A Dragon in Distress/ Mercedes Lackey and Elizabeth Waters Tarma amp Kethry and Birthday Gift, Stone Spirit/ Diana L. Paxson Bera the Voelva. Garden of Glories/ Jennifer Roberson, Stealing the Power/ Linda J, Dunn. The Lost Path/ Patricia Duffy Novak Robes, Winter Roses/ Patricia Sayre McCoy, Amber/ Syne Mitchell.
No bad stories! Stories are eerie, some funny, These anthologies are never boring, Some are excellent. Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.
Bradley's first published novellength work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the Mayissue of Other Worlds, When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be.
" Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly,
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels.
For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in, Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Herstory The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors.
The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree.
Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in sciencefiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories.
As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction,
Bradley was also the editor of the longrunning Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and nontraditional heroines from young and upcoming authors.
Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies, Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies, She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley, Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of,
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon, A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
from Wikipedia.