Review: Dangerous Women

As soon as I heard about the anthology titled “Dangerous Women”, I knew I wanted to read it. The theme is fascinating, and the collection features stories by some authors whose work I’ve enjoyed – plus it’s a massive anthology with 21 stories!

As I’ve said before, anthologies are great in that they give you lots of different stories in different voices – there’s always bound to be something you like. However, that is also their weakness: they probably feature stories that you’re not too interested in. Still, it is a good way to sample works by new authors. In ”Dangerous Women”, I was already familiar with the works of George R. R. Martin, Diana Gabaldon, Sharon Kay Penman, Joe Abercrombie and Jim Butcher. So, many new authors for me to sample!

“Dangerous Women” certainly gives you a wide variety of stories. There’s historical fiction, fantasy (urban and more traditional), SF, crime, mystery... This is something I enjoyed very much; each story was definitely different and the genre-hopping made the experience versatile and exciting (love those ”Ooo, I wonder what I'm going to get next!” moments). Just as I expected, there were some great stories but also some I did not enjoy so much.

Some of the tales did justice to the theme, but there were some where you had to be rather... creative and generous to accept that women featured in the stories could be called dangerous. I don’t know what this means exactly. I hope it isn’t that the authors really did have such a hard time coming up with situations/worlds/characters that would fit the theme. That was a little disappointing, but I decided not to mind; I still got interesting stories to read.

I won’t go into each individual story, but there are a few I want to name:

Joe Abercrombie’s “Some Desperado”, an action-packed bit with something of a wild west feel, shows an intriguing character in a very sticky situation. Loved the voice. Apparently, the character features in one of his novels, “Red Country”. (I’ve read ”The Blade Itself” but wasn't intrigued enough to continue with the trilogy – maybe I should look into this one.)

Diana Gabaldon’s “Virgins” is a sort of prequel to her time travel series (“Outlander”), depicting adventures of familiar characters (Jamie and Ian when they were young mercenaries in France). A novella rather than a short story.

I expected much from George R. R. Martin’s – who’s also one of the editors – “The Princess and the Queen”. And it is indeed very well written (I wouldn’t expect anything else), but it reads like a history book... which was probably the author’s intention. I don’t have anything against history books, quite the opposite, but I happen to prefer my fiction in the form where I get to experience events through the characters. Still, a must-read background story for serious “Game of Thrones” fans.

”Wrestling Jesus” by Joe R. Lansdale is gritty but humorous and even kind of sweet coming-of-age story where a young boy meets a mentor figure, an old boxer, and his obsession/one true love, the story's femme fatale.

A little surprisingly, my favourite was “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress, an author previously unknown to me. I didn’t expect much from this post-apocalyptic story – that is really not my genre – but it was intriguing and thought-provoking. It’s set in a brutal world where most women have become infertile, and those who haven’t are little more than precious commodities. It is told by an older woman, no longer capable of bearing children and therefore a burden to her ”tribe”. I loved the theme of contrasting the need and will of survival with the love of beauty and art. Is it enough to simply survive from one day to the next, or is it part of human nature to crave more – and risk everything for that? I liked this story so much that I later read Kress' science fiction novel ”Probability Moon”.

All in all, ”Dangerous Women” is a collection of widely different stories. If you’re a fan of just one or two genres, this might not be for you, but if you like switching between genres or want to experiment without committing to entire novels, you might want to take a look at this one.

Alone with your feelings?

Does this ever happen to you? If it does, how do you cope?

That image on The Bluestocking Review's Page in Facebook reminded me of how, when you've read a truly great book, you want to talk about it so badly. Yes, even a total introvert like me gets that urge! You're bursting with thoughts and feelings and impressions, and yearning to hear how others experienced the book...

These days it's rarely a problem. There's Goodreads and book forums and Facebook sites and everything. You can read reviews and follow discussions (there may not be an exact fandom, but there probably are people who have read the book). A good discussion about a thought-provoking book is a wonderful thing, but, amazingly, it can also lead to other things.

I read Diana Gabaldon's 'Outlander' many years ago, and then, over a decade ago now (I had likely read the next book or two in the series by then), I started looking for others who had read it. I found my way to a fan site titled 'Ladies of Lallybroch' where I posted an introduction. I soon received an email from another reader, who said that something about my post just made her want to write to me. We started writing emails, and realised we had almost eerily much in common. She doesn't live in Finland, but we've met a couple of times, and our DHs also got on very well.

Some time later, I fell in love with M. C. Scott's Boudica series. After finishing the fourth and final book, I had to find someone to talk about it with. I discovered the author's discussion forum. It might not have been the biggest online community, but it was lovely, with people brought together by their love for the books and the characters and with an ability to engage in both serious discussions and completely crazy chitchat. I met two of my friends there, again people who live in different parts of the world from me, but people I feel very comfortable 'with' (I've met only one of them in person, but distance doesn't matter).

So, what began as a need to talk about a book led to wonderful friendships. We still sometimes talk about THE books, but mostly, now, about other things. I have shared much with these friends, and I'm very grateful that they're in my life. These books will always be special for me for that reason.

I'm also very lucky in that my husband loves reading. When I get that urge to talk about a book, there's someone who listens and understands (and doesn't think you're crazy when you rave about fictional characters and their lives). And I get to hear about the books he finds interesting. The best is when we read the same book and can talk about it (we both just finished 'The Hunter from the Woods' by Robert McCammon, and we love it – lycanthrope lore! An action-packed book with warmth and depth! And... actually, just read my husband's review). The first such book was Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Lions of Al-Rassan', something my husband, then my boyfriend, used to entice me to read fantasy. And he knew me well then already (must've been over 14 years ago): I loved the book and still count it among my favourites. Once I had read it, we sat at the dinner table for about three hours and talked and talked...