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amybraunauthor's review against another edition
5.0
Marjorie Liu is such a powerful voice in fantasy, and these stories prove it. They’re an inventive collection of urban and dark fantasy, all created with beautiful prose and imagination.
It’s hard to pick a favourite when each story is unique and original. I think the Tangleroot Palace and The Briar and The Rose will take the top spots, but every story is worth reading.
I loved the themes and messages in this anthology, and Liu has such romantic prose. I can’t wait to read more of her works!
It’s hard to pick a favourite when each story is unique and original. I think the Tangleroot Palace and The Briar and The Rose will take the top spots, but every story is worth reading.
I loved the themes and messages in this anthology, and Liu has such romantic prose. I can’t wait to read more of her works!
eshalliday's review against another edition
5.0
Marjorie Liu has collected together 8 years’ worth of shorter works that have peppered her writing career whilst she was publishing longer novels, and her award-winning work for Marvel comics.
Liu’s authorial comments that bookend each short work are illuminating – she expounds either her methodology or the spark that set the particular story alight.
Her feminist and pro-LGBT themes are what attracted me to the collection to begin with, but what I wasn’t expecting was for her messages of empowerment and visibility to be so elegantly and compellingly drawn. Frankly, these stories moved me.
The importance of the book industry publishing texts that centre on the spectrum of relationships between women, cannot be overstated. What Marjorie Liu has crafted here are stories that somehow manage to normalise women’s experiences by situating that gynocentrism in a dynamic range of high fantasy, hard sci-fi, paranormal, and post-modern fairytale reinventions.
I particularly loved ‘Sympathy for the Bones’ and ‘The Light and the Fury’. The standout piece for me here is ‘The Briar and the Rose’. As Liu comments of its bleak Sleeping Beauty source material:
Liu’s authorial comments that bookend each short work are illuminating – she expounds either her methodology or the spark that set the particular story alight.
Her feminist and pro-LGBT themes are what attracted me to the collection to begin with, but what I wasn’t expecting was for her messages of empowerment and visibility to be so elegantly and compellingly drawn. Frankly, these stories moved me.
The importance of the book industry publishing texts that centre on the spectrum of relationships between women, cannot be overstated. What Marjorie Liu has crafted here are stories that somehow manage to normalise women’s experiences by situating that gynocentrism in a dynamic range of high fantasy, hard sci-fi, paranormal, and post-modern fairytale reinventions.
I particularly loved ‘Sympathy for the Bones’ and ‘The Light and the Fury’. The standout piece for me here is ‘The Briar and the Rose’. As Liu comments of its bleak Sleeping Beauty source material:
‘I wanted to reinvent it as a tale about women, and the power of women, and how woman save each other and themselves through sisterhood and love. As most women I know will tell you, they don’t always sleep a lot – but they fight plenty.’My thanks to Titan books for an advanced copy through Netgalley.
bookishnorth's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
raquelcs's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
sometimescjreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
jennaclarek's review against another edition
5.0
This is closer to 4.5 stars but I'm still obsessed with it!
I requested this ARC from Netgalley because I am such a huge fan of Marjorie Liu's Monstress series and I had never picked up any of her prose writing before. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was exactly what I was looking for from this little collection of stories. Even though I definitely preferred certain stories to others, I think there was only one of these stories that I wasn't super enamored with. Which is saying something!
But I loved the overall voice and style of this collection and I really fell in love with the author's writing style. Monstress is such a wonderful series, but I'll admit part of why I love it so much is the illustrations...this collection proved to me that Marjorie's writing is strong enough to stand on its own. She has such a way with prose and I loved how she built these worlds in such a short amount of words. As someone who's trying to write their own novel, I found a whole new appreciation for that sort of thing.
This collection was queer and magical and strange, and I found myself wishing more of these stories were full books! It was really cool hearing the short commentary after each story to know where the author's head was when she was writing these. I think a lot of people underestimate the power of a good short story, and this will definitely stand as one of my favorite collections.
I requested this ARC from Netgalley because I am such a huge fan of Marjorie Liu's Monstress series and I had never picked up any of her prose writing before. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was exactly what I was looking for from this little collection of stories. Even though I definitely preferred certain stories to others, I think there was only one of these stories that I wasn't super enamored with. Which is saying something!
But I loved the overall voice and style of this collection and I really fell in love with the author's writing style. Monstress is such a wonderful series, but I'll admit part of why I love it so much is the illustrations...this collection proved to me that Marjorie's writing is strong enough to stand on its own. She has such a way with prose and I loved how she built these worlds in such a short amount of words. As someone who's trying to write their own novel, I found a whole new appreciation for that sort of thing.
This collection was queer and magical and strange, and I found myself wishing more of these stories were full books! It was really cool hearing the short commentary after each story to know where the author's head was when she was writing these. I think a lot of people underestimate the power of a good short story, and this will definitely stand as one of my favorite collections.
savannareadsbooks's review against another edition
4.25
difficult to rate a collection of short stories. Half of the stories were exactly my sort of taste whereas even though I liked the writing etc in the others they just weren’t my thing. Overall, however, it did make me realise I like short stories- a whole storyline put into your head in about 40-60 pages, perfect for those who move on quick and have short attention spans.
re_saxy's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0