ninj's review

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4.0

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix Harrow.
Women bringing up children in endless war - richly descriptive.

fonteya's review

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4.0

Leído para los Hugo 2020. Muy bueno.
Me parece muy curioso el uso de "husband" y "wife" que hace Harrow aquí.

titusfortner's review

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4.0

A review of Alix Harrow's delightful "Do Not Look Back, My Lion"

A fun short story that examines gender roles and sexual norms and perceptions of strength and weakness and family tensions and the costs of war and the motivations of people to fight them. Well executed in a so few pages..

fenchurch's review

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4.0

5 stars — Harrow's Do Not Look Back, My Lion

3 stars — Theodoridou's To Stab with a Rose, to Love with a Knife

mollyfischfriedman's review

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2.0

I... didn't like this short story. Because it's a short story, there isn't a lot of room for exposition, but I felt like this story and the world within really needed it. I did appreciate the gender flipping throughout.

ishouldreadthat's review

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4.0

Read for the 2020 Hugos. A really interesting story about war and motherhood. Lovely writing, as you'd expect from Harrow, that plays with gender and gender roles.

bookaneer's review

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4.0

Rating and review only for Alix E. Harrow's Do Not Look Back, My Lion.

Well, since this is the only Hugo's short story nominee I have yet to read (though I have downloaded it in my Kindle for months), obviously I have to read it asap.

At first, I felt like reading one of Kameron Hurley's stories, really, with all the group marriages and fluid gender roles, but Harrow has her own distinct style that's more subtle and melancholic. She succeeded in weaving a story with a sympathetic character experiencing a heartfelt conflict in a well-built world in fewer than 7,500 words. Funnily enough, I enjoyed this better than her other nominated work, Ten Thousand Doors of January :)

Can be read here: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/do-not-look-back-my-lion/

balise's review

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3.0

Do Not Look Back, My Lion

Felt like the point was more about subverting gender clichés (which, don't misread me, I like a lot) than about plot. It was well-written, but I got somewhat bored.

melusine7's review

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Hugo 2020 packet

nataliya_x's review

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4.0

This review is for the Hugo-nominated short story Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix Harrow:

It’s a story set in a typical warrior culture, although matriarchical and with traditional gender roles flipped (women are warriors, men are mostly doing domestic duties) and designations of husband/wife referring to domestic duties regardless of gender.

It’s a country devoted to the god of war, glorifying conquest and battles above all.
“Distantly, over the too-loud sound of her own shuddering heartbeat, Eefa imagines she can hear the great white wolf of war padding through the streets, howling its glee.”


Eefa is a cripple, a healer unscarred in battle - nothing that earns her respect in the bloodthirsty war-dominant callous society, while her wife Talaan is the Lion of Xot, a famed ferocious warrior who seems to value the service to god of war and the bloodthirsty Emperor above her family. Their four children are dedicated to war, and the fifth that Talaan carries now - the late baby of this long marriage - seems fated for the same even before birth. Which is too much for Eefa; and when you can’t fight you may choose to run instead.

It’s the eternal motifs of violence versus love, duty versus family, tradition versus rebellion, loss versus hope. Some head to the war in pursuit of elusive glory; others are left behind, waiting and mourning and hoping. Regardless of who does the fighting and who does the waiting, the point is the conflict between these opposing and conflicting demands and the toll they take.

And sometimes you need to walk away. To run. And not look back.

“All of it, all that golden, brimming life, she has given to Ukhel, to war. Now she will give her Death to something else. To life.”

It’s amazing how much vivid worldbuilding Harrow managed to pack into such a short story. How much character development. How much emotion and feeling that was poignant but not overwrought.

4 stars.

———
Alix Harrow is a very talented writer, I have to say. This is her third work I’ve read - and each time I’ve been very impressed. Her wonderful debut novel [b:The Ten Thousand Doors of January|43521657|The Ten Thousand Doors of January|Alix E. Harrow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548174710l/43521657._SY75_.jpg|63516505] is also nominated for Hugos, and she authored one of the best short stories that I’ve ever read (a Hugo-winner, by the way) - ‘A Compendium of Doors’: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3359832361

Lovely work, Ms. Harrow, lovely work.

———————

My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569