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punkgodofthestraightrazor's review
4.0
Interesting
Kameron Hurley is one of my favorite authors. I can't read her work all the time, only when the mood hits. Her work is always full of flawed, tragic, fascinating characters. This collection is no exception.
Kameron Hurley is one of my favorite authors. I can't read her work all the time, only when the mood hits. Her work is always full of flawed, tragic, fascinating characters. This collection is no exception.
prationality's review
4.0
Hurley caught my attention with [b:God's War|9359818|God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #1)|Kameron Hurley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1303144535s/9359818.jpg|14243275], which was unexpectedly interesting to me despite being about as far out of my book reading interest scape as possible. I bought this e-book anthology of her short works from earlier magazines and online 'zines because I wanted to read more of her work.
Each comes with a brief recounting of where it was originally published and some other tidbits; how it was received or how much hate mail she still gets over certain stories for instance. I'm not certain if any of these are set in the same universe as GOD'S WAR, but they follow similar patterns and writing styles. Words, descriptions and the overall flow of each piece marks it as uniquely Hurley, but as I said makes it confusing as to whether they have any connection otherwise.
These aren't easy to read and I don't recommend them for anyone who is suffering some sort of anger or activist outrage--these ten stories will likely not do much to calm you down. In the story "Wonder Maul Doll" Hurley says
And that sums up her stories quite well. Her stories are violent, they feature women (primarily) doing atrocious things that in the past were seen as 'masculine' issues. The scary thing is that if you changed the gender of any of her narrators from female to male people wouldn't bat an eyelash. (Want a good example? Read "If Women Do Fall They Lie", guess the gender of the narrator, then switch it, does it change your perspective and opinion?).
Each comes with a brief recounting of where it was originally published and some other tidbits; how it was received or how much hate mail she still gets over certain stories for instance. I'm not certain if any of these are set in the same universe as GOD'S WAR, but they follow similar patterns and writing styles. Words, descriptions and the overall flow of each piece marks it as uniquely Hurley, but as I said makes it confusing as to whether they have any connection otherwise.
These aren't easy to read and I don't recommend them for anyone who is suffering some sort of anger or activist outrage--these ten stories will likely not do much to calm you down. In the story "Wonder Maul Doll" Hurley says
Give a woman a gun, and the power dynamics change. It’s not so much that I started out writing with the explicit goal of writing fiction that treated men and women equally (the “f” word), or even skewed the dynamics to matriarchy on occasion (which were always violent, too – you can’t oppress half of the world and have a peaceful society, no matter which half you’re oppressing. Sorry). It’s that I started writing stories I wanted to read. Gritty, brutal stories about screwed up people who also happened to be women. This story first appeared in From the Trenches: An SF War Anthology in 2006. In 2009, it was “reprinted” in EscapePod and reached a whole new audience of angry science fiction fans who felt I was gory for gory’s sake and moaned and groaned about what had happened to their happy-go-lucky Golden Age SF. “Where’s my cozy white guys rule the world stories?” they cried. These chicks ate it.(Hurley, Kameron (2010-12-19). Brutal Women: The Short Stuff (Kindle Locations 775-783). Unknown. Kindle Edition.)
And that sums up her stories quite well. Her stories are violent, they feature women (primarily) doing atrocious things that in the past were seen as 'masculine' issues. The scary thing is that if you changed the gender of any of her narrators from female to male people wouldn't bat an eyelash. (Want a good example? Read "If Women Do Fall They Lie", guess the gender of the narrator, then switch it, does it change your perspective and opinion?).
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