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rehssingh's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
jlbates's review against another edition
4.0
As expected, some stories were better than others, but the variety kept it fun. Worth a read, especially since you can jump in and out.
bookgirl717's review against another edition
4.0
I only read the short story by Diana Gabaldon, "Virgins", about Jamie and Ian. Might read George R. R. Martin's story later.
jennedie84's review against another edition
Just never got around to it. I heard great things!
alannajane's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars!! AMAZING anthology from a collection of outstanding fantasy, sci/fi, etc writers. A couple/few of the stories were really, really not my cup of tea but the remainder kept me entranced. I particularly LOVE the focus on powerful, wild women as an answer to the typical lack of this focus in these genres (especially historically). It was especially interesting to see the vast difference each author demonstrated in their individual portrayal of a "dangerous" woman. I even discovered a few new writers who's work I will definitely be checking out in the future. Normally I am an avid reader of epic series, and short stories do nothing for me - but these anthologies edited by G.R.R. Martin and G Dozois are absolute treasures. The audiobook version was incredibly well read, with each reader doing great justice to their story.
ericvreadsstuff's review against another edition
3.0
Very good showings from Abercrombie, Butcher, Sanderson, Grossman, and of course George R.R. Martin himself, but the rest were either good, but unremarkable stories or a little dull.
teryla's review against another edition
4.0
Some hits and some misses, worth a read but skip the ones that don't work, I didn't enjoy forcing myself to slog through one or two of these. Standout stories were "Neighbors" and "Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell."
yoshi5's review against another edition
1.0
What an enormously disappointing anthology. I am especially critical of its rich use of the title “Dangerous Women”.
I bought it, as I suspect many did, in search of some blood-thirsty, kick you in the ball sack, sadistic, dangerous women. Women who were a threat. Women who make you shiver at their callous thought-processes. This I assumed based on the well-accepted definition of dangerous: able or likely to cause harm or injury.
Now, it is unfair to criticise this book as a whole, for I did find a couple of these ladies, so I will write a couple sentences about stand out stories to show which authors took seriously the meaning of the word ‘dangerous’, and which seemed to get in based on having written a woman character full stop.
Quick reference key: FP = Female-perspective; MP = Male Perspective; DW = Dangerous Woman; CW = Courageous Woman/Otherwise Strong Character/Accidentally Courageous Woman; TW = Token Woman
“Some Desperado” by Joe Abercrombie, gives the anthology a cracking start. This woman, Shy, is a true outlaw; a rough-as-guts, get-your-hands-dirty gal, a violent woman, a murderer who has the scars to show for it. The story also features a nice setting drawing on imagery of the Wild West, and a couple of good hints that suggest at some inner turmoil to give her some realism. FP|DW
“My Heart is Either Broken”, written by Megan Abbott, is very captivating. Lorie, this story’s dangerous woman, develops slowly. First she seems like a grief-stricken mother, but the story ends with a chilling finish that gives Lorie a wonderful mysterious edge, without being so mysterious that she can hardly be considered a main character (see further reviews). It allows you to wonder about her motives and about her inner evil. Definitely a thumbs-up. MP|DW
Cecelia Holland’s “Nora’s Song” is next in the anthology. A little bit forgettable if I’m being honest. It features a couple of interesting women, but falls into the trap that other authors follow throughout the rest of the anthology; mistaking the act of a scared woman, or a somewhat courageous one, as counting as the actions of a dangerous woman. I am looking for dangerous intent in these stories as much as dangerous actions. The women in this book are ruled by patriarchal figures and do not present themselves as the scheming, plotting women a story like this could have supported. Sure, her mommy-queen turned out to be mean to her kids - big deal; that hardly makes her a dangerous, conniving, bitch. FP|CW
“Raisa Stepanova” was one of my favourites, which makes it hard to criticise Carrie Vaughn’s writing of her in any way. I felt an immediate connection to Raisa; I found her complex and layered, and I enjoyed her strong personality and her general bad-assedness at being one of the first female pilots. I liked her rivalry with Liliia Litviak , her fear and denial of her brother Davidya’s assumed death, her inspiration by the seemingly self-sacrificial nature of the female background-characters as pilots in the war. She was dangerous in her role as war-time fighter pilot, yes, but whether or not this was because she was a dangerous woman, or simply a courageous and complex character is an unforgiving time is (very) questionable. FP|CW
Joe R Lansdale’s “Wrestling Jesus” was a prime culprit in misuse of the “dangerous women” character descriptor. Though extremely well-written, the story is about two men. Two men’s character development; two men’s struggles; two men, one who tries to get the other to fall out of love with some mysterious, witch-like, poor attempt at a femme-fatale, and one who tries to win her back by wrestling for her. Having a dangerous woman as a background character is a cop-out. She is mentioned in the abstract, and hardly in the story at all. It exploits the narrative of the mysterious woman, her un-understandable allure, and her position as someone who supposedly manipulates men, but only while serving them as a prize. Sure, she seemed a bit messed-up (she killed a couple of birds as well as, it is suggested, her baby), but I will not give Lansdale the pleasure of letting this slide as a good short story about a dangerous woman. I feel like those plot developments were added to give it any basis for belonging in the anthology at all. MP|TW
Megan Lindholm’s “Neighbours” was impressive in its use of older female characters that lived in their own world happily. It offered a different, fantastical perspective to the my-mother’s-mind-is-going-soft tale. These women were angry and crazy and I liked it. (But “dangerous”, I hesitantly ask?). FP|CW
Lawrence Block is another prime culprit in his story “I know how to pick ‘em”. It undermines any hint of danger in its female character, Claudia, by being the ‘bigger’ serial-killer, the real sadist, by of course killing her during a rape after she confesses to wanting to kill her husband. She doesn’t want to do this out of malice, like I repeatedly am looking for in these supposed ‘dangerous’ women, but out of some kind of boredom with her life and sadness. Of course, this story is written from the male character’s point of view, to the extent that the dangerous woman is not a feature, but a side character. By what measure was a short story accepted into this anthology? I seem to ask myself this every second story. MP|CW/TW
Sharon Kay Penman’s “A Queen in Exile” made me really want to explore historical fiction/fantasy more – very engrossing. However, Constance de Hauteville is the greatest example of a token woman in this anthology. I’m not sure I can list a sort-of characteristic in this whole book that slightly passes as dangerous or even falls into the half-arsed “accidentally courageous woman” that is this anthology’s trope. Another hint: if you have to finish your book with an author’s note that begins with “Constance was obviously a courageous woman, but she was she also a dangerous one?”, you should probably submit your story into an anthology for “women who exist and sometimes do things – hey yeah, I wrote about a woman! Go me!” (On a side note, this would have been a good title for this anthology.) FP|TW
Next up Lev Grossman’s “The Girl in the Mirror”: this might be one of the poorest excuses of a dangerous female character – some high school girl in a league, really smart, who helps play a prank on this dude, and then some magical stuff happens. Yeah, if you’re wondering where in this she was a ‘dangerous’ woman, I am too. FP:TW
Nancy Kress’s “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” – again, featuring a dangerous setting more than a dangerous woman/women. Possibly featuring the most patriarchal structure in this anthology, and the women just take it, acting as baby-machines if they’re so endowed, and supporting it if they’re not. Nurse allows without intervention the breeding of girls from the day of their periods. Bonnie, her apprentice, is more of a bad-ass. A quiet lady who you know is secretly giving a finger to the universe and telling everyone to go fuck themselves. Gaining their trust then doing her thing. Dear lord how much I wanted the girls in the pack to gang up on the men and tell them to stick their ideas elsewhere. A rogue band of escapees of the patriarchal structures of a post-apocalyptic world, saving other women and girls from a similar fate with cunning and violence… Also, why in god’s name do these dangerous women hardly ever get to be the narrator? (I can list one: Some Desperado.) Is it impossible to write a dangerous woman without her being mysterious to the extreme? FP|DW (Bonnie) /CW (Nurse)
“City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland may as well have been titled “City of Men” for its lack of female characters except the girlfriend of Danny (Delia) who turns out to be gaining his trust so she can kill him. Eh. One act of being dangerous is also a cop-out, authors. C’mon, these stories give literally one way to be a dangerous woman – let’s mix it up! MP|DW
Diana Gabaldon’s “Virgins” includes about as many female characters you can count on one hand and male characters you can count on two hands and two feet, it seems. Again, this story employs the tactic of a dangerous woman, mysterious, of course, who suddenly gets her spot in the evil limelight riiiggghht at the end. I would say “nice try” but I’m not sure half these authors did. MP|DW (grudgingly) (like, really grudgingly)
“Hell Hath no Fury” by Sherrilyn Kenyon uses the stereotypical view of Native American cultures to get some spooky spiritual plot in her story. How about let’s actually write a perspective of a real person who had to walk The Trail of Tears, instead of mentioning it in passing like it wasn’t a terrible genocide? The entire story is interspersed with nuggets of wisdom that play on the idea of the eternally wise, insightful Native American, that is so in touch with Mother Earth: Oh Great Father Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind-. Let’s not trivialise and simplify the spirituality and religions of 530 different Indigenous American cultures by turning American Indians into one-dimensional puppets who respond to everything with a piece of wisdom from Nature with a pull of the string, hey? FP|-
S. M. Stirling’s “Pronouncing Doom”. Cringe-worthy fantasy again, which mistakes women taking the lead, filling a role in a dangerous environment, or acting like a man as “dangerous”. FP|TW
Samuel Sykes “Name the Beast” – see above. The child might have had something in her, I don’t know. FP|CW/TW?
“Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan: intriguing plot-set up, intriguing female characters through and through, nice twist like “My Heart is Either Broken”. Though the start of the story made me hope that Gloria was going to turn out to be a sick sadistic serial killer imitating her on-screen obsessions… Pretty good, otherwise. Really well-written characters. FP|DW
I’m sorry Caroline Spector, but you started losing me in “Lies my Mother Told Me” with zombies, and then definitely lost me when you wanted me to identify with a girl sad that she won’t be loved because she’s not pretty but has to live as… a human head on an insect’s body? Too much weird crap. Suspension of Disbelief failed me big time here. No, I did not finish it. FP:?
These authors too often depend on dangerous settings to force their characters to become accidentally courageous women. This book is about women, with scant sight of a dangerous one in its 784 pages. Do not mistake a woman who has an active role in a story (which happens in approximately 0% of books ever) as counting as ‘dangerous’.
This book promised “sword-wielding women warriors”, “deadly female serial killers”, “formidable female superheroes”, “hard-living Bad Girls” and “female bandits and rebels”. I didn’t find many. I expected at least half of the stories to feature angry bitches, cold-hearted killers, women who laughed at their enemies… most importantly, I wanted to read about them, not have them as characters whose minds were not known, as secondary characters, as people who turned up at the end. I expected to live inside the head of a dangerous woman, and I got it maybe three times out 20 stories. It succeeded in what other things it promised: “embattled survivors” and “sly and seductive femme fatales”, but not well-written.
I wanted stories about Dangerous Women where we got to know them and their motives. I wanted women who were a danger to those who crossed their paths and were written in a way that we know why. I did not want accidentally courageous courageous; I wanted women who have been fierce battlers their whole life. Women who are power-hungry and who are loyal to the death; who are blood-thirsty and who kill to save others; who kill with words and who kill with swords – women who tick differently. You won’t find it in this book.
I bought it, as I suspect many did, in search of some blood-thirsty, kick you in the ball sack, sadistic, dangerous women. Women who were a threat. Women who make you shiver at their callous thought-processes. This I assumed based on the well-accepted definition of dangerous: able or likely to cause harm or injury.
Now, it is unfair to criticise this book as a whole, for I did find a couple of these ladies, so I will write a couple sentences about stand out stories to show which authors took seriously the meaning of the word ‘dangerous’, and which seemed to get in based on having written a woman character full stop.
Quick reference key: FP = Female-perspective; MP = Male Perspective; DW = Dangerous Woman; CW = Courageous Woman/Otherwise Strong Character/Accidentally Courageous Woman; TW = Token Woman
“Some Desperado” by Joe Abercrombie, gives the anthology a cracking start. This woman, Shy, is a true outlaw; a rough-as-guts, get-your-hands-dirty gal, a violent woman, a murderer who has the scars to show for it. The story also features a nice setting drawing on imagery of the Wild West, and a couple of good hints that suggest at some inner turmoil to give her some realism. FP|DW
“My Heart is Either Broken”, written by Megan Abbott, is very captivating. Lorie, this story’s dangerous woman, develops slowly. First she seems like a grief-stricken mother, but the story ends with a chilling finish that gives Lorie a wonderful mysterious edge, without being so mysterious that she can hardly be considered a main character (see further reviews). It allows you to wonder about her motives and about her inner evil. Definitely a thumbs-up. MP|DW
Cecelia Holland’s “Nora’s Song” is next in the anthology. A little bit forgettable if I’m being honest. It features a couple of interesting women, but falls into the trap that other authors follow throughout the rest of the anthology; mistaking the act of a scared woman, or a somewhat courageous one, as counting as the actions of a dangerous woman. I am looking for dangerous intent in these stories as much as dangerous actions. The women in this book are ruled by patriarchal figures and do not present themselves as the scheming, plotting women a story like this could have supported. Sure, her mommy-queen turned out to be mean to her kids - big deal; that hardly makes her a dangerous, conniving, bitch. FP|CW
“Raisa Stepanova” was one of my favourites, which makes it hard to criticise Carrie Vaughn’s writing of her in any way. I felt an immediate connection to Raisa; I found her complex and layered, and I enjoyed her strong personality and her general bad-assedness at being one of the first female pilots. I liked her rivalry with Liliia Litviak , her fear and denial of her brother Davidya’s assumed death, her inspiration by the seemingly self-sacrificial nature of the female background-characters as pilots in the war. She was dangerous in her role as war-time fighter pilot, yes, but whether or not this was because she was a dangerous woman, or simply a courageous and complex character is an unforgiving time is (very) questionable. FP|CW
Joe R Lansdale’s “Wrestling Jesus” was a prime culprit in misuse of the “dangerous women” character descriptor. Though extremely well-written, the story is about two men. Two men’s character development; two men’s struggles; two men, one who tries to get the other to fall out of love with some mysterious, witch-like, poor attempt at a femme-fatale, and one who tries to win her back by wrestling for her. Having a dangerous woman as a background character is a cop-out. She is mentioned in the abstract, and hardly in the story at all. It exploits the narrative of the mysterious woman, her un-understandable allure, and her position as someone who supposedly manipulates men, but only while serving them as a prize. Sure, she seemed a bit messed-up (she killed a couple of birds as well as, it is suggested, her baby), but I will not give Lansdale the pleasure of letting this slide as a good short story about a dangerous woman. I feel like those plot developments were added to give it any basis for belonging in the anthology at all. MP|TW
Megan Lindholm’s “Neighbours” was impressive in its use of older female characters that lived in their own world happily. It offered a different, fantastical perspective to the my-mother’s-mind-is-going-soft tale. These women were angry and crazy and I liked it. (But “dangerous”, I hesitantly ask?). FP|CW
Lawrence Block is another prime culprit in his story “I know how to pick ‘em”. It undermines any hint of danger in its female character, Claudia, by being the ‘bigger’ serial-killer, the real sadist, by of course killing her during a rape after she confesses to wanting to kill her husband. She doesn’t want to do this out of malice, like I repeatedly am looking for in these supposed ‘dangerous’ women, but out of some kind of boredom with her life and sadness. Of course, this story is written from the male character’s point of view, to the extent that the dangerous woman is not a feature, but a side character. By what measure was a short story accepted into this anthology? I seem to ask myself this every second story. MP|CW/TW
Sharon Kay Penman’s “A Queen in Exile” made me really want to explore historical fiction/fantasy more – very engrossing. However, Constance de Hauteville is the greatest example of a token woman in this anthology. I’m not sure I can list a sort-of characteristic in this whole book that slightly passes as dangerous or even falls into the half-arsed “accidentally courageous woman” that is this anthology’s trope. Another hint: if you have to finish your book with an author’s note that begins with “Constance was obviously a courageous woman, but she was she also a dangerous one?”, you should probably submit your story into an anthology for “women who exist and sometimes do things – hey yeah, I wrote about a woman! Go me!” (On a side note, this would have been a good title for this anthology.) FP|TW
Next up Lev Grossman’s “The Girl in the Mirror”: this might be one of the poorest excuses of a dangerous female character – some high school girl in a league, really smart, who helps play a prank on this dude, and then some magical stuff happens. Yeah, if you’re wondering where in this she was a ‘dangerous’ woman, I am too. FP:TW
Nancy Kress’s “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” – again, featuring a dangerous setting more than a dangerous woman/women. Possibly featuring the most patriarchal structure in this anthology, and the women just take it, acting as baby-machines if they’re so endowed, and supporting it if they’re not. Nurse allows without intervention the breeding of girls from the day of their periods. Bonnie, her apprentice, is more of a bad-ass. A quiet lady who you know is secretly giving a finger to the universe and telling everyone to go fuck themselves. Gaining their trust then doing her thing. Dear lord how much I wanted the girls in the pack to gang up on the men and tell them to stick their ideas elsewhere. A rogue band of escapees of the patriarchal structures of a post-apocalyptic world, saving other women and girls from a similar fate with cunning and violence… Also, why in god’s name do these dangerous women hardly ever get to be the narrator? (I can list one: Some Desperado.) Is it impossible to write a dangerous woman without her being mysterious to the extreme? FP|DW (Bonnie) /CW (Nurse)
“City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland may as well have been titled “City of Men” for its lack of female characters except the girlfriend of Danny (Delia) who turns out to be gaining his trust so she can kill him. Eh. One act of being dangerous is also a cop-out, authors. C’mon, these stories give literally one way to be a dangerous woman – let’s mix it up! MP|DW
Diana Gabaldon’s “Virgins” includes about as many female characters you can count on one hand and male characters you can count on two hands and two feet, it seems. Again, this story employs the tactic of a dangerous woman, mysterious, of course, who suddenly gets her spot in the evil limelight riiiggghht at the end. I would say “nice try” but I’m not sure half these authors did. MP|DW (grudgingly) (like, really grudgingly)
“Hell Hath no Fury” by Sherrilyn Kenyon uses the stereotypical view of Native American cultures to get some spooky spiritual plot in her story. How about let’s actually write a perspective of a real person who had to walk The Trail of Tears, instead of mentioning it in passing like it wasn’t a terrible genocide? The entire story is interspersed with nuggets of wisdom that play on the idea of the eternally wise, insightful Native American, that is so in touch with Mother Earth: Oh Great Father Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind-. Let’s not trivialise and simplify the spirituality and religions of 530 different Indigenous American cultures by turning American Indians into one-dimensional puppets who respond to everything with a piece of wisdom from Nature with a pull of the string, hey? FP|-
S. M. Stirling’s “Pronouncing Doom”. Cringe-worthy fantasy again, which mistakes women taking the lead, filling a role in a dangerous environment, or acting like a man as “dangerous”. FP|TW
Samuel Sykes “Name the Beast” – see above. The child might have had something in her, I don’t know. FP|CW/TW?
“Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan: intriguing plot-set up, intriguing female characters through and through, nice twist like “My Heart is Either Broken”. Though the start of the story made me hope that Gloria was going to turn out to be a sick sadistic serial killer imitating her on-screen obsessions… Pretty good, otherwise. Really well-written characters. FP|DW
I’m sorry Caroline Spector, but you started losing me in “Lies my Mother Told Me” with zombies, and then definitely lost me when you wanted me to identify with a girl sad that she won’t be loved because she’s not pretty but has to live as… a human head on an insect’s body? Too much weird crap. Suspension of Disbelief failed me big time here. No, I did not finish it. FP:?
These authors too often depend on dangerous settings to force their characters to become accidentally courageous women. This book is about women, with scant sight of a dangerous one in its 784 pages. Do not mistake a woman who has an active role in a story (which happens in approximately 0% of books ever) as counting as ‘dangerous’.
This book promised “sword-wielding women warriors”, “deadly female serial killers”, “formidable female superheroes”, “hard-living Bad Girls” and “female bandits and rebels”. I didn’t find many. I expected at least half of the stories to feature angry bitches, cold-hearted killers, women who laughed at their enemies… most importantly, I wanted to read about them, not have them as characters whose minds were not known, as secondary characters, as people who turned up at the end. I expected to live inside the head of a dangerous woman, and I got it maybe three times out 20 stories. It succeeded in what other things it promised: “embattled survivors” and “sly and seductive femme fatales”, but not well-written.
I wanted stories about Dangerous Women where we got to know them and their motives. I wanted women who were a danger to those who crossed their paths and were written in a way that we know why. I did not want accidentally courageous courageous; I wanted women who have been fierce battlers their whole life. Women who are power-hungry and who are loyal to the death; who are blood-thirsty and who kill to save others; who kill with words and who kill with swords – women who tick differently. You won’t find it in this book.
lezreadalot's review against another edition
3.0
An okay collection. A fair few of the stories either bored or annoyed me, but "Neighbours", "Caretakers", "Second Arabesque, Very Slowly", "Raisa Stepanova" and "Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell" were all quite good. "Neighbours" and "Caretakers" featured older ladies and a lot of cool mystery that was paced out very well. "Second Arabesque" had some great world-building, an incredibly strong protagonist and just a great story overall. "Raise Stepanova" gave insight into a time and place and fighter-class that I haven't been able to read much about, and was just really cool over all. "Shadows for Silence" might be my favourite overall; despite the dumbass title, the author really brought it home with the world-building and storytelling. It featured three generations of women being dangerous and badass in their own way, mother-daughter relationships, a cool premise, and at one point it was genuinely scary to me. Kudos!
GRRM's story, "The Princess and the Queen" is one that I'm generally familiar with, being (for better or worse) a huge fan of the ASOIAF series, but it was mostly entertaining to read nonetheless.
Good stuff, probably worth the read.
GRRM's story, "The Princess and the Queen" is one that I'm generally familiar with, being (for better or worse) a huge fan of the ASOIAF series, but it was mostly entertaining to read nonetheless.
Good stuff, probably worth the read.