A review by ericderoulet
No One Will Come Back For Us: And Other Stories by Premee Mohamed

5.0

Premee Mohamed's adventurousness in both genre-blending and literary craft really shines through in this collection. For one thing, she provide enough breathing room for really compelling world-building, something I often find lacking in the short story format, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. But there's plenty else that's daring in terms of her writing decisions here. Several stories dispense with supposedly sacrosanct "rules" of plotting for the sake of writing stories that turn out to be more memorable than they likely would've been if Mohamed had followed Save the Cat-style beat sheets or the usual admonitions one might hear in a college writing course. I can hardly think of a more successful (recent) example of the artistic principle "learn the rules so that you can break them." If you want to immerse yourself in absorbing stories about old and older gods and internecine conflicts while also learning what literary quality speculative fiction is capable of, by all means, pick up this book.

Short story collections are always difficult to rate because they contain multitudes. Yet I unreservedly give No One Will Come Back For Us and Other Stories a five-star rating: While obviously there were some stories that left a stronger impression on me than others, not a single one of these stories was put-downable for me, and Mohamed's writing powerfully stands out from the pack.

For anyone who's interested, I've written a lengthier commentary on literary "rules," the makings of exceptional writing, and a breakdown of several stories from No One Will Come Back for Us here.