Anna Caro

The first few stories had me on the verge of hyperventilating-teariness, they were that good at evoking the concept of survival. Many later stories were brilliant in other ways. Some others were less successful; one or two were so bad that the only reason I hesitate to name names is that this was a charity anthology for which none of the authors received payment. Besides, mileage varies or they wouldn't have been accepted in the first place.

In any case a few duds out of 34 stories leaves a lot of good stuff left over.

Tina Makareti's Shapeshifter was an absolute standout: her point-of-view character's voice and all the dialogue is just brilliant. Even if you don't adore well-done dialogue like I do, the story is perfectly crafted.

RJ Astruc's Desperately Seeking Darcy is... a mixture. I think it's probably best to read it as a parody of what Americans with no exposure to anything outside old TV and older books think Britain (and butlers and teenagers) is like. (The story is certainly intended as humour, just this aspect of it was a bit ambiguous.) If you can get into that mindset then you can concentrate on the story and the characters, and the characters -- especially Jessica -- are adorable.

Patty Jansen's Looking for Daddy is a zombie apocalypse story for people who don't like zombie apocalypse stories and I highly recommend it. (As opposed to Lynne Jamneck's Extract, which is closer to ordinary zombie apocalypse stories despite which disadvantage it hooked me in (and mildly triggered me, but I say this in a good way) and packed a cunning ending too.)


Some stats I compiled from curiosity:
* Of the 34 authors, 9 are men and 25 women, which makes a nice change.
* 26 seem to me to be white; 6 I'm not sure about though I suspect at least 5 of them are also white; 2 are people of colour including one Māori author. I know the anthology was assembled in a hurry but this is still a disappointing proportion.
* 23 identify as in or from New Zealand (including 4 in or from Christchurch); 3 are Australians and 8 are other overseas folk. This felt like a good mix.
* I didn't collect stats on sexual orientation, but from memory two of the stories featured a lesbian couple; also two featured an MTF character.… (more)

This collection of 34 tales released as a charitable venture to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake victims is split into three sections, Survival, Hope and Future. Each of the stories fits well into one of these places. As I've never really been a fan of the short story oeuvre I felt that most of this collection exemplified what I feel in that there just isn't enough within each story to grab you into the tale. The length and quality of the entries varies quite a bit but there were only 2 or 3 of the whole that I didn't really like at all. Most of the collection sits happily under the speculative fiction banner with some outright science fiction and others on the edges of fantasy, new weird and cyberpunk. The only one that didn't seem to fit was a tale of arranged marriage that fits firmly in the Bronte period. Coincidentally, it was also the one I most disliked. The two longest contributions were also the ones I liked best, one from Jeff Vandermeer confirmed a place on my wishlist and the other from Gwyneth Jones added a new entry to that list. Other authors who I now want to read more from include Jesse Bullington, Brenda Cooper, RJ Astruc, Lynne Jamneck and Angel Leigh McCoy. There are some others that I wouldn't be averse to reading more from but they don't quite make the actively seeking list.

Overall this is a decent collection of stories and one I'm happy to recommend (especially as it's for charity).… (more)