“Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology” edited by Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett, Craig Laurance Gidney
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Rating: 4/5 Stars.
An interesting tribute anthology for Tanith Lee, by writers who have been influenced by her writing. The stories vary in theme and tone, from SFF to fairy-tale involving a cast of strong characters, mainly women, who confront and change their world. Of the stories featured in this anthology, I enjoyed the ones by CL Hellisen, Michael Yuya Montroy, Martha Wells, Mike Allen, C. S. E. Cooney, Getty Hesse and Maya Deane.
- “Makers” by CL Hellisen: a non-beautiful farm girl is given away to live in an abbey. She hides her skill at making objects come to life. But a crisis appears when she wonders why the bear god the abbey keeps chained up doesn’t escape. When it does, with the unexpected help of an object she crafts, she runs away, perhaps to a place that will help her train her crafting skills.
- “On Her Head a Crown of Twelve Stars” by Rocío Rincón Fernández: two women are sitting at a bench when one of them gets an unexpected ‘gift’ from a unicorn. As small miracles accumulate around her and their friendship suffers, a darkness appears to threaten their community, and people are hopeful she can drive it away. But can she?
- “The Jealous Wives of the Sea” by Alaya Dawn Johnson: a story of an arranged marriage of a woman to a man in a world where nature appears to have risen up against mankind, now living in precarious sea cities protected by giant mother creatures. But this woman is very keen not to be part of the marriage and, with the help of a witch, discovers a way to keep nature calm.
- “Where Walls Once Rose” by Marisca Pichette: a creature hunts for books in a devastated world. And the knowledge she gains from the books eventually lead to revelation about her place in the world.
- “Blight” by Michael Yuya Montroy: in a world where a plague has lead to Japan isolating itself from the world, a man and woman goes through life together, with the wife telling the husband the tale of another plague in the past that haunted an upper-class Lady; and how it may be related to the current day one.
- “Data Ghost” by Martha Wells: a spaceship approaches a station that has been declared derelict; only something has caused two of the three crew members of the ship to leave the ship and go to the station. The only one that isn’t affected goes after them and discovers that something wants to leave the station, and it needs access to her neural interface. Doing so may save the crew-members but render her hopeless, unless she can think of a technical solution to the problem.
- “After the Light Fails” by Starlene Justice: a girl with failing eyesight tries to see as much of her world as possible before she goes blind. But what is she to do when she sees something that nobody would believe she saw?
- “Criswell Predicts!” by Andy Duncan: a story, with vignettes, about the life of a man who claims to predict the future. Most of his predictions, eventually, come true, including some strange ones like flying saucers leaving the earth.
- “Vortumna” by Mike Allen: in a future where body shapes and forms are fluid, one artist grows a particular plant on herself and rips off the leaves for art. But her last performance leaves her in agonizing pain before meeting an important patron, and it isn’t helped when an irritating gatecrasher follows her to the meeting, only to reveal her actual purpose. But the artist may have an answer that may turn out to be her final performance.
- “Moons Over Sea” by C. S. E. Cooney: a fairy tale-like story of the daughter of a sea-demon cast ashore with a curse that prevents her from entering bodies of water. She is adopted by two mothers who already foster several brothers. After they grow up together, the brothers go to seek their fortunes along different paths, secretly aided by their demon sister. In return, the brothers and the mothers help the sister to give an unexpected response to her sea-demon mother.
- “The Ogress Queen” by Theodora Goss: the daughter of a people who are considered ogres agrees to marry the Prince of a country. But the marriage goes sour when the Prince becomes the King (and she, the Queen) and discovers a usurper with children waiting for the King to cast her aside. Her response would involve rumours about what ogres eat, and a clash of kingdoms.
- “Like It’s Golden” by Nisi Shawl: as part of a test, one person gets to see the past, in this case, the murder of her wife. But then she gets the opportunity to change the past by warning her, leading to a sequence of events that she may not be able to get out of.
- “Zugunruhe” by KT Wagner: a tale of a group of swans who shed their feathers to become human, were trapped and are now stuck in a prison. Sharing the prison are human prisoners who have been tortured and their tongues removed. One swan and a prisoner become close. But then a crisis causes a prisoner to reveal his secrets to the swan, recovering her feathers, but at high cost.
- “Death Valley ‘71” by Amelia Mangan: a girl who is a musician and moves in a circle involving drugs, music and relationships hears the music by a musician who turns out to be a cultist and was sentenced to death for murders. But what she hears in the music is a connection between the cult musician and the eerie source of his music.
- “Another Face” by Getty Hesse: the story of a Face Merchant who visits an isolated nunnery to collect the faces of dead people. While there, he encounters a young girl who wants to leave by using one of his faces as a disguise.
- “In Your Shadow” by Maya Deane: a young girl leaves her northern tribe and decides to serve under an Elf, which has been fighting the tribe and killing their god. As their relationship develops, the girl begins to suspect the Elf took her in for a reason related to the cycle of life for mortals and the return of the god for another battle with the Elf. But this time, the Elf hopes for a different ending.
Book read from 2026/09/22 to 2026/09/29.