Kaleidoscope

I've not been in a mood for YA lately. Some of these stories I loved, others were OK. I'm very happy the school librarian at the school where I work agreed we should buy this for the school library. I think my favourite stories were: Cookie Cutter Superhero, The Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon, Signature, Vanilla, Careful Magic and Happy Go Lucky.

Scroll down to read new reviews because I finished this book!

[original review]
And, yes, even though this is a DNF, I still rated the book because I rated the stories I actually finished.

DNF - PG 119Why?

Because someone said that the cruelty in the next story was very, very similar to animal cruelty and I just can't with that. Also, I didn't actually LIKE any of the stories I did read. So, yeah. Let's take a look at the stories I did finish though, and the beginning of my review before it went off the rails.


I love the idea behind this anthology. Basically, it's taking two of the lest diverse genres - fantasy and science fiction - and adding a much needed injection of diversity. However, the actual results for me are...somewhat less than I hoped.

The fantasy is of the contemporary/urban fantasy style when I was hoping for epic fantasy. (Because UF already has some diversity whereas epic fantasy is still mostly white straight cis males. And, truthfully, I like epic fantasy a lot more than urban and would love to see some diversity in it that wasn't based around a gay romance.)

But, also, the stories themselves were...not my type. But, let's break it down one-by-one.

Cookie Cutter Superhero by Tansy Rayner RobertsGenre: Sci-Fi/Superheroes
Diversity: Disabled

This story is about a young girl that was born with only one hand becoming a superhero. By rights, I should have liked this story - and I would have if not for the creepy (and unexplained) world that it was all in.

Machines suddenly showed up in 1981 in every country in the world and these machines decide that we need superheroes, who gets to become superheroes and when a human steps into them, they are changed into a superhero. Their body changes on a molecular level, giving them powers. (And humans just go along with it because... Hm... It's never mentioned.) And big breasts for the women. Which leads me to another point: this world is very sexist. The narration makes a big deal out of the fact that Sweden is the only country that has had approximately the same number and men and women superheroes. But the Australian team, the one we get to follow, only ever has one woman - and she never lasts longer than six months. All in all, brilliant idea, but it might have been better in a longer format than a short story. (Or it still might have been creepy and unsettling.)

Rating*Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon by Ken LiuGenre: Uh...romance? Maybe. Or historical? Or fairytales? (or fruity acid trip)
Diversity: LGBTQA (two girls)

blinks*

What did I just read? Honestly, I've got no clue. It's about two Chinese girls that are in love with each other but one is moving to America to go to school. And there's immortals. And ghosts. And magpies that make bridges over water. Truly, I don't know what this was.

Rating**The Legend Trap by Sean WilliamsGenre: Sci-Fi/Parallel Universes (and a bit of horror) (and depressing)
Diversity: LGBTQA (two girls)

Three teens (two of which are girls dating each other) use their world's teleportation device to travel to an alternate universe. Just out of curiosity.

This story started off wonderfully - and I really like the idea of travel to a parallel universe - but then it started to get all mind trip-y and weird. (Like The Time Machine weird only more so. Because it kept happening. Over and over and over and over and over and just when you thought it was finally done, it started up again.) (At this point I'm starting to think that Australian sci-fi is as much not for me as British sci-fi.)

Rating* (Dropped it a star when I woke up and remembered how flat-out creepy some of it was. Seriously, creepy-ass story woke me up in the middle of the night.)

End of Service by Gabriela LeeGenre: Sci-Fi
Diversity: Racial

This story is about a girl whose mother dies. I'm not going to say any more, because to tell you the rest of it would give away pretty big spoilers. I like the idea for this story quite a bit, but the short format does it a disservice. If this were a longer story, it could really dig into moral and social implications - as it is, we're all just trying to ignore the plot hole big enough to drive a tanker through.

RatingChupacabra's Song by Jim C. HinesGenre: Urban Fantasy
Diversity: I don't know. Best I can figure is some kind of magical autism. Or something.

So...that happened. Okay, I love Hines' Princess series. Even his UF series was okay - and I don't like urban fantasy - so this kills me a little, but I didn't like this story. At all. First of all, I don't really think there's diversity in it. I mean, if there wasn't magic, I'd probably say that the mc is autistic - but as it is? I can't really link autism with magic songs. Which is her ‘superpower'. So...? Also, the sheer level of animal cruelty/injury/death left me sick. That was probably the point, at least a little I'd guess. So, this story is apparently about how a magically autistic girl befriended a Chupacabra. I don't even know what I'm reading anymore.

Rating:*

And I'm not reading it any more. (I'm just going to calmly and quietly find a spot to shove this book and go ‘what book? I never saw it'.) It's super sad because I was looking forward to this book like crazy - and I thought that after how well A Tyranny of Petticoats turned out for me that maybe short stories were something I could read now. Instead, this book just reminded me why anthologies are not something I read. (Because most short stories are creepy as all getout and weird.)

Actual rating: 1 ½ stars - rounded down because I'm just in a bad mood like that.
[end of original review]

edited to add:

I decided to finish reading this anthology in the hopes that there's some jewel in with the sludge. (But, let me tell you, there's a lot of sludge.)

The Day the God Died by Alena McNamara
At only nine pages long, this story is super short - thankfully enough, because it's also super depressing. The main character, whose name we never learn, is a young trans woman that is, from the sounds, getting bullied and mistreated for being what she is. She meets a dying god. The god dies. (Considering the title, I don't feel that's a spoiler.) She reiterates that ‘this isn't a story' and, basically, she's in a worse place at the end of the story because she's decided to return to looking like a boy. All waiting for college when she can be herself. (Though the point was raised that, by then, she might be used to living this way and never break out.) And, honestly, this story is so depressing.


Signature by Faith Mudge
This was...weird. Really weird. Basically, we have a female Rumpelstiltskin running around offering to grant wishes in exchange for you correctly guessing her name. We have a bookstore (Nightingale and Priest - love the name!) that have all been taken for a ride by this Fate. (The diversity in this story comes from the main character being a ‘brown girl in a wheelchair' and the owners of the bookstore are two women that are dating.) So, yeah, weird story, but not a bad one.
The Lovely Duckling by Tim SusmanI can see a glimmer of brilliance - a school for shifters! - among the mud but, honestly, it's a mess. The whole story is told by email and phone transcript and police reports and the like. While it would have worked fine as a framing device, this leaves me far removed from the characters of the story. (We won't even get into their definition of abuse. Seems like it's not unless it's beatings.) Once again, though, we have a trans characters with special powers that leave them able to take on their preferred form and...this is starting to become a problem with how many novels I've seen this in.

Kiss and Kiss and Kiss and Tell by E.C. Myers
Drugged kissing. I'm sorry, because that's exactly what teens should be doing: playing spin the bottle with drugs and kissing in closets. Oh, also, we have this lovely quote from the book. ‘His eyes traveled from her waist up to her face, lingering midway just long enough to show appreciation without being pervy. The former track star was cute enough to get away with it.' ... What the hell is wrong with the stories in this anthology?! (If I could give this story minus stars, I so would.)
Vanilla by Dirk FlinthartOkay, so in this story we have a race of aliens that are called the ‘!gontok' - no that is not a typo - and all I can think of is that episode of The Middleman where there's a soda called ‘!' and it's pronounced by an exaggerated look of surprise and quickly throwing your hands out like a mime. (I looked for a gif but couldn't find one.) Beyond that... I was in a bad mood from another book that I had started that was busy objectifying the girl and...this story actually drew me out of that bad mood. There's aliens and they are truly delightful, and I would love this to be turned into a full length novel because there's so much potential here.Careful Magic by Karen HealeyCreepy-ass guy. Sorry, just had so get that off my chest. Anyway, a well-developed world - setting at a magic school with order/chaos as the structure of the magic - and a perfect plot for a short story. A main character with OCD and girls being awesome and rescuing themselves. Really, what more could I want? Oh, yeah, and this: ‘I want to say, what did you expect? You can't say mean things about a girl and expect her to realize that it means you like her, much less expect her to love you for it. That's three-year-old logic; it's barely logic at all.' <3Walkdog by Sofia SamatarWeird and creepy and depressing and fat shaming and bullying and nothing's resolved and it's written like a research paper. I mean, really? A research paper? Because you can tell so much about a person like that. (And I would have flunked her, because, honestly, it wasn't even a very good research paper.) Oh, and the diversity is barely hinted at - if you can call a name that might be traditionally black or a grandmother who got a ‘conjuring mat' that she claimed was from the Caribbean as ‘diversity'. (Or maybe it was the fat shaming that was supposed to illustrate that one of the characters wasn't model thin, but at the same time, said character was being called ugly, too...so...yeah.) By the way, story, thanks for being in my mind when I woke in the middle of the night and keeping me awake for nearly an hour as I panicked and stressed out. Thanks a lot.Celebrate by Sean EadsOne lone raised eyebrow* So, basically, we have the conversion camp from The Twilight Zone. And hell. Do with that what you will. Kind of...really depressing. Didn't like it, but conversion camps make me sick and it wasn't a bad story. Just an uncomfortable one. Really, really difficult for me to rate, too, because, objectively, it's not a bad story, but it's not for me. And I really wouldn't want to read a longer story about all this. So...yeah.

The Truth About Owls by Amal El-Mohtar
???...I...don't really know what I just read. I mean, there's no point or purpose to this story. It accomplishes nothing. It jumps around in time so much I was left trying to figure out the weirdness of the dead/not-dead father. There's some strange magic, or something that isn't explained. The story is inoffensive, but also something that left me with no real enjoyment with how flat out confusing everything was.
Krishna Blue by Shveta ThakrarWell...that happened. You ever have a fever, and hallucinate just a little? That what this whole story's like: someone's fever dream. Apparently, if a nice, normal Indian girl gets too obsessed with painting, she'll start eating poisonous paint and then be able to suck color from the world around her. Honest, it was weird and creepy and just plain senseless.

Every Little Thing by Holly Kench
Mandy's a witch. Mandy has a crush. Mandy decides the appropriate thing to do is create a love spell to use on her crush. Oh, but don't worry, this isn't a total abuse of freewill (and rape) because Mandy is only going to do it for a little while. Just a bit. Just to show her crush how great they'd be together. ... Ugh. What is up with these stories? I mean, are they trying to be rape-y, or does it just come naturally to some of these authors?
Happy Go Lucky by Garth NixWelp, that was super depressing. Okay, there was nothing about this story that worked for me. I don't like dystopian. I don't like Nix's writing style. (As he was one out of only two author's here whose work I'd read before.) And I can't stand Jen, our main character. What's worse than all that, though... The whole world operates on Luck. Everyone is measured for luck when they turn eighteen. That Luck rating decides if they are rich and privileged or poor and barely surviving. At the beginning of this story, one of Jen's dads says that the other one ‘[wrote a paper that] showed what luck really is.' And that's the inciting incident; the moment that caused the whole plot. Only...we never find out what Lucky really is! Nice.

Ordinary Things by Vylar Kaftan
This story...doesn't belong in this collection. At all. It's about a nineteen year old woman that was just dumped by her abusive girlfriend. This young woman has some form of OCD (though, as she says, she don't mind dirty things). And, on the rebound, she decided that she's in love with her best friend and that he has to be in love with her because he's nice to her. So she literally throws herself at him and tries to have sex with him. ... There's not even words for this. And what in all the world is this even doing in a spec fic anthology? I mean, unless someone thought that abuse or compulsive actions is fantasy. (Beyond that even, I didn't like the story. At all.)
*

Double Time by John Chu
Could have been brilliant, but time travel is a very fussy subject. And the way it was handled here? Left me board. Time travel that leaves you board. Mostly because you can only jump back about five minutes. And, at the end, out main character might have been stuck in an uncomfortable loop. But, anyway, in practice, the time travel was confusing, especially with all the talk of ‘older Shelly' and ‘younger Shelly' and... Well, fair warning, this story has a Tiger Mom. Just putting it out there because I know some people that hate that stereotype. But, yeah. It was, however, interesting to see the way the whole world uses time travel and how figure skating has adapted it into their skating programs.
Welcome by William AlexanderUhhh...So...Are they dead? Or not? Except for that ambiguous ending, this story wasn't too bad. Even for the weirdness of the earth and moon meeting up once a lunar cycle and ‘sharing waters' and smugglers that travel between the two...Yeah, weirdness. But that ending...Seriously, are they dead?

Actual Rating: 1.8

As it's appropriate in this situation, I rounded up. Even though some of these stories just deserve to be burned. There were a couple that I truly did enjoy. That being said, I do not recommend this anthology. There is way too many rape undertones, overtones and just all-around-tones and the short story format leaves none of the stories able to truly address the issues they have. Also, several of these stories were flat-out depressing - and I don't recommend depressing things.