I couldn’t resist reprinting this review by Tansy Rayner Roberts, published on Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth, a livejournal community for short story reviews.
Story of the Year (so far) (for me)
“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window,” by Rachel Swirsky, Subterranean Magazine, Summer – a magnificent piece of fantasy fiction which follows the epic afterlife of a magician from a matriarchal society, brought back again and again into new bodies to share her wisdom. It’s a feminist story, and one that explores all manner of gender issues, but also one which fits into a long history in our genre of stories about characters who has the rare opportunity to witness the passing of aeons and the change of social structures, in the apparent blink of an eye. It’s rare to find fantasy fiction which strikes such a good balance between an emotional arc, and an exploration of the mechanics and ramifications of magic, worldbuilding, etc. It could possibly be argued that this is actually a science fiction story that happens to be about magic.
And, as I described it recently to a friend, it’s kind of like The Forever War, if it was written by Joanna Russ.
Basically any other awesome stories (novellas) I read this year, have to top this one. It’s that good.
