She Treads Softly: Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms

Monday, February 28, 2022

Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms

Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, John Joseph Adams, Editor
3/8/22; 384 pages
Grim Oak Press

Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, edited by John Joseph Adams, is a highly recommended anthology of science fiction/speculative or alternate reality short stories.

Much akin to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, this anthology focuses on lost places, adventures, undiscovered realities, mysteries, or new parts of our world. The collected stories cover the gamut from spectacular to mediocre. The span between the excellent and inadequate seemed a bit greater than what is normally found in anthologies, but perhaps that was only my experience. My rating is based on the majority of the stories which I liked enough to highly recommended the whole collection. One of the weakest stories was the first one for me, which actually had me considering setting this collection aside.

Contents include: "The Light Long Lost at Sea" by An Owomoyela; "The Cleft of Bones" by Kate Elliott; "The Voyage of Brenya " by Carrie Vaughn; "Comfort Lodge, Enigma Valley" by Charles Yu; "The Expedition Stops for the Evening at the Foot of the Mountain Pass" by Genevieve Valentine; "Down in the Dim Kingdoms" by Tobias S. Buckell; "Those Who Have Gone" by C.C. Finlay; "An Account, by Dr. Inge Kühn, of the Summer Expedition and Its Discoveries" by E. Lily Yu; "Out of the Dark" by James L. Cambias; "Endosymbiosis" by Darcie Little Badger; "The Orpheus Gate" by Jonathan Maberry; "Hotel Motel Holiday Inn" by Dexter Palmer; "On the Cold Hill Side" by Seanan McGuire; "The Return of Grace Malfrey" by Jeffrey Ford; "The Tomb Ship" by Becky Chambers; "Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology" by Theodora Goss; "There, She Didn’t Need Air to Fill Her Lungs" by Cadwell Turnbull.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Grim Oaks Press via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.