Pentapod reviewed Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher
Review of 'Jackalope Wives and Other Stories' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Wow, the stories in this collection, wow. Usually in a short story collection there are some stronger and some weaker and a few I don't much like, but pretty much every story in this collection is really great. I'd read "Jackalope Wives" already as it won some prizes but all the others were new to me and there were so many more wonderful ones. Some are twists on fairy tales - I particularly liked "Let the Black Horses Pass", a twist on the Tam Lin story about rescuing a loved one stolen captured by the fairy queen. There are a couple of stories with varieties of witches who have more than a strong resonance with Terry Pratchett's witches - strong and fierce and doing what needs to be done - anyone who's a fan of Granny Weatherwax will approve of these witches also.
“The core of being a witch is …
Wow, the stories in this collection, wow. Usually in a short story collection there are some stronger and some weaker and a few I don't much like, but pretty much every story in this collection is really great. I'd read "Jackalope Wives" already as it won some prizes but all the others were new to me and there were so many more wonderful ones. Some are twists on fairy tales - I particularly liked "Let the Black Horses Pass", a twist on the Tam Lin story about rescuing a loved one stolen captured by the fairy queen. There are a couple of stories with varieties of witches who have more than a strong resonance with Terry Pratchett's witches - strong and fierce and doing what needs to be done - anyone who's a fan of Granny Weatherwax will approve of these witches also.
“The core of being a witch is that you don’t fall down while there’s work to be done. Sometimes that means you invent work to keep yourself standing upright.”
There's also The Dryad's Shoe, a new spin on Cinderella where Cinderella is far more interested in the prince's greenhouse than the prince himself, and despite the dryad's very traditional attempts to help her go to the ball and capture his heart, she decidedly has some other plans in mind.
The stories are also full of glimpses of Kingfisher's wry humour here and there, and more than a touch of the female perspective - I hesitate to say feminism because that has other implications that aren't necessarily here, but the stories are full of strong women making their own choices and finding their own way through difficult situations and I loved them all and wish more authors trying to write strong women would read her work and discover there are so many more nuanced ways to write strong women than just the same old "sexy" or "sassy" or "kick ass" that we see over and over again.
I am now buying hard copy of every T. Kingfisher book I can get my hands on, except the horror because I'm a wimp, and I like her writing so much I'm even half considering risking one of those too.
