Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress XXII, edited by Elisabeth Waters

For 22 volumes, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress anthologies have been collecting stories of women who use magic and/or might to overcome challenges. How’s the antho holding up after over two decades? Is it still fresh? Well, I’m happy to report that it is. Featuring a preponderance of first-time or fledgling authors, S&S XXII is pretty good, considering the percentage of new talent.

In “Edra’s Arrow” by Esther M. Friesner, the titular heroine, a gifted hunter, faces opposition on all sides. According to the dictates of her tribe, the forest’s barrenness arises from the fact that she is a female hunter. Jir, Edra’s sister, wants Edra to yield her position of power so that Tokal, Jir’s [male] lover, can become tribe hunter and shaman. Essentially a triangular conflict between two women and a man, “Edra’s Arrow” is enlivened by economical culturecraft and a surprising amount of well-done introspective exposition. In a lesser author’s hands, this story would be pedestrian and stereotypical, but the prolific and talented Friesner makes it one of the strongest in the book.

Striking a lighter note, “A Nose for Trouble” by Patricia B. Cirone has a more comic protagonist: Marina, unwilling assistant to the fraudulent medium, Madame Fertalgio. When the spirits start speaking truly through Marina herself, Marina uses her observational skills and her humble guise as a servant to better her prospects. For most of the story, Marina remains a victim of puzzling-to-her circumstances, which makes you wonder, Okay, where’s the ass-kicking as required thematically by this anthology? Everything comes together satisfactorily in the end, however, when Marina puts her realizations to use. Marina’s rather localized and domestic realizations provide a welcome change from epic-scale heroics. Saving the world, the city, even the neighborhood is overdone, and I find it amusing and refreshing that a character uses magic not for selfless ends, but just to bootstrap herself to better fortune.

“Night Watches” by Catherine Soto follows a clever pair of siblings, Lin Mei [sister] and Biao Mei [brother] as they protect a noblewoman from hired assassins and appease a demon at the same time. Soto seems to be drawing from Chinese folklore, with the ninja-like killers and the demons who are messing up the garden’s feng shui. Thus her story has an appealing air of familiarity, but the unusually capable and smart Lin and Biao Mei give the story gritty details that a legend usually lacks. I’m not just saying this because Eugie Foster edits The Fix, but “Night Watches” compares favorably to Foster’s best: a reworking of traditional elements with sparkling details that illuminate heroic characters, making them more likable and human.

In “Vanishing Village” by Margaret L. Carter, friends Liriel and Bertrice rescue their noble employers from a village that is bucolic and bountiful, but magically isolated from the rest of the world—so you can get in, but you can’t get out. I liked the concept of this story, as well as the juxtaposition between the paradise-like existence in the town and its too-perfect, menacing undercurrents. However, “Vanishing Village” fell apart for me when the cause of the village’s unique properties was introduced. Said magical character, who could have been an interesting and psychologically revealing character, turned out to be a vacuous, one-note cipher. The resolution, which kind of avoided the village’s impenetrability rather than dealing with it cleverly, further weakened an already flaccid story.

“Pearl of Fire” by Deborah J. Ross, one of the most original in this volume, examines the effects of vengeance on a person’s character. A woman who steals a magical pearl from her great-grandfather finds that this jewel gives her invulnerability and strength, but also an insatiable lust for violence. How she deals with her magical powers/limitations forms the core of this story. While it’s difficult for a short story to summarize without resorting to bird’s-eye skimming, Ross flips through the years swiftly with deft use of poignant detail to illustrate the pearl’s effects on her main character. While many of the stories in this anthology celebrate the iconoclastic power of their female protagonists, “Pearl of Fire” takes a different tack by showing the insidious, corruptive effects of power on someone’s soul. Ross’s insight and innovation make this one a page-turner.

In “The Ironwood Box” by Kimberly L. Maughan, each of Pansy’s sisters has a power and a prophecy worthy of her queenly state. But Pansy lacks her siblings’ destiny and strength. She doesn’t have anything to distinguish her, only dreams of a peculiar box that she can’t bring herself to open. Of course, she actually does have a destiny, subtle, quiet and unexpected though it may be, and how she discovers it is the plot of this classic rite-de-passage tale. With obvious but well-done metaphors [box=self-doubt, anyone?] and a keen understanding of adolescent anxieties, Maughan exploits fairy-tale tropes in a neatly constructed tale that deserves wider distribution, possibly in some YA anthologies.

“Bearing Shadows” by Dave Smeds is not your usual Sword & Sorceress story. While contributions to this series often depict masterful women in control of weapons and/or magic, “Bearing Shadows” stars a woman who is the victim of powers beyond her control. Basically, she is raped and used as a breeder for a race of shadowy, insubstantial beings who have problems bearing live children. Smeds foregoes a flat characterization of indignant victimhood for a sympathetic, nuanced treatment of both Aerise, the unwilling mother, and Morel, her child’s father. This is not a happy story, but Smeds writes well enough that the sadness and suffering are distributed equally amongst all involved.

In “Black Ghost, Red Ghost” by Jonathan Moeller, the secretive and deadly spy, Casilda, clued in by wronged and bloodied ghosts, tracks an equally secret and deadly magician. Moeller crossbreeds the genres of fantasy, horror, and mystery, combining deliciously gory description, nimble pacing, and deft insertion of clues to render a tidy magical detective story. I’ve read enough mysteries that the form is creakingly obvious to me, so I appreciate when authors like Moeller take a worn-out form and elevate it to a punchier level by making every word count.

“The Decisive Princess” by Catherine Mintz, paying direct homage to Frank R. Stockton’s classic fairy-tale dilemma, “The Lady, or the Tiger?” amplifies the story. Mintz imagines a savvy princess who goes through Machiavellian machinations to a) overcome her father’s objections and thus b) marry whom she pleases and c) rule the kingdom. Awesome! I’d like to see Mintz apply her wry intelligence to an extended form longer than five or six pages.

In “Child of the Father” by Alanna Morland, Lar, first person narrator and the only male main character in the book, helps his warrior/mage comrades, Kalia, Iriana, and Anya, rescue Iriana’s teen daughter from a priest-run slavery ring. Sex changes and butt-kicking ensue. Though the summary may seem dire, Morland pens the sprightliest, most amusing story in the anthology. Hopefully, these characters will reappear for other funny exploits.

“Child of Ice, Child of Flame” by Marian Allen has warrior Casilda defeating a village’s defender, another warrior woman. After she does so, she unearths corruption and child exploitation, forcing her to get personally involved with some of the townspeople. Allen writes a lean, mean story, kind of like “Black Ghost, Red Ghost,” in which each finely crafted paragraph subserves an overall strong and shapely result.

In “Skin and Bones” by Heather Rose Jones, the mage Asholi visits a small town where a shape-changing shaman, a skin-singer, is missing, and something weird is going on. Asholi unearths tragic, twisted secrets and an old man’s sacrifice for the good of his town. Jones, who has written about skin-singers before, explores the rules and mechanics of her unique invention with an exception that illuminates the rules. Pretty cool, also painful…but in a good way, you know? Gets under your skin.

In “Crosswort Puzzle” by Michael Spence and Elisabeth Waters, Laurel, an examiner of customs permits, overlooks a suspicious shipment of the herb in the title and eventually finds herself stopping an assassination attempt. Customs inspection does not at first seem like a thrilling subject, but Spence and Waters bring intrigue and humor to the anthology’s second fantasy/detective story.

A fairy uses her magical powers, prize-winning banana-puff cupcakes, and friendship with a gluttonous dragon to earn full-sized wings and pay a familial debt to a klutzy princess. The slight send-up of “Fairy Debt” by T. Borregaard makes you laugh, but runs a bit too long.

“Tontine” by Robert E. Vardeman centers around an unusual wine: one upon which a group of people make a pledge so that the last survivor may drink it and read her deceased companions’ final memories. Jonna uses the tontine to relive the dying moments of her dear comrades-in-arms. It’s an affecting way for Jonna to look back on her friends’ lives and reinterpret them in light of newly learned secrets. For a story in which nothing really happens except the main character remembering things, “Tontine” is surprisingly memorable.

Sarah Dozier’s short-short “The Menagerie” closes Sword & Sorceress XXII by sketching a magical innkeeper’s unusual means of avoiding inter-kingdom warfare while simultaneously enlarging her petting zoo. This palate-cleanser expands a joke into a perfectly sized story and ends the anthology with a delicious chaser.

Publisher: Norilana Books (November 2007)
Price: $9.95
Trade paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 1934169900