Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress XXIII, edited by Elisabeth Waters

For over 20 volumes, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies have combined many established authors with newcomers under the common themes. The 23rd installment in this long-running series is edited by Elisabeth Waters, and there are some real gems in the collection.

In Dave Smeds’s “A Morsel for the Plague Queen,” Verda is a peasant distantly related to the king, but her royal relations don’t matter much to her. Day to day, she immerses herself in the dirty work of eradicating plague cysts from her suffering countryside. Her kingly lineage sneaks back up on her when she is called to destroy the Plague Queen, the reincarnating evil that generates the disease cursing her land. Smeds’s workmanlike words rapidly bring the reader into the timeworn tale of a lowly protagonist whose dreams outreach her prospects. The icky details of the plague cysts and Verda’s self-doubt add welcome grittiness to an inspiring tale about a character that I would like to hear more of.

Michael Spence and Elisabeth Waters continue the adventures of Laurel, customs officer for a magical, alternate-history Great Britain, in “Daughter of Heaven.” According to her grandmother’s magical stipulations, Laurel must remain on her brother’s college campus, working as an imports officer, until her brother does the magical equivalent of defending his thesis. But then Chinese diplomats, visiting as supervisors to a British-Chinese exhibit of historical artifacts, insist that Laurel is a divinely chosen hero who must return to China with them. Spence and Waters interweave their two related stories with practiced ease, but the sheer amount of incident in such a short number of pages overwhelms the intriguing characters.

Gerri Leen brings us a cool concept in “The Vessel.” Body-hopping devotee of a warrior deity, Namali can reach her god’s temple only in the vessel of a pretty dolly owned by spoiled brat Leanna. Leanna’s cortege is attacked by brigands, though, so Namali, in her cumbersome form, and Leanna, in her cumbersome petticoats, must collaborate to defend themselves. Each of them learns to appreciate the other and her hidden strengths. Fairy-tale-like in its schematic simplicity, Leen’s story is witty and evenhanded in its judgment of both characters’ strengths and weaknesses.

“Polish On, Polish Off: A Dragon Tale” pits practical, tough farmer’s daughter Madeleine against stereotypical dragon-slaying lunkhead George. George thinks, arrogantly enough, that he can eradicate the dragon, Biggun, but Madeleine’s brains win out. Tom Inister gives us a predictable but satisfying presentation of just deserts.

Patricia B. Cirone breaths life into the well-used trope of a protagonist learning to value her forbidden magical powers with “It’s All in the Making.” Our hero, Desi, chafes under the rule of her smarmy uncle, who forces her to use her jewelry-making magic dishonestly so that he can make money. When a warrior woman arrives and requests Desi’s help to repair her sword, Desi starts to think that she might be able to change her dismal fate. Predictable in plot, Cirone’s story is neatly done and symmetrically plotted enough to make it very satisfying.

In “Daughters of Brightshield,” Viking-like pirates menace the fishing town of Salthaven. With the men gone, the Salthaven women must decide how to deal with the invaders. Narrator Linden favors battle, but her clever female elders have a better plan of “defeat.” The Salthaven women thwart the raiders’ warlike intentions in a clever way that capitalizes on the perception of women as domestic beings. Pauline J. Alama writes a delightful, inspiring story with a pacifist message about turning supposed weaknesses into strengths.

Marian Allen’s hero is an East Asian warrior, bodyguard to an emperor, who belongs to a culture where invulnerability is achieved when a fighter divides his or her heart and places the pieces within two children. Though most warriors who hide their hearts do so inside innocent kids that they then exploit, Pimchan, protagonist of “Undivided,” guards and educates the holders of her heart maternally. Her unusual relationship with them is tested when the emperor requires her defense against Western invaders and their treacherous advocates within the emperor’s court. Allen balances quick forward momentum with immersive details about Pimchan’s magic, job, and culture. Stellar worldcraft, character development, and pacing combine to make this one of the best stories in the anthology.

In a humorous take on “Snow White” and many other fairy tales, Melissa Mead pits the unconventional Princess Bethanie against her new beauty queen stepmother, Lady Sable. With the help of some curious woodsmen (NOT dwarves!), Bethanie joins the resistance against Lady Sable’s draconian sumptuary laws. Funny, frothy, original, and a bit too convoluted, “The Fairest of Them All” takes old-time fairy-tale themes for a modern spin.

In K. D. Wentworth’s “Deermouse,” Spark guides a nobleman, Garth, through a dangerous piece of country and comes across painful reminders of her past. She remembers when a covetous spirit in the land itself possessed and took Spark’s lover, Jorn. Spark must deal with the spirit of the land again when it takes over Garth. While an interesting concept, Wentworth’s story is murky on key points, particularly on the spirit’s identity and its intentions, both of which should be well delineated so that readers can understand it as an antagonistic force. Since the story did not adequately specify the spirit’s goals, I found its conclusion anticlimactic.

Catherine Mintz, by contrast, writes of amorphous dangers with better results than those in “Deermouse.” In Mintz’s story, three magical avatars, the Maiden, the Dame, and the Crone, oversee and guard a remote village, the Fastness. When a lupine threat howls at the gates, the Dame defends the village, revealing in the process the true relationship of the trio to the Fastness. Murky with the atmosphere of a deep winter night, Mintz’s “Blood Moon” left me a little confused about the danger to the Fastness, but Mintz compensates with a clear depiction of the Maiden, Dame, and Crone and their functions. Since the story ends up less about a specific danger to the Fastness and more about the ways in which the trio of women works, I accept the ambiguity because the Maiden, Mother, and Crone are strong, unusual, and interesting.

For more sharply defined adventure, we turn to Jonathan Moeller’s “Stolen Ghosts,” another story about spy and assassin Caina, who first appeared in Sword and Sorceress XXII. Still stalking an undead magician, Caina finds her quest turning personal when said magician possesses, then kills, first an assassin out to get her , then Caina’s own mentor. Moeller allows us to pick on the body-switching just as Caina’s situation grows dire; thus we root for her impatiently to figure everything out and kick ultimate butt. Though knowing Caina’s previous adventures enrich one’s enjoyment of “Stolen Ghosts,” the second story can stand on its own, thanks to Moeller’s economical and suspenseful creation of an action story with mystery elements.

In Kristin Noone’s “The Frog’s Princess,” the king is depressed because his wife’s dead, and their daughter is depressed because she has no magical skill like her mother’s…and because she’s slated to marry an arrogant magician. Princess Andrie makes friends with a magical frog and starts a chain of events that exposes her fiancé’s hidden cruelty. Everything resolves itself…well, if not happily, then at least better then it would have been. Noone writes a rather subdued and melancholy tale, shaded with grief. The sadness of Andrie and her father makes them more compelling, their story more memorable, than a simpler happy ending might.

“Shalott’s Inn” by Leah Cypess reimagines the story of the Lady of Shalott, an Arthurian weaver and enchantress who pines for Lancelot, but crosses paths with him only when her corpse floats by him after she commits suicide. In Cypess’s version, Elaine is an innkeeper’s daughter, not a wizard, but her proximity to the realm of Faerie gives her flashes of the future. With knowledge of her tragic destiny, will she accept it or try to change the Arthurian legends as we know them? Cypess’s story is subtle, with strains of tenderness, but relies too much on summarizing vast stretches of time, which distances the emotional impact.

Linda L. Donahue’s “Wolf Maiden” concerns Asdis, a physically strong, mentally tough young orphan in a medieval Scandinavian patriarchy. She uses her wits and brawn equally to make a deal with wolf god Fenris, who helps her defend her town against supernatural invaders. Donahue knits together Norse mythology and the theme of a wily warrior woman as smart as those in “Daughters of Brightshield,” but more bloodthirsty. As raw, gritty, and fantastical as Beowulf.

The main character of Resa Nelson’s “Black Magic” disguises herself as a boy and runs away to sea. She meets up with an evil genie and must risk her incognito state to save her crew. Nelson’s good grasp of the history of sailing does not mesh well with the fantastical elements. Blocks of informative text stop the story’s forward motion, and the author seems more interested the nautical background than the actual events of the story.

In “Remembering” by Deborah J. Ross, protagonist Eliane has no memories and family of her own, but still she is devoted to her adoptive country. When fanatics threaten to burn her home, she risks her life to save her adoptive family and her adoptive culture’s memories. In dire straits out on the ocean, she culminates her rescue while learning about her own origins. Another sad, crystalline story like “The Frog’s Princess,” Ross’s “Remembering” draws its morose inspiration from the darker currents of family and sacrifice afloat in Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Mermaid.”

A familiar is supposed to aid a magician in his or her supernatural endeavors, but, in the case of Cluny the squirrel and her supposed master, clumsy student Crocker, it’s the other way around. Cluny, intrepid and skilled despite her small size, must keep the immature Crocker out of trouble. A practical joke on one of Crocker’s schoolmates goes awry, so Cluny finds herself nose to nose with a fire-breathing dragon. In “Squirrel Errant,” Michael H. Payne playfully depicts both a convincing system of magic and a humorous relationship between a doofus and his much smarter “pet.”

“Hope for the Dawn” by Catherine Soto picks up characters from previous Sword and Sorceress anthologies: Lin Mei and Biao Mei, a sister-and-brother team of temple guards. When an embassy token is stolen, the two use their skills with the sword—and some help from the temple cats—to keep a diplomatic mission from ending violently. Soto’s affection for her characters (and the cats) comes through palpably in this story, making it not only well paced and well written, but full of heart.

“Scam Artistry” by Mercedes Lackey and Elisabeth Waters rounds out Sword and Sorceress XXIII with an amusing short. Acerbic familiar Quoth thinks his “dippy hippy” witch, Agatha, is a few leaves short of a roach, but she soon demonstrates that she is smarter than she seems. Hah! The joke’s on Quoth, and you end the book with a wry smile on your lips.

Publisher: Norilana Books (November 2008)
Price: $12.95
Trade paperback: 324 pages
ISBN: 1934648787