Brutal Women: The Short Stuff

by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley's first published story, this first appeared in the November 2001 webzine, Deep Outside SFFH. An example of feminist science fiction, it concerns a vessel who can dream and lie. A dystopia.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, LGBT, Ebooks

201 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Kameron Hurley is the author of the upcoming science ficition thriller These Savage Stars (2026), The Light Brigade, and The Stars are Legion, as well as the award-winning God’s War Trilogy and The Worldbreaker Saga. Hurley has won the Hugo Award, Locus Award, Kitschy Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. She was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nebula Award, and the Gemmell Morningstar Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Popular Science Magazine, Lightspeed and numerous anthologies, and appears in two collections: Future Artifacts and Meet Me in the Future. Hurley has also written for The Atlantic, Writers Digest, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, Bitch Magazine, and Locus Magazine. Her most popular essays, including the viral hit "We Have Always Fought" are collected in The Geek Feminist Revolution. She posts regularly at KameronHurley.com. Get a short story from Kameron each month via: patreon.com/kameronhurley

Reviews

[Meagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It kills me to give this less than 4 stars because I love Hurley so much 😭😭. I have never given her anything below 4 stars (and have mostly given her work 5 stars). But I just didn't connect that much to all of the stories in this one. So it was good but not great. This is some of her earlier work and by no means is the writing bad but she just hadn't perfected some things yet. It was really interesting to see the origin of some of her ideas and to see how far they have come now. I am really glad I read this! 😜

My favorite part of this had to be the explanations and tidbits of info Hurley gave at the beginning of each story. I wish more authors did this. It's nice to get inside the head of my favorite authors. And of course I loved the flawed, BRUTAL women 🥰.

There were 10 stories all listed below.

The best stories:

Wonder Maul Doll- This was my absolute favorite. It seems to have many of the elements found in her Bel Dame Series. Great bleak ending and statement on war.

In Freedom, Dying

Women and Ladies, Blood and Sand

Stories that were decent:

If Women Do Fall They Lie- I liked the message behind the main characters story but did not find the story itself that compelling. STILL it was decent.

Holding onto Ghosts -This was the most un-Hurley like story in the bunch. It was about actual ghosts which I didnt expect from Hurley. But still good.

Stories that I encountered before and thought were decent:

The Women of Our Occupation (I first encountered this story in the "Meet Me in the Future" anthology)

Canticle of the flesh (this is listed as "previously unpublished" in this collection but is now also a part of "Meet Me in the Future" under the title The Corpse Archives). This is a weird story that I am not sure how to quite interpret (after reading it 2 times now lol) but still found entertaining.

Stories that I started but ultimately skipped and that contributed to my overall lower rating:

Genderbending at the Madhattered-I want to try this again since it explores gender but at the time it just didn't do it for me. Too subtle and mundane and (if I recall correctly NOT even about war, which is what I have learned is Hurley's signature).

My Oracles at the End of the World- Was never a fan of Shakespeare. So this one missed the mark. I didn't like the medieval setting with modern touches.

Once, There Were Wolves

If you love Hurley then I think you should give this a try.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welp, time to read everything Kameron Hurley has ever written.

[Lexie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurley caught my attention with God's War, which was unexpectedly interesting to me despite being about as far out of my book reading interest scape as possible. I bought this e-book anthology of her short works from earlier magazines and online 'zines because I wanted to read more of her work.

Each comes with a brief recounting of where it was originally published and some other tidbits; how it was received or how much hate mail she still gets over certain stories for instance. I'm not certain if any of these are set in the same universe as GOD'S WAR, but they follow similar patterns and writing styles. Words, descriptions and the overall flow of each piece marks it as uniquely Hurley, but as I said makes it confusing as to whether they have any connection otherwise.

These aren't easy to read and I don't recommend them for anyone who is suffering some sort of anger or activist outrage--these ten stories will likely not do much to calm you down. In the story "Wonder Maul Doll" Hurley says

Give a woman a gun, and the power dynamics change. It’s not so much that I started out writing with the explicit goal of writing fiction that treated men and women equally (the “f” word), or even skewed the dynamics to matriarchy on occasion (which were always violent, too – you can’t oppress half of the world and have a peaceful society, no matter which half you’re oppressing. Sorry). It’s that I started writing stories I wanted to read. Gritty, brutal stories about screwed up people who also happened to be women. This story first appeared in From the Trenches: An SF War Anthology in 2006. In 2009, it was “reprinted” in EscapePod and reached a whole new audience of angry science fiction fans who felt I was gory for gory’s sake and moaned and groaned about what had happened to their happy-go-lucky Golden Age SF. “Where’s my cozy white guys rule the world stories?” they cried. These chicks ate it.

(Hurley, Kameron (2010-12-19). Brutal Women: The Short Stuff (Kindle Locations 775-783). Unknown. Kindle Edition.)

And that sums up her stories quite well. Her stories are violent, they feature women (primarily) doing atrocious things that in the past were seen as 'masculine' issues. The scary thing is that if you changed the gender of any of her narrators from female to male people wouldn't bat an eyelash. (Want a good example? Read "If Women Do Fall They Lie", guess the gender of the narrator, then switch it, does it change your perspective and opinion?).

[Russell Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating collection of stories from someone who's quickly becoming, or already might be, one of my favorite authors. I really enjoyed the short blurbs leading into each story that explained the backgrounds and inspirations behind them. I wish more authors did this and I find it weird when people say it's pretentious (which was brought up often regarding Harlan Ellison). Usually, I go after collections like this because I'm interested in the author and their development, so I love getting behind-the-scenes info. It's like getting the director's commentary on a favorite movie.

I associate Kameron Hurley with immense creativity mixed with war, overbearing government, and social power dynamics, and all of those are prominently displayed in this collection.

My favorite stories that were 10 out of 10 enjoyment were:
If Women Do Fall They Lie
Wonder Maul Doll
Canticle of Flesh
In Freedom, Dying
Women and Ladies, Blood and Sand

For those keeping count, that's half the stories in the book. While there were a couple that felt like odd ducks by comparison, none of them were bad by any means, and I found every story to vary from enjoyable and interesting to downright fascinating.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dystopia set in a future wherein it seems that an alien species has conquered Earth and reduced it to a farm of sorts. This story is about a man finding a woman, called a vessel, and bringing her to this alien species for them to use her. It is a horrifying tale told in a mature, sophisticated manner that leaves a reader hopeless. I like the story because of its darkness. I've never read anything quite like it before. Recommended only for readers who don't require stories cheer them up by the end.

This story is Kameron Hurley's first published story, I believe. It appeared in one of the Internet's earliest science fiction webzines, titled Deep Outside SFFH. I read it there: https://www.deepoutside.com/fiction/3.... Another way to acquire it is to obtain Hurley's short story collection, Brutal Women: The Short Stuff.

[Adri266 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tak toto som si predstavovala uplne inak. Ale ze uuuuuuuuuuplne. Myslela som, ze to bude kratke poviedky o silnych zenach. Ale dostala som cosi...ani to neviem vyjadrit slovami. Aj dystopia, aj scifi, aj feminizmus, aj tretie pohlavie, aj stvrte pohlavie...Pacila sa mi jedina poviedka, o muzovi, ktory akoze chranil svoju krajinu, ale v podstate vrazdil ludi inej pleti a domov sa vratil s duchmi tych, ktorych zabil a jeho dcera ich videla.
Na zaciatku kazdej poviedky bol kratky koment k tomu, kde bola vydana, ale ja by som skor ocenila na konci koment k tomu, co kazda poviedka znacila.

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few good ones and some not so great.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read all of these. The Macbeth one was too slow and different enough; a story that Hurley herself says isn't very good I'm just going to ignore; one she describes as the most unpleasant I'm also going to steer clear of. However, many of these stories are eminently readable - and the ones that acted as incubator for God's War are especially good.

[Paul Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short fiction with females being the ones with the power - violent, aggressive and totally in control. Some good stories, some bad (even by the author's reckoning) and worth a read if only for the different perspective of powerful women.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

Kameron Hurley is one of my favorite authors. I can't read her work all the time, only when the mood hits. Her work is always full of flawed, tragic, fascinating characters. This collection is no exception.