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Ishtar
'The Five Loves of Ishtar': Kaaron Warren Follow the path that the goddess Ishtar takes through the eyes of her most devoted worshippers, her washerwomen. Sharokin, Atur, Ninlil, Shamiran, Ninevah and Ashurina share in their goddess' loves, losses and triumphs, as kingdoms rise and fall in the Land of Rivers. 'And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living': Deborah Biancotti In modern-day Sydney, male prostitutes are dying. Their bones have turned to paste and their bodies are jelly. As Detective Adrienne Garner investigates the deaths, she finds rumours of strange cults and old gods whose powers threaten her city and, ultimately, her world. 'The Sleeping and the Dead': Cat Sparks Dr. Anna remembers little of her life before the war, merely traces of the man she used to love. When three desperate travellers rekindle slumbering memories, she begins a search that takes her to Hell and beyond. A search for love and, ultimately, enlightenment.
260 pages, Paperback
First published November 13, 2011
1 person is currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Pillar
48 books153 followersAmanda Pillar is addicted to writing. Not in the fun kind of way, more in the has-to-get-her-fix kind of way. But that's a good thing, right? It means she's busy working on her next book and has plans for many more to come, all with lots of snark. Because snark.
Amanda has had almost a dozen books published, alongside a variety of short stories, as well as solo and co-editing over half a dozen anthologies. People say it's because she's an 'over-achiever' but, in reality, Amanda doesn't understand the concept of 'relaxation'. (Please feel free to explain it to her. Use small words.) Compounding this issue, Amanda has commenced work on a PhD. Because she's crazy.
Oh, and in her day job, she's an archaeologist. (And no, she doesn't get chased around site by rogue boulders, thank the flying spaghetti monster. She doesn't even want to imagine the OH&S paperwork THAT would cause).
Amanda has had almost a dozen books published, alongside a variety of short stories, as well as solo and co-editing over half a dozen anthologies. People say it's because she's an 'over-achiever' but, in reality, Amanda doesn't understand the concept of 'relaxation'. (Please feel free to explain it to her. Use small words.) Compounding this issue, Amanda has commenced work on a PhD. Because she's crazy.
Oh, and in her day job, she's an archaeologist. (And no, she doesn't get chased around site by rogue boulders, thank the flying spaghetti monster. She doesn't even want to imagine the OH&S paperwork THAT would cause).
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 12, 2011
Wow, this book is very special and most unusual. Three talented authors take on three different time periods to tell the sweeping tale of the immortal goddess ISHTAR. As a result, readers are treated to three distinctly different tales, each with their own rich, beautiful voice. The book opens with a washerwoman in ancient times, leaps forward to a murder mystery in modern day Australia, and closes with an end of times story that brings everything full circle. I found it to be a highly mesmerizing journey.
Kaaron Warren gets things off to a sizzling start with The Five Loves of Ishtar, and what a provocative bit of foreplay it is! The language won me over from the start and I'm pleased to say that lovely words are the golden threads that connect all three stories. Here's a bit of memorable prose from The Five Loves: "Gilgamesh himself was scarred across the back and the tops of his thighs. He said sometimes that if a week went by without his father damaging him, he felt as if the world was asleep and that he was dreaming along with them." This part of the book is rather like sharing a dream, come to think of it. A dark, unsettling dream.
In the middle of all this, Deborah Biancotti delivers a gritty, suspenseful, and often humorous cop story that is surprisingly poignant. Of the three, the characters in this one touched me the most. More nice images abound too: A house "...stands high like a pale yellow cement sponge cake." Washerwomen kneel by a swimming pool, "wet to their shoulders", washing sheets. A deadman's face is "...liquid rubber, one eye against the ground, the other staring up at the ceiling, like an olive in an omelette." Mmm.
In the final episode, The Sleeping and the Dead, Cat Sparks asks the question: "Does time still flow when all the clocks are broken?" The world is a wasteland, that much is certain. Like the first two stories, an assortment of disturbing surprises await. "All today's ghosts are from the cities. Sleepwalking, listless in the tide. They chatter to the void, hooked up to the electronic whisper, muttering mantras under faded breath." So good!
Ishtar being all-powerful, she can give you anything your heart desires, and all in one handy little book. If you're a lover of historical tales of desire, Ishtar will satisfy your every need. Born with a taste for war? She'll give you a fight. Scratch that. She'll give you many fights. Love to fall in love? Ishtar does too. For crime-story readers, there's a crime, and for those who enjoy a good apocalypse, there's a good apocalypse. Long story short, Ishtar is all things to all people, which is exactly why she's so dangerously habit-forming.
Kaaron Warren gets things off to a sizzling start with The Five Loves of Ishtar, and what a provocative bit of foreplay it is! The language won me over from the start and I'm pleased to say that lovely words are the golden threads that connect all three stories. Here's a bit of memorable prose from The Five Loves: "Gilgamesh himself was scarred across the back and the tops of his thighs. He said sometimes that if a week went by without his father damaging him, he felt as if the world was asleep and that he was dreaming along with them." This part of the book is rather like sharing a dream, come to think of it. A dark, unsettling dream.
In the middle of all this, Deborah Biancotti delivers a gritty, suspenseful, and often humorous cop story that is surprisingly poignant. Of the three, the characters in this one touched me the most. More nice images abound too: A house "...stands high like a pale yellow cement sponge cake." Washerwomen kneel by a swimming pool, "wet to their shoulders", washing sheets. A deadman's face is "...liquid rubber, one eye against the ground, the other staring up at the ceiling, like an olive in an omelette." Mmm.
In the final episode, The Sleeping and the Dead, Cat Sparks asks the question: "Does time still flow when all the clocks are broken?" The world is a wasteland, that much is certain. Like the first two stories, an assortment of disturbing surprises await. "All today's ghosts are from the cities. Sleepwalking, listless in the tide. They chatter to the void, hooked up to the electronic whisper, muttering mantras under faded breath." So good!
Ishtar being all-powerful, she can give you anything your heart desires, and all in one handy little book. If you're a lover of historical tales of desire, Ishtar will satisfy your every need. Born with a taste for war? She'll give you a fight. Scratch that. She'll give you many fights. Love to fall in love? Ishtar does too. For crime-story readers, there's a crime, and for those who enjoy a good apocalypse, there's a good apocalypse. Long story short, Ishtar is all things to all people, which is exactly why she's so dangerously habit-forming.
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November 13, 2011I was lucky enough to work as an editor on this project. Gotta love a goddess, man, but especially this one.
December 16, 2015
(Disclaimer: I know all three of these authors. Not that that would stop me from being dispassionate, of course...)
This is a set of three novellas, set in very distinct times, about the goddess Ishtar. Despite having the same theoretical focus, the three vary greatly in tone, style and actual focus. There are, nonetheless, a couple of clear threads that link them. The first is, of course, Ishtar herself. This is no Botticelli-esque Venus, no whimsical romanticised Aphrodite; all three authors present an Ishtar who is very clearly goddess of war and goddess of love/sexuality, and who embodies the struggles that each of those aspects brings - not to mention the way they work together. Coexistent with this is an attitude towards men that could perhaps be described as contempt, although that may be too harsh; disdain may be closer. Aside from Ishtar, the three stories are all categorised by a general sense of dread, of pessimism and darkness. These are not cheery tales.
I love a fiction book that comes with a bibliography, and Ishtar does just that. I suspect most of the research went into Kaaron Warren's opening story, "The Five Loves of Ishtar" - although looking at the titles of the articles I can see resonances with the other two stories as well. Warren, though, in opening the set, has the task of placing Ishtar within her original context: ancient Mesopotamia. I know only a little of the history of that area; it certainly feels to me that Warren has captured the sense, if not of the historical area itself, then of how the area might have perceived itself in myth andhistory. Because Warren sets Ishtar within a place that feels real, where the gods and heroes do walk the earth and do interact with mortals. And she tells of Ishtar and her five loves through five generations of washerwomen, at once a domestic and lowly, yet also incredibly intimate, position. Ishtar's loves come and go, from Tammuz the Green One in 3000BC to Ashurnasirpal in 883BC. There are some similarities between the five: jealousy, and a love of power, and a lack of understanding of Ishtar herself. To some extent, though, the men are just there to be foils to Ishtar - to provide evidence of time's movement, since Ishtar changes little; to give Ishtar a canvas on which to act. Ishtar's involvement with women is of great moment, and I think reveals more of Ishtar's self. Her interactions with women giving birth, and with her washerwomen, shows a complex character that isn't entirely comfortable in the world, but doesn't really know how else to be. There are poignant moments of vulnerability (a goddess concerned about her appearance? unsure of whether she wants a child?), as well as startling moments of horror (the casual brutality of death and war, the creation of a horrific army). This is a complex story as befits a complex character and a complex history, too. Warren does it justice, and sets up the next two stories beautifully: after all, if this is Ishtar in the far ancient world, what might she be like today, let alone in the future?
Deb Biancotti has the task of placing Ishtar in the modern world, and actually for much of the novel Ishtar is not a physical presence; she is a rumour, a hidden force, a menacing shadow. "And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living" takes place today, in Sydney, and is essentially a police procedural. Adrienne is a detective, and she has a rather nasty case to work on: several men found dead, with their bones smashes to smithereens, who all appear to have been sex-workers. Just the sort of trend that gives police headaches - especially when the cause of death is almost impossible to explain. In searching for clues, Adrienne reconnects with an old friend who used to be involved in the sex workers' union; meets a priest and a gigolo-cum-witchdoctor type; and comes across a rather odd goddess cult, who are waiting for their goddess to reappear. All of these people give tantalising clues as to what might be going on, where 'tantalising' can also be synonymous with 'frustrating' and 'hair-pullingly-ambiguous'. The reader, of course, might have some idea of what is going on - surely Ishtar has to turn up or be involved at some point - but that really doesn't make a difference to the story itself. Adrienne is a powerful, compelling protagonist, into whose personal life the reader gets just enough insight to understand that while policing is of fundamental importance to her, it's not quite all she is. She verges on manic sometimes; her determination and dedication is by turns admirable and somewhat frightening. The supporting cast is solid: Steve, her partner-in-policing, is different enough to riff off, with a family to be concerned about and a bit less narrowly focussed; Nina, the prostitute, is the old friend who can say pretty much anything to Adrienne and provides a wildly different perspective. This novella is the most straight-forward of the three, because of its police procedural nature; there is a mystery which must be worked out, and it seems bizarre and unlikely but then clues fall into place. It is the easiest and least demanding to read (which is by no means a slight on Warren or Sparks, or on Biancotti either), but don't assume that makes it pleasant. Or that it has a nice ending.
One mythological, one mystery... and a post-apocalytpic tale on which to end. Cat Sparks rounds out the set with "The Sleeping and the Dead." It starts in a blasted desert with a mechanical bull going mad, and really just continues in that trend. Exactly when and where this story takes place is unclear; I presumed it was Australia, but it doesn't have to be, and it's sometime in the future of Adrienne's Sydney - probably within a generation, but that's just my guess from a few hints here and there. The focus of this story is Doctor Anna, who lives in said desert with a bunch of very weird, fairly crazy nuns with a seriously disturbing ossuary. When one day some men come calling - well, crawling like dehydrated possibly-hallucinating men are wont to - things change; whether it will be for the better or the worse depends entirely on whose perspective you take. Where Warren's story has an ancient world annals feel to it, and Biancotti's is a straightforward novel, Sparks' piece at times feels something like a dream. The narrative is basically straightforward but the links don't always immediately make sense; and Anna's obsession with Thomas doesn't entirely make sense; and time doesn't always seem to flow in the proper, ordered way it ought. The place of Ishtar in this story is the least obvious of the three; it does make sense towards the end and, credit where it's definitely due, Sparks does a good job of tying her Ishtar back to Warren's. I'm not sure how deliberate that was, since I have no idea how closely the three worked in developing their stories, but it certainly felt cohesive.
This is a really impressive set of stories, and they are most definitely worthy of the award nominations they've been receiving. I expect this to be a collection that I keep revisiting and, perhaps especially in the past and future Ishtars, I expect to keep finding new nuances and details cleverly hidden away. It would have been so easy to sanitise this goddess and make her palatable; I am so glad Warren, Biancotti, and Sparks had the vision to be true to what I think is the general vibe of the original mythology.
This is a set of three novellas, set in very distinct times, about the goddess Ishtar. Despite having the same theoretical focus, the three vary greatly in tone, style and actual focus. There are, nonetheless, a couple of clear threads that link them. The first is, of course, Ishtar herself. This is no Botticelli-esque Venus, no whimsical romanticised Aphrodite; all three authors present an Ishtar who is very clearly goddess of war and goddess of love/sexuality, and who embodies the struggles that each of those aspects brings - not to mention the way they work together. Coexistent with this is an attitude towards men that could perhaps be described as contempt, although that may be too harsh; disdain may be closer. Aside from Ishtar, the three stories are all categorised by a general sense of dread, of pessimism and darkness. These are not cheery tales.
I love a fiction book that comes with a bibliography, and Ishtar does just that. I suspect most of the research went into Kaaron Warren's opening story, "The Five Loves of Ishtar" - although looking at the titles of the articles I can see resonances with the other two stories as well. Warren, though, in opening the set, has the task of placing Ishtar within her original context: ancient Mesopotamia. I know only a little of the history of that area; it certainly feels to me that Warren has captured the sense, if not of the historical area itself, then of how the area might have perceived itself in myth andhistory. Because Warren sets Ishtar within a place that feels real, where the gods and heroes do walk the earth and do interact with mortals. And she tells of Ishtar and her five loves through five generations of washerwomen, at once a domestic and lowly, yet also incredibly intimate, position. Ishtar's loves come and go, from Tammuz the Green One in 3000BC to Ashurnasirpal in 883BC. There are some similarities between the five: jealousy, and a love of power, and a lack of understanding of Ishtar herself. To some extent, though, the men are just there to be foils to Ishtar - to provide evidence of time's movement, since Ishtar changes little; to give Ishtar a canvas on which to act. Ishtar's involvement with women is of great moment, and I think reveals more of Ishtar's self. Her interactions with women giving birth, and with her washerwomen, shows a complex character that isn't entirely comfortable in the world, but doesn't really know how else to be. There are poignant moments of vulnerability (a goddess concerned about her appearance? unsure of whether she wants a child?), as well as startling moments of horror (the casual brutality of death and war, the creation of a horrific army). This is a complex story as befits a complex character and a complex history, too. Warren does it justice, and sets up the next two stories beautifully: after all, if this is Ishtar in the far ancient world, what might she be like today, let alone in the future?
Deb Biancotti has the task of placing Ishtar in the modern world, and actually for much of the novel Ishtar is not a physical presence; she is a rumour, a hidden force, a menacing shadow. "And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living" takes place today, in Sydney, and is essentially a police procedural. Adrienne is a detective, and she has a rather nasty case to work on: several men found dead, with their bones smashes to smithereens, who all appear to have been sex-workers. Just the sort of trend that gives police headaches - especially when the cause of death is almost impossible to explain. In searching for clues, Adrienne reconnects with an old friend who used to be involved in the sex workers' union; meets a priest and a gigolo-cum-witchdoctor type; and comes across a rather odd goddess cult, who are waiting for their goddess to reappear. All of these people give tantalising clues as to what might be going on, where 'tantalising' can also be synonymous with 'frustrating' and 'hair-pullingly-ambiguous'. The reader, of course, might have some idea of what is going on - surely Ishtar has to turn up or be involved at some point - but that really doesn't make a difference to the story itself. Adrienne is a powerful, compelling protagonist, into whose personal life the reader gets just enough insight to understand that while policing is of fundamental importance to her, it's not quite all she is. She verges on manic sometimes; her determination and dedication is by turns admirable and somewhat frightening. The supporting cast is solid: Steve, her partner-in-policing, is different enough to riff off, with a family to be concerned about and a bit less narrowly focussed; Nina, the prostitute, is the old friend who can say pretty much anything to Adrienne and provides a wildly different perspective. This novella is the most straight-forward of the three, because of its police procedural nature; there is a mystery which must be worked out, and it seems bizarre and unlikely but then clues fall into place. It is the easiest and least demanding to read (which is by no means a slight on Warren or Sparks, or on Biancotti either), but don't assume that makes it pleasant. Or that it has a nice ending.
One mythological, one mystery... and a post-apocalytpic tale on which to end. Cat Sparks rounds out the set with "The Sleeping and the Dead." It starts in a blasted desert with a mechanical bull going mad, and really just continues in that trend. Exactly when and where this story takes place is unclear; I presumed it was Australia, but it doesn't have to be, and it's sometime in the future of Adrienne's Sydney - probably within a generation, but that's just my guess from a few hints here and there. The focus of this story is Doctor Anna, who lives in said desert with a bunch of very weird, fairly crazy nuns with a seriously disturbing ossuary. When one day some men come calling - well, crawling like dehydrated possibly-hallucinating men are wont to - things change; whether it will be for the better or the worse depends entirely on whose perspective you take. Where Warren's story has an ancient world annals feel to it, and Biancotti's is a straightforward novel, Sparks' piece at times feels something like a dream. The narrative is basically straightforward but the links don't always immediately make sense; and Anna's obsession with Thomas doesn't entirely make sense; and time doesn't always seem to flow in the proper, ordered way it ought. The place of Ishtar in this story is the least obvious of the three; it does make sense towards the end and, credit where it's definitely due, Sparks does a good job of tying her Ishtar back to Warren's. I'm not sure how deliberate that was, since I have no idea how closely the three worked in developing their stories, but it certainly felt cohesive.
This is a really impressive set of stories, and they are most definitely worthy of the award nominations they've been receiving. I expect this to be a collection that I keep revisiting and, perhaps especially in the past and future Ishtars, I expect to keep finding new nuances and details cleverly hidden away. It would have been so easy to sanitise this goddess and make her palatable; I am so glad Warren, Biancotti, and Sparks had the vision to be true to what I think is the general vibe of the original mythology.
May 30, 2016
Having an interest in mythology but next to no knowledge of Ishtar herself, I picked up this anthology on a whim at a speculative fiction convention in the distant past. It trends a bit more towards horror than I would usually read--unsurprising, given the authors--but it remained within my tolerance
.
As the description makes clear, Ishtar is a collection of three novellas that tell the story of the goddess at different points in time. Kaaron Warren kicks off the anthology, showing Ishtar at the height of her power. Ostensibly told in first person, the point-of-view pulls towards omniscient third person. I didn't find this a problem, but I know others may. In fact, I found the point-of-view an interesting aspect of this story. There are multiple washerwomen telling the story, but the sameness to the language encourages the reader to perceive them as the same person--much as Ishtar does. And yet, the washerwomen often have different attitudes towards the goddess they serve. I appreciated this nuance.
Being Kaaron Warren, of course there’s viscera in the seams of Ishtar's clothing and armies of still-born babies. Despite this, I found the story a bit slow-paced and felt my attention wandering from time to time. It had a lot of work to do in laying the foundations for the other stories. Covering a lengthy period of history, it details Ishtar's myths as well as her loves (which are usually related), bringing them to life with historical detail. I enjoyed the way it commented on the changing relationship between the genders (though I should note it was very heteronormative and subscribed to a gender binary). Likewise, it did an excellent job of showing the changes in power experienced by Ishtar.
Deborah Biancotti's modern take was better paced and it hooked me in much more quickly. Like Cat Sparks' story, it was told in third person, present tense. Ishtar was more of a distant character in this story, though remains at its heart. As such, her motives weren't entirely transparent and the story lost cohesion a bit towards the end. However, I thought it connected well to the previous story and the justification for setting it in Australia was reasonable. One quibble I had was to do with the style. In places it was both show and tell, as if the author didn't trust the reader to interpret the description correctly. However, this was a relatively minor annoyance.
Having dealt with the past and the present, Cat Sparks' story focuses on the future. It is unclear how far in the future it is, particularly since Dr. Anna's memory is a bit sketchy. It is also unclear where exactly it is set, other than a desert wasteland containing remnants of the present day. I liked this because it could equally have been former Mesopotamia as Australia (though I'm leaning towards the latter). I found the style a bit fussier than the previous stories, playing with language in a way that was sometimes enjoyable and sometimes tiresome. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this story most of the three. I appreciated the way certain elements of the previous stories had been reinterpreted for the future setting. As with Deborah Biancotti's story, the ending devolved into chaos a little too much for my taste. However, it was also an appropriate finale to the anthology.
Overall, I found Ishtar a solid anthology but one not precisely to my taste.
This review first appeared on Earl Grey Editing.
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As the description makes clear, Ishtar is a collection of three novellas that tell the story of the goddess at different points in time. Kaaron Warren kicks off the anthology, showing Ishtar at the height of her power. Ostensibly told in first person, the point-of-view pulls towards omniscient third person. I didn't find this a problem, but I know others may. In fact, I found the point-of-view an interesting aspect of this story. There are multiple washerwomen telling the story, but the sameness to the language encourages the reader to perceive them as the same person--much as Ishtar does. And yet, the washerwomen often have different attitudes towards the goddess they serve. I appreciated this nuance.
Being Kaaron Warren, of course there’s viscera in the seams of Ishtar's clothing and armies of still-born babies. Despite this, I found the story a bit slow-paced and felt my attention wandering from time to time. It had a lot of work to do in laying the foundations for the other stories. Covering a lengthy period of history, it details Ishtar's myths as well as her loves (which are usually related), bringing them to life with historical detail. I enjoyed the way it commented on the changing relationship between the genders (though I should note it was very heteronormative and subscribed to a gender binary). Likewise, it did an excellent job of showing the changes in power experienced by Ishtar.
Deborah Biancotti's modern take was better paced and it hooked me in much more quickly. Like Cat Sparks' story, it was told in third person, present tense. Ishtar was more of a distant character in this story, though remains at its heart. As such, her motives weren't entirely transparent and the story lost cohesion a bit towards the end. However, I thought it connected well to the previous story and the justification for setting it in Australia was reasonable. One quibble I had was to do with the style. In places it was both show and tell, as if the author didn't trust the reader to interpret the description correctly. However, this was a relatively minor annoyance.
Having dealt with the past and the present, Cat Sparks' story focuses on the future. It is unclear how far in the future it is, particularly since Dr. Anna's memory is a bit sketchy. It is also unclear where exactly it is set, other than a desert wasteland containing remnants of the present day. I liked this because it could equally have been former Mesopotamia as Australia (though I'm leaning towards the latter). I found the style a bit fussier than the previous stories, playing with language in a way that was sometimes enjoyable and sometimes tiresome. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this story most of the three. I appreciated the way certain elements of the previous stories had been reinterpreted for the future setting. As with Deborah Biancotti's story, the ending devolved into chaos a little too much for my taste. However, it was also an appropriate finale to the anthology.
Overall, I found Ishtar a solid anthology but one not precisely to my taste.
This review first appeared on Earl Grey Editing.
April 29, 2012
This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading Challenge. All my AWWC reviews can be found here.
Ishtar is a collection of three novellas, each dealing with the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war and sex Ishtar. The book is cleverly put together, with each novella putting the Ishtar character in very different time settings (one in the ancient past, one in contemporary times and one in a dystopian future). This, combined with radically different story telling styles, avoids any continuity issues.
Having said that, the stories do work very well together. While they have obviously been written separately and in completely different styles, there are quite a few shared details that make the collection feel cohesive. Excellent editing must have gone into making this collection work as more than the sum of its parts.
For those who don't know much about Ishtar mythology (such as yours truly for instance), the collection is an interesting insight into an unfamiliar pantheon. The stories seem very well researched (to the point of having a reference material bibliography at the back of the book for one of the novellas). Those who are better versed in Assyrian/Babylonion lore will probably find a layer of interpretation and meaning that eludes a newcomer such as myself.
In recent weeks the collection has been nominated in the Best Collected Work category for the Ditmars (Australian speculative fiction popular vote award) and in the Best Anthology category for the Aurealis Awards (Australian speculative fiction judged award).
The Five Loves of Ishtar by Kaaron Warren in the first story in the collection. Each of the titular five loves are spread out over a large timescale in ancient history and their stories are told as separate "sub-stories". Ms Warren uses a third party narrator to describe each of the tales, but makes each narrator from a single family line of washerwomen servants to the goddess. This cleverly allows her to use different voices in telling each of the stories, while still maintaining a sense of connection between them. It also was a very effective in conveying the timescale of the story.
Ms Warren does an excellent job of capturing the mercurial nature of the goddess, and the ancient setting does make the reader feel like they are learning something as well as being entertained. The switch between voices of the very human washerwomen and their insights into the nature of the relationships playing out for the goddess made it much more interesting than if Ishtar or her lovers had been the point of view character.
And The Dead Shall Outnumber the Living by Deborah Biancotti is the middle novella of the collection. Set in modern day Sydney, the story follows a detective, Adrienne Garner, investigating a string of bizarre murders which lead her fairly quickly to a Ishtar worshipping cult.
The style of the story reminded me of some of the stories in Ms Biancotti's Bad Power. It has a dark contemporary urban fantasy feel. The fantastical elements build in a very satisfying manner from the start of the story. The story moved at a fair clip, with a lot of action occurring (especially in the last third of the novella). This was the quickest read of the collection for me.
The main character, Adrienne, is well drawn and sympathetic. She is obviously very competent and experienced, but has an edge of fragility which makes the reader concerned for her ability to deal with the increasingly bizarre circumstances she finds herself in. The fact that she rises to the occasion makes for a very satisfying character arc.
For readers living in or familiar with Sydney, there are a lot of landmarks called out. Most of the action centres around places most people will recognise regardless of their knowledge of the city (the Harbour Bridge, Opera House etc), but there were also a lot of references to slightly more obscure locations which allows the native Sydneysider to feel knowledgable and slightly smug (which shows that Ms Biancotti knows what that particular target market likes).
And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living has been nominated for a lot of awards, including Horror Short Story in the Aurealis Awards, Best Novella or Novellette in the Ditmar Awards and the Novella category in the Shirley Jackson Awards (international award focusing on "dark" speculative fiction).
The collection is rounded out by The Sleeping and the Dead by Cat Sparks. This story is set in the future, after some referenced but not fully explained war that has left the world devestated (some linkages between the novellas are drawn on to leave the reader wondering more about the events at the end of And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living). Anna is a doctor working in a remote location providing fertility treatments to the increasingly desperate women who survived the devestation (and there aren't many of them).
Anna hears of a man running an underground facility who may or may not be a former lover. The story of her attempts to find him, and her discovery of more and more about herself and her past, form the spine of this novella.
The story is written in a very different style again from the first two, and this is a very different take on Ishtar. It was very interesting how the details of the dystopian world harken back to the mythology explored in the earlier stories. Without saying too much about the end, there was a feeling of a circle being completed.
Ms Sparks sketches fantastically vivid minor characters with an enviable economy, which added to the ambiance of the novel. The locations were also well realised and suitably hellish for a dystopia. I was particularly partial to some of the imagery when Anna could see visions of the time before superimposed over the wastelands around her.
The Sleeping and the Dead has been nominated in the Best Novella or Novellette category in the Ditmar Awards.
Ishtar was very enjoyable and I can certainly see why it has garnered such praise and award nominations. Highly recommended.
I also reviewed this book on my website.
Ishtar is a collection of three novellas, each dealing with the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war and sex Ishtar. The book is cleverly put together, with each novella putting the Ishtar character in very different time settings (one in the ancient past, one in contemporary times and one in a dystopian future). This, combined with radically different story telling styles, avoids any continuity issues.
Having said that, the stories do work very well together. While they have obviously been written separately and in completely different styles, there are quite a few shared details that make the collection feel cohesive. Excellent editing must have gone into making this collection work as more than the sum of its parts.
For those who don't know much about Ishtar mythology (such as yours truly for instance), the collection is an interesting insight into an unfamiliar pantheon. The stories seem very well researched (to the point of having a reference material bibliography at the back of the book for one of the novellas). Those who are better versed in Assyrian/Babylonion lore will probably find a layer of interpretation and meaning that eludes a newcomer such as myself.
In recent weeks the collection has been nominated in the Best Collected Work category for the Ditmars (Australian speculative fiction popular vote award) and in the Best Anthology category for the Aurealis Awards (Australian speculative fiction judged award).
The Five Loves of Ishtar by Kaaron Warren in the first story in the collection. Each of the titular five loves are spread out over a large timescale in ancient history and their stories are told as separate "sub-stories". Ms Warren uses a third party narrator to describe each of the tales, but makes each narrator from a single family line of washerwomen servants to the goddess. This cleverly allows her to use different voices in telling each of the stories, while still maintaining a sense of connection between them. It also was a very effective in conveying the timescale of the story.
Ms Warren does an excellent job of capturing the mercurial nature of the goddess, and the ancient setting does make the reader feel like they are learning something as well as being entertained. The switch between voices of the very human washerwomen and their insights into the nature of the relationships playing out for the goddess made it much more interesting than if Ishtar or her lovers had been the point of view character.
And The Dead Shall Outnumber the Living by Deborah Biancotti is the middle novella of the collection. Set in modern day Sydney, the story follows a detective, Adrienne Garner, investigating a string of bizarre murders which lead her fairly quickly to a Ishtar worshipping cult.
The style of the story reminded me of some of the stories in Ms Biancotti's Bad Power. It has a dark contemporary urban fantasy feel. The fantastical elements build in a very satisfying manner from the start of the story. The story moved at a fair clip, with a lot of action occurring (especially in the last third of the novella). This was the quickest read of the collection for me.
The main character, Adrienne, is well drawn and sympathetic. She is obviously very competent and experienced, but has an edge of fragility which makes the reader concerned for her ability to deal with the increasingly bizarre circumstances she finds herself in. The fact that she rises to the occasion makes for a very satisfying character arc.
For readers living in or familiar with Sydney, there are a lot of landmarks called out. Most of the action centres around places most people will recognise regardless of their knowledge of the city (the Harbour Bridge, Opera House etc), but there were also a lot of references to slightly more obscure locations which allows the native Sydneysider to feel knowledgable and slightly smug (which shows that Ms Biancotti knows what that particular target market likes).
And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living has been nominated for a lot of awards, including Horror Short Story in the Aurealis Awards, Best Novella or Novellette in the Ditmar Awards and the Novella category in the Shirley Jackson Awards (international award focusing on "dark" speculative fiction).
The collection is rounded out by The Sleeping and the Dead by Cat Sparks. This story is set in the future, after some referenced but not fully explained war that has left the world devestated (some linkages between the novellas are drawn on to leave the reader wondering more about the events at the end of And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living). Anna is a doctor working in a remote location providing fertility treatments to the increasingly desperate women who survived the devestation (and there aren't many of them).
Anna hears of a man running an underground facility who may or may not be a former lover. The story of her attempts to find him, and her discovery of more and more about herself and her past, form the spine of this novella.
The story is written in a very different style again from the first two, and this is a very different take on Ishtar. It was very interesting how the details of the dystopian world harken back to the mythology explored in the earlier stories. Without saying too much about the end, there was a feeling of a circle being completed.
Ms Sparks sketches fantastically vivid minor characters with an enviable economy, which added to the ambiance of the novel. The locations were also well realised and suitably hellish for a dystopia. I was particularly partial to some of the imagery when Anna could see visions of the time before superimposed over the wastelands around her.
The Sleeping and the Dead has been nominated in the Best Novella or Novellette category in the Ditmar Awards.
Ishtar was very enjoyable and I can certainly see why it has garnered such praise and award nominations. Highly recommended.
I also reviewed this book on my website.
May 15, 2012
Ishtar is a collection of novella’s written by three of Australia’s top female speculative fiction writers.
Indeed, the collection itself has been nominated for both an Aurealis and a Ditmar, and the individual novellas have picked up nominations in both awards as well.
Published by Gilgamesh press 1. for the rather paltry sum of $5.95 in ebook form, it’s well worth the money.
The Tales
The stories in Ishtar, as the title suggests, centre on the Assyrian Goddess Ishtar, goddess of fertility, war, love, and sex.
The first novella, The Five Loves of Ishtar by Kaaron Warren is set in Ancient Assyria. The story is told by successive generations of washer women indentured to the Goddess as she is wife or partner to 5 great men, beginning with the deity Tammuz.
The story is written in the first person, and the language is somewhat stilted (though not in a negative sense). I think Warren is trying to create a text that feels mythic and reserved, not quite biblical but certainly encouraging more formal tone:
My goddess Ishtar had five great loves in her thousand years of living. Many lovers; so many even I lost count, I, who can tell you the number of girdles in every household in the city. But five men she loved, and five times she risked all for love.
I’ll admit that this tale took me the longest to get into. The repetition of the form , however, the continuity of generations of washer women telling the story, gave me both a sense of history and gradually drew me in.
The second novella was Deb Biancotti’s And the Dead Shall Outnumber The Living and is set in present day Sydney. It’s a police procedural that morphs into a surreal dark fantasy where the goddess Ishtar appears again, flexing her powers.
She crouches and grips the edge of a drain outlet, peering in. The stench is unbearable. Every shitting, vomiting junkie in the city crammed into one room couldn’t smell this bad. The body looks like a sack pushed up against the grate, spread out, blocking nearly the whole outlet. Water rushes around it, making the skin ripple. It’s naked, and the dark hairs on its chest and arms and legs, the dark V of hair around its genitals, are pressed flat by the weight of water. The insides must’ve floated away by now, out to sea.
“Kids thought it was a balloon or a clown suit or something,” Tarling says. “Until the face rolled round and looked at them.”
“Counselling?” Steve asks.
“Oh, years of it, I’d imagine,” Tarling says.
I am a fan of Biancotti’s work in Bad Power and the writing echoes that same beat cop, police procedural with an edge of dark fantasy, only in this instance it’s more than an edge. The ending is…unconventional perhaps, but fits into the whole package beautifully.
The final novella is Cat Sparks’ The Sleeping and The Dead. It gave me visions of a post apocalyptic gothic wasteland - Necromaidens with a fetish for skulls…
She watches nuns dancing in the dust, spinning and twirling as if the stuff’s not killing them. Necromaidens. Fallout wraiths. Praising absent gods for their blisters as well as their dreams. Like her, they have no formal training. Their cult has grown organically, exponentially as the years have dragged. Anna became conscious of the neatness of the skulls long before glimpsing the girls’ demented Tinkerbell antics around the gritty edges of Truckstop’s barbed perimeter. She might have dismissed the girls as ghosts — the barren landscape groans beneath the breathless, phantom weight of them, but no, the nuns are solid. As solid as forty-five kilos of half-starved girl can get.
To pick a favourite
It’s hard to pick a favourite out of these three, viewed as three parts of a whole they are both wonderfully distinct yet dovetail into each other smoothly. We have a mythic retelling, a police procedural and a post apocalyptic tale but it does feel like one continuous tale told from different perspectives.
The Sleeping and The Dead probably edges in front as my preferred story but it’s close. I have a penchant for the post apocalyptic.
Hits the mark
Ishtar fits Gilgamesh Press’ vision beautifully. Here we have three quality writers giving us their take on Assyrian myth, breathing life into a culture that underpins our own. Ishtar steps from the pages; a living, breathing, sensual and violent goddess – come and meet her.
If you like your fiction dark and your women powerful don’t go past Ishtar.
March 16, 2013
Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor, is a collection of three novellas about the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of love and war, Ishtar. The three novellas cover the past, the present and the future and together tell an overarching story of Ishtar's trail through thousands of years of humanity. Overall, I was impressed at how well the three novellas hung together and told a cohesive overarching story.
"The Five Loves of Ishtar" by Kaaron Warren is a story spanning thousands of years in the Mesopotamian region. Told from the perspectives of a series of Ishtar's washerwomen — each the daughter of Ishtar's previous washerwoman — it focuses partly on the men in Ishtar's life and partly on life generally at that time. From a god to Gilgamesh to kings, Ishtar's loves are broad and at times it seems her life revolves around them. At times war is her central concern and her army.
I liked the younger Ishtar, before she grew quite so jaded and belligerent, when she was still unsure of herself and cared at least a little about others (which is an ironic statement if you read the story). It was interesting to watch her and her concerns change through the eyes of a succession of servants.
What I also found interesting was how this story served to showcase the broadness of Warren's writing abilities. "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is very different to her other work that I've read; not only vastly different in setting to Through Splintered Walls and Slights, but also different in tone, theme and types of characters. It makes me excited to see what sort of writing I will encounter from her next.
"And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living" by Deborah Biancotti is similar in tone and setting (modern Sydney) to the stories in Bad Power but with Ishtar, rather than superheroes, of course. It follows Adreienne, a detective given an unusual set of homicides to investigate. Of course we know the supernatural origins of the bodies — since Ishtar has to show up at some point — but it was still a compelling story. I enjoyed watching Adreienne slowly uncover the truth. The extra characterisation Biancotti throws in, particularly around Adreienne's sister, was a nice touch that added depth to the story.
Interestingly enough, it was this story that convinced me to classify the collection as horror. Going in I was definitely expecting fantasy and dark fantasy elements, but when Warren's story wasn't as horrifying as some of her other work I assumed the collection overall might not quite count as horror. It does.
"The Sleeping and the Dead" by Cat Sparks is a post-apocalyptic tale set in a world with not much left in it other than sand. Doctor Anna is the protagonist and works at a fertility clinic in a desert with only strange death and sex worshipping nuns for company. There don't seem to be many men left in the world and when a few stumble upon the clinic, Anna and the nuns set out to find their leader.
My favourite aspect of this story was all the allusions to earlier events, particularly to Ishtar's roots. It relies on knowledge of the previous stories more than one would expect from an ordinary collection, but in this context it works beautifully. I enjoyed having more of an idea of what was going on than Anna did most of the time, and watching her come towards her own realisations.
~
Overall, this is a strong collection. I like what Morrigan (the publisher) have been doing with themed collections (see also Grants Pass and The Phantom Queen) and I think Ishtar is an excellent example of how communal story-telling can work to great effect. I recommend Ishtar to fans of dark fantasy and horror.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog
"The Five Loves of Ishtar" by Kaaron Warren is a story spanning thousands of years in the Mesopotamian region. Told from the perspectives of a series of Ishtar's washerwomen — each the daughter of Ishtar's previous washerwoman — it focuses partly on the men in Ishtar's life and partly on life generally at that time. From a god to Gilgamesh to kings, Ishtar's loves are broad and at times it seems her life revolves around them. At times war is her central concern and her army.
I liked the younger Ishtar, before she grew quite so jaded and belligerent, when she was still unsure of herself and cared at least a little about others (which is an ironic statement if you read the story). It was interesting to watch her and her concerns change through the eyes of a succession of servants.
What I also found interesting was how this story served to showcase the broadness of Warren's writing abilities. "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is very different to her other work that I've read; not only vastly different in setting to Through Splintered Walls and Slights, but also different in tone, theme and types of characters. It makes me excited to see what sort of writing I will encounter from her next.
"And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living" by Deborah Biancotti is similar in tone and setting (modern Sydney) to the stories in Bad Power but with Ishtar, rather than superheroes, of course. It follows Adreienne, a detective given an unusual set of homicides to investigate. Of course we know the supernatural origins of the bodies — since Ishtar has to show up at some point — but it was still a compelling story. I enjoyed watching Adreienne slowly uncover the truth. The extra characterisation Biancotti throws in, particularly around Adreienne's sister, was a nice touch that added depth to the story.
Interestingly enough, it was this story that convinced me to classify the collection as horror. Going in I was definitely expecting fantasy and dark fantasy elements, but when Warren's story wasn't as horrifying as some of her other work I assumed the collection overall might not quite count as horror. It does.
"The Sleeping and the Dead" by Cat Sparks is a post-apocalyptic tale set in a world with not much left in it other than sand. Doctor Anna is the protagonist and works at a fertility clinic in a desert with only strange death and sex worshipping nuns for company. There don't seem to be many men left in the world and when a few stumble upon the clinic, Anna and the nuns set out to find their leader.
My favourite aspect of this story was all the allusions to earlier events, particularly to Ishtar's roots. It relies on knowledge of the previous stories more than one would expect from an ordinary collection, but in this context it works beautifully. I enjoyed having more of an idea of what was going on than Anna did most of the time, and watching her come towards her own realisations.
~
Overall, this is a strong collection. I like what Morrigan (the publisher) have been doing with themed collections (see also Grants Pass and The Phantom Queen) and I think Ishtar is an excellent example of how communal story-telling can work to great effect. I recommend Ishtar to fans of dark fantasy and horror.
4 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog
July 12, 2012
Ishtar is an anthology of three linked novellas from Gilgamesh Press (edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor) about the Babylonian goddess of love and war. The stories, each by a different Australian author, tells a tale of the goddess in a different time period - the ancient world, the modern day, the near future.
Kaaron Warren's "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is a sumptuous recounting of Ishtar's mythic origins in Mesopotamia, told through the eyes of generation after generation of the washerwomen who serve her. As the title implies, the story charts her great relationships with men, beginning with the demigod Tammuz and including great rulers like Gilgamesh and Sargon among others. Ishtar is beautiful, passionate and wise, but also murderous and fickle, delighting in war and given to tantrums and spontaneously cruelty; as centuries pass she becomes embittered with humanity and weakened by petty betrayals and boredom. Her slow decline is painted with a certain sad inevitability, though Ishtar herself is hardly a sympathetic character. As she goes, so goes the ancient world, passing through decadence into slumbering myth.
Deborah Biancotti's "And the Dead shall Outnumber the Living" begins as a straight police procedural set in modern Sydney. Her no-nonsense, professional police detectives might have stepped straight off the set of every Aussie Cop TV Drama of the past 20 years, though their work for the (fictitious) Gender Crimes unit is an uncommon angle. Investigating a series of repulsive killings, they soon figure out that there is a supernatural angle to the murders. Once the real horror of "Dead" begins to become apparent, it builds grim energy towards a monstrous conclusion. Chilling and nasty and absolutely terrific fun.
Cat Sparks' "The Sleeping and the Dead" is set several decades after an apocalypse that has left the world a MadMaxian wasteland. Into a fortified fertility clinic, Dr Anna endures rather than enjoys the company of a psychopathic cult of nuns as she vainly administers IVF treatments to crowds of despairing women. It's a bleak, hopeless situation that only takes a turn for the worse when some men wander out of the desert with news that sets Anna on a quest into the figurative underworld. A metaphorical retelling of the Ishtar legend which becomes rather less metaphorical as it progressesm, "Sleeping" contains some graphic, striking imagery. No review would be complete without mention of the evocative description of the nuns as "Necromaidens. Fallout wraiths. Praising absent gods for their blisters as well as their dreams" It's a grim, unsympathetic world where morality has worn almost to dust, with an ending that strikes just the right note of slim, ambiguous hope.
Ishtar showcases three writers with very different strengths working to similar ends. Warren applies an obvious love of research to evoke a rich sense of place and mood; Biancotti's command of dialogue and pacing delivers the feel of the breathtaking acceleration and sudden loss of control of a high powered sports car; Sparks' showers her story in riches of imagery, metaphor and tone to create as bleak a future as any I've seen. All three stand on their own. Together, Ishtar is an beautiful and rewarding collection.
Kaaron Warren's "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is a sumptuous recounting of Ishtar's mythic origins in Mesopotamia, told through the eyes of generation after generation of the washerwomen who serve her. As the title implies, the story charts her great relationships with men, beginning with the demigod Tammuz and including great rulers like Gilgamesh and Sargon among others. Ishtar is beautiful, passionate and wise, but also murderous and fickle, delighting in war and given to tantrums and spontaneously cruelty; as centuries pass she becomes embittered with humanity and weakened by petty betrayals and boredom. Her slow decline is painted with a certain sad inevitability, though Ishtar herself is hardly a sympathetic character. As she goes, so goes the ancient world, passing through decadence into slumbering myth.
Deborah Biancotti's "And the Dead shall Outnumber the Living" begins as a straight police procedural set in modern Sydney. Her no-nonsense, professional police detectives might have stepped straight off the set of every Aussie Cop TV Drama of the past 20 years, though their work for the (fictitious) Gender Crimes unit is an uncommon angle. Investigating a series of repulsive killings, they soon figure out that there is a supernatural angle to the murders. Once the real horror of "Dead" begins to become apparent, it builds grim energy towards a monstrous conclusion. Chilling and nasty and absolutely terrific fun.
Cat Sparks' "The Sleeping and the Dead" is set several decades after an apocalypse that has left the world a MadMaxian wasteland. Into a fortified fertility clinic, Dr Anna endures rather than enjoys the company of a psychopathic cult of nuns as she vainly administers IVF treatments to crowds of despairing women. It's a bleak, hopeless situation that only takes a turn for the worse when some men wander out of the desert with news that sets Anna on a quest into the figurative underworld. A metaphorical retelling of the Ishtar legend which becomes rather less metaphorical as it progressesm, "Sleeping" contains some graphic, striking imagery. No review would be complete without mention of the evocative description of the nuns as "Necromaidens. Fallout wraiths. Praising absent gods for their blisters as well as their dreams" It's a grim, unsympathetic world where morality has worn almost to dust, with an ending that strikes just the right note of slim, ambiguous hope.
Ishtar showcases three writers with very different strengths working to similar ends. Warren applies an obvious love of research to evoke a rich sense of place and mood; Biancotti's command of dialogue and pacing delivers the feel of the breathtaking acceleration and sudden loss of control of a high powered sports car; Sparks' showers her story in riches of imagery, metaphor and tone to create as bleak a future as any I've seen. All three stand on their own. Together, Ishtar is an beautiful and rewarding collection.
September 14, 2012
Ishtar by Cat Sparks, a novella collection including works by the title author and two others, Kaaron Warren and Deborah Biancotti, is a very enjoyable collection of stories.
Each story has its own touch of charm, intrigue and excitement.
Kaaron Warren's "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is told through the eyes of her female servants, following generations of the same family of women that worked closely with the goddess. We see Ishtar’s passion and desire as well as her anger and fickle nature as she decides, on whims, who lives, who dies, who to love and who to hate. As she herself begins to decline in power and desire for her immortal lifestyle she, Ishtar, passes into a long slumber.
Deborah Biancotti's "And the Dead shall Outnumber the Living" picks up many years later after the previous story. Deaths of many people in Sydney attracts a local cop’s attention but when rumors of the goddess Ishtar’s awakening reach her ears she is suspicious until she meets the goddess herself and witnesses the horrible power she wields. Who will be victorious, our heroine, or the enraged goddess, drives the story until it’s end.
Cat Sparks' "The Sleeping and the Dead" follows Dr. Anna’s struggles in a world where women are infertile, mankind is dying out and hope is bleak. Male travelers bring news that drives Dr. Anna to action, a course that may or may not bring hope, or total destruction.
The three novellas, set in different time periods with different styles of writing are extremely enjoyable and thrilling reads. This is, undoubtedly, a collection worth looking into.
Each story has its own touch of charm, intrigue and excitement.
Kaaron Warren's "The Five Loves of Ishtar" is told through the eyes of her female servants, following generations of the same family of women that worked closely with the goddess. We see Ishtar’s passion and desire as well as her anger and fickle nature as she decides, on whims, who lives, who dies, who to love and who to hate. As she herself begins to decline in power and desire for her immortal lifestyle she, Ishtar, passes into a long slumber.
Deborah Biancotti's "And the Dead shall Outnumber the Living" picks up many years later after the previous story. Deaths of many people in Sydney attracts a local cop’s attention but when rumors of the goddess Ishtar’s awakening reach her ears she is suspicious until she meets the goddess herself and witnesses the horrible power she wields. Who will be victorious, our heroine, or the enraged goddess, drives the story until it’s end.
Cat Sparks' "The Sleeping and the Dead" follows Dr. Anna’s struggles in a world where women are infertile, mankind is dying out and hope is bleak. Male travelers bring news that drives Dr. Anna to action, a course that may or may not bring hope, or total destruction.
The three novellas, set in different time periods with different styles of writing are extremely enjoyable and thrilling reads. This is, undoubtedly, a collection worth looking into.
March 17, 2014
A very enjoyable horror triptych from three talented writers, retelling and continuing the story of Ishtar, ancient middle-eastern goddess of love and war.
The first novella, by Warren, is the retelling part (and my favourite). This story is a pageant of vivid imagery (some researched, some borrowed, and some wickedly imagined). The form taken is somewhat that of a feminist revision, except Ishtar never overcomes the conflict in her nature. She remains a mercurial and often capricious delight.
The second novella, by Biancotti, is a noir tale of the return of Warren's Ishtar in the present day. The language of this is gleefully cliched, but this serves as a familiar structure to hold the strange dark-fantasy at the story's heart — well, to hold it for as long as it can, anyway. (This was my least favourite, though I still enjoyed it; I wished the hard-boiled language had been more finely tuned.)
The third novella, by Sparks, is an apocalyptic imagining of the future of Biancotti's Ishtar. This is another tale of striking imagery, but rather than a pageant, it's a haunting. The whole of history and myth sing sadly here, with increasingly claustrophobic effect (and picking up on a red herring from Biancotti's story). And then ... the witty, satisfying end.
The first novella, by Warren, is the retelling part (and my favourite). This story is a pageant of vivid imagery (some researched, some borrowed, and some wickedly imagined). The form taken is somewhat that of a feminist revision, except Ishtar never overcomes the conflict in her nature. She remains a mercurial and often capricious delight.
The second novella, by Biancotti, is a noir tale of the return of Warren's Ishtar in the present day. The language of this is gleefully cliched, but this serves as a familiar structure to hold the strange dark-fantasy at the story's heart — well, to hold it for as long as it can, anyway. (This was my least favourite, though I still enjoyed it; I wished the hard-boiled language had been more finely tuned.)
The third novella, by Sparks, is an apocalyptic imagining of the future of Biancotti's Ishtar. This is another tale of striking imagery, but rather than a pageant, it's a haunting. The whole of history and myth sing sadly here, with increasingly claustrophobic effect (and picking up on a red herring from Biancotti's story). And then ... the witty, satisfying end.
August 22, 2012
This book comprises 3 novellas set in the past (K Warren), present (D Biancotti) and future (C Sparks), which are all based on the mythology of Ishtar. I claim no familiarity with this mythology, although certain consistent themes emerge from each of the stories.
While I appreciated the stylistic approach adopted by Warren, and the gritty noir voice of Biancotti's novella, it was Sparks' post-apocalyptic story that nudged my rating into 4 star territory.
While I appreciated the stylistic approach adopted by Warren, and the gritty noir voice of Biancotti's novella, it was Sparks' post-apocalyptic story that nudged my rating into 4 star territory.
January 18, 2012
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
I really loved Deb's story in this.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
I really loved Deb's story in this.
August 14, 2012
Wow. I'd heard great things about this collection, so had high expectations and they were not disappointed. Three incredible, dark, fascinating interlinked stories, and I adored every one. Beautiful stuff!
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