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The Age of Calamities
For fans of Karen Russell and Carmen Maria Machado, The Age of Calamities is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories.
In this bold and enchanting collection Senaa Ahmad takes license with history and its players, sending the reader on a thrilling ride. In “Let’s Play Dead,” Henry VIII wants Anne Boleyn gone, but there’s a tiny problem―she keeps coming back to life no matter what he does. “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” hurls readers back to 1945, where they assume the role of a technician for the Manhattan Project, surrounded by labyrinthine paths and harrowing outcomes. And “Inside the House of the Historian” invites us to a dinner party turned murder mystery full of figures like Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. These stories and others entice readers to confront the past, the present, and themselves all at once. Zany and haunting, inviting and brilliant, each poignant tale delves into surreal nature of today through the lens of yesterday, charting the tragicomic yet hopeful act of living.
The Age of Calamities is an evocation of life and death on history’s unsteady margins, of how to reckon with the blunt-force trauma of ill-fated times. Fiercely clever and wildly inventive, this debut establishes Senaa Ahmad as a literary force.
In this bold and enchanting collection Senaa Ahmad takes license with history and its players, sending the reader on a thrilling ride. In “Let’s Play Dead,” Henry VIII wants Anne Boleyn gone, but there’s a tiny problem―she keeps coming back to life no matter what he does. “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” hurls readers back to 1945, where they assume the role of a technician for the Manhattan Project, surrounded by labyrinthine paths and harrowing outcomes. And “Inside the House of the Historian” invites us to a dinner party turned murder mystery full of figures like Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. These stories and others entice readers to confront the past, the present, and themselves all at once. Zany and haunting, inviting and brilliant, each poignant tale delves into surreal nature of today through the lens of yesterday, charting the tragicomic yet hopeful act of living.
The Age of Calamities is an evocation of life and death on history’s unsteady margins, of how to reckon with the blunt-force trauma of ill-fated times. Fiercely clever and wildly inventive, this debut establishes Senaa Ahmad as a literary force.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
February 20, 2026
current affairs.
mini-reviews for every story:
LET'S PLAY DEAD
it's about if anne boleyn came back to life repeatedly after a bunch of executions. my question is, why is everyone always obsessed with anne boleyn? nobody cares about catherine howard.
rating: 3
THE NAPOLEONS ARE MULTIPLYING
they are also gaining the power to control the universe, i.e., touch the sun and eat the moon and stuff like that. plus, yes, there are 18 to 22 of them.
rating: 3.5
THE WOLVES
they're werewolves technically but the wolf part is more important to the story.
rating: 3.5
OUR LADY OF RESPLENDENT MISFORTUNE
i would probably share shifts of my body with joan of arc if she asked nicely.
rating: 3.5
INSIDE THE HOUSE OF THE HISTORIAN
the thing about its inside is that there are a lot of guys and gals from history in there. not to be confused with all the other houses in this collection so far, which also have those.
rating: 2.5
IT WAS PROBABLY A VERY NICE DAY
this one is about the romanovs. all the crowd pleasers are here.
rating: 3.5
NOT EVERYTHING IS ANCIENT HISTORY
the inciting incident in every single one of these stories is, though. this one is a friends-to-lovers romance between julius caesar and nellie bly.
THE HOUSEGUEST
you'll never guess who it is.
actually, you might. it's infamous victorian murderer lizzie borden.
rating: 3
CHOOSE YOUR OWN APOCALYPSE
okay. this is surprising. this takes place at los alamos.
i swear i wrote the first sentence of my overall review before i read this one.
rating: 2.5
OVERALL
a lot of these have a fun toying-with-history vibe to them that makes for pleasant recognition-based surprises, like when albert einstein appeared in oppenheimer. sometimes that is particularly amusing and sometimes it isn't, but these stories never amount to much more than that.
rating: 3
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
mini-reviews for every story:
LET'S PLAY DEAD
it's about if anne boleyn came back to life repeatedly after a bunch of executions. my question is, why is everyone always obsessed with anne boleyn? nobody cares about catherine howard.
rating: 3
THE NAPOLEONS ARE MULTIPLYING
they are also gaining the power to control the universe, i.e., touch the sun and eat the moon and stuff like that. plus, yes, there are 18 to 22 of them.
rating: 3.5
THE WOLVES
they're werewolves technically but the wolf part is more important to the story.
rating: 3.5
OUR LADY OF RESPLENDENT MISFORTUNE
i would probably share shifts of my body with joan of arc if she asked nicely.
rating: 3.5
INSIDE THE HOUSE OF THE HISTORIAN
the thing about its inside is that there are a lot of guys and gals from history in there. not to be confused with all the other houses in this collection so far, which also have those.
rating: 2.5
IT WAS PROBABLY A VERY NICE DAY
this one is about the romanovs. all the crowd pleasers are here.
rating: 3.5
NOT EVERYTHING IS ANCIENT HISTORY
the inciting incident in every single one of these stories is, though. this one is a friends-to-lovers romance between julius caesar and nellie bly.
THE HOUSEGUEST
you'll never guess who it is.
actually, you might. it's infamous victorian murderer lizzie borden.
rating: 3
CHOOSE YOUR OWN APOCALYPSE
okay. this is surprising. this takes place at los alamos.
i swear i wrote the first sentence of my overall review before i read this one.
rating: 2.5
OVERALL
a lot of these have a fun toying-with-history vibe to them that makes for pleasant recognition-based surprises, like when albert einstein appeared in oppenheimer. sometimes that is particularly amusing and sometimes it isn't, but these stories never amount to much more than that.
rating: 3
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
November 11, 2025
I was impressed by the range of Ahmad's imagination in these short stories that play intentionally fast and loose with realist history. The first story of an Anne Boleyn who keeps coming back to life after Henry VIII's increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of her was by far my favourite - funny, a bit gross, and very knowing, it picks up on modern feminist takes on this particular marriage and the gendered power dynamics of the Henrician court more broadly.
The other stories take a similar iconoclastic view of history: Genghis Khan and an army of werewolves (there was a distinct Angela Carter edge here); Lizzie Borden, Jeanne D'Arc, a Julius Caesar confronted by a very modern woman in Gaul!
Reading history through a modern, feminist, sometimes Gothic or fairy-tale lens gives all these stories and interest though not all of them follow through. Overall, though, an imaginative and creative collection, perhaps closer to 3.5 stars for the unevenness.
Thanks to Pushkin for an ARC via NetGalley
The other stories take a similar iconoclastic view of history: Genghis Khan and an army of werewolves (there was a distinct Angela Carter edge here); Lizzie Borden, Jeanne D'Arc, a Julius Caesar confronted by a very modern woman in Gaul!
Reading history through a modern, feminist, sometimes Gothic or fairy-tale lens gives all these stories and interest though not all of them follow through. Overall, though, an imaginative and creative collection, perhaps closer to 3.5 stars for the unevenness.
Thanks to Pushkin for an ARC via NetGalley
Did not finish
November 7, 2025DNF @ 11%
This is too nonsensical and silly for me. While I like weird fiction, I can't really get into this. I only read two stories, and I found myself asking, "What was the point?"
Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley for this arc.
---
Short story collections aren't usually my jam. But I saw this cover, read the title, and was intrigued by both the premise and the author, and I couldn't say no.
"Let's Play Dead"
4/5 stars
What if Anne Boleyn was immortal?
This was a such a macabre read that was enjoyable in a somber way. The writing was snarky and evocative (in a gross and cool manner). I enjoyed seeing a man like Henry VIII be haunted by the consequences of his actions, but seeing Anne suffer death and torture again and again was heartbreaking.
Sweet murder scenes though.
This is too nonsensical and silly for me. While I like weird fiction, I can't really get into this. I only read two stories, and I found myself asking, "What was the point?"
Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley for this arc.
---
Short story collections aren't usually my jam. But I saw this cover, read the title, and was intrigued by both the premise and the author, and I couldn't say no.
"Let's Play Dead"
4/5 stars
What if Anne Boleyn was immortal?
This was a such a macabre read that was enjoyable in a somber way. The writing was snarky and evocative (in a gross and cool manner). I enjoyed seeing a man like Henry VIII be haunted by the consequences of his actions, but seeing Anne suffer death and torture again and again was heartbreaking.
Sweet murder scenes though.
January 17, 2026
The Age of Calamities is a strange and disturbing book—and I mean that as praise, not criticism. What happens if Anne Boleyn comes back to life every morning no matter how many times Henry VIII has her executed? What happens if a time portal allows Nellie Bly and Julius Caesar to move back and forth between their two worlds? I enjoyed the stories. I was fascinated by the question of what inspired Senaa Ahmad to combine so many disparate elements. The stories are like the little demons in a Bosch painting: made of mostly recognizable parts, but assembled in never-before-seen combinations.
In fact, I think one of the best ways to sum up The Age of Calamities is that it's the novel Bosch would write
a) if he wrote instead of painting
and
b) if Ahmad hadn't beaten him to it in a nonlinear time line way.
But these stories are Ahmed's, not Bosch's—and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
In fact, I think one of the best ways to sum up The Age of Calamities is that it's the novel Bosch would write
a) if he wrote instead of painting
and
b) if Ahmad hadn't beaten him to it in a nonlinear time line way.
But these stories are Ahmed's, not Bosch's—and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
January 16, 2026
BWAF Score: 6/10
TL;DR: Senaa Ahmad’s debut collection is a weird little doomsday bouquet: historical figures and ordinary people alike get shoved into speculative pressure cookers that are funny, brutal, and occasionally damn lovely. It lands more often than not, but a few pieces feel like brilliant premises that don’t fully cash the emotional check they’re writing.
Senaa Ahmad is a Toronto-based short fiction writer with a strong lit-mag pedigree, and you can feel that confidence here. Several stories carry that polished, “this was built to survive an editor’s scalpel” sheen: precise setups, punchy turns, and a willingness to let the weirdness breathe without apologizing for it. This collection reads like a writer stretching into a larger canvas, testing how far she can push voice, structure, and historical remix before the seams show. Sometimes the seams are part of the charm. Sometimes you wish she’d tugged one thread harder and finished the damn sweater.
This is a collection that treats History like a haunted prop closet you can rummage through at 2 a.m. “Let’s Play Dead” riffs on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as a grotesque marital loop where death keeps happening and yet never quite sticks, equal parts tragic and viciously funny. “The Wolves” frames a story-within-a-story about Genghis Khan’s wolves, catastrophe, survival, and what it costs to keep a kid listening when the truth is too sharp to swallow. “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” goes full manic choose-your-path at Los Alamos, turning the “oops we invented the end of the world” vibe into a gleeful, dread-soaked game. Elsewhere you get dollhouse violence with a curator’s smugness, royal nightmare fuel, and speculative riffs that keep sliding between myth, memo, and nightmare.
Ahmad’s best trick is tonal whiplash that somehow doesn’t break your neck. She’ll make you laugh at the sheer audacity of a premise, then quietly jam a grief-needle under your fingernail. The calamities here aren’t only wars and bombs and wolves, they’re intimate disasters too: the body betraying you, history pinning you down, the feeling that your choices are performance art in a universe that already wrote the ending. She’s also got a sharp meta streak. A few stories openly wink at storytelling itself, and that self-awareness becomes its own kind of horror. Like, sure, the movie ends and you go home. Unless you can’t. Unless the ending follows you into the kitchen while you’re making coffee and pretends it’s just a funny little thought.
When she’s at peak form, she nails that rare combo of “this is clever” and “this hurts.” She makes famous names feel human without doing the lazy thing where history becomes a costume party. These characters sweat, scheme, panic, love, rot. The genre toys are fun, but the emotional undercurrent is the real hook.
The prose has swagger: rhythmic repetition, list-like cascades, and a voice that can go from mythic to petty in a single breath, like a friend telling you the scariest shit they’ve ever seen and still pausing to roast you for flinching. POV is used as a weapon. Some pieces lean into direct address or constrained forms, and the form itself becomes a trap. The pacing is generally sharp.
The downside of that confidence is that a few endings land like smoke instead of a punch. Not “bad,” just unfinished-feeling, like the story stops because the author got bored of the room and wanted to show you the next one. Those are the moments where the collection’s ambition slightly outmuscles its emotional follow-through.
One big thread throughout the collection is inevitability versus agency: history as a machine that keeps grinding, and you’re just another squealing gear pretending you’re the driver. Another is grief as a physical space, the body as a cursed house you can’t move out of. The horror machinery translates those ideas into loops, time-slips, curated violence, and apocalypse-as-entertainment until the entertainment turns and shows its teeth. It instills is a nervous laugh that curdles into a quieter question the next day: if the world is always ending somewhere, what do we owe each other while it’s happening?
As a debut, it’s a strong statement of range: absurdist, ambitious, and sharp, with standout pieces that feel ready to be passed around like contraband. It sits comfortably in that contemporary slipstream lane where speculative fiction, horror, and literary craft all knife-fight in the same alley, and it wins more rounds than it loses.
Smart, funny, frequently gorgeous, and occasionally a bit too enamored with its own cleverness, but the hits are real as hell.
Read if you like historical remix horror that gets surreal and mean.
Skip if you hate voice-forward narration that sometimes shows off or want wall-to-wall scares instead of weird mood-horror.
TL;DR: Senaa Ahmad’s debut collection is a weird little doomsday bouquet: historical figures and ordinary people alike get shoved into speculative pressure cookers that are funny, brutal, and occasionally damn lovely. It lands more often than not, but a few pieces feel like brilliant premises that don’t fully cash the emotional check they’re writing.
Senaa Ahmad is a Toronto-based short fiction writer with a strong lit-mag pedigree, and you can feel that confidence here. Several stories carry that polished, “this was built to survive an editor’s scalpel” sheen: precise setups, punchy turns, and a willingness to let the weirdness breathe without apologizing for it. This collection reads like a writer stretching into a larger canvas, testing how far she can push voice, structure, and historical remix before the seams show. Sometimes the seams are part of the charm. Sometimes you wish she’d tugged one thread harder and finished the damn sweater.
This is a collection that treats History like a haunted prop closet you can rummage through at 2 a.m. “Let’s Play Dead” riffs on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as a grotesque marital loop where death keeps happening and yet never quite sticks, equal parts tragic and viciously funny. “The Wolves” frames a story-within-a-story about Genghis Khan’s wolves, catastrophe, survival, and what it costs to keep a kid listening when the truth is too sharp to swallow. “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” goes full manic choose-your-path at Los Alamos, turning the “oops we invented the end of the world” vibe into a gleeful, dread-soaked game. Elsewhere you get dollhouse violence with a curator’s smugness, royal nightmare fuel, and speculative riffs that keep sliding between myth, memo, and nightmare.
Ahmad’s best trick is tonal whiplash that somehow doesn’t break your neck. She’ll make you laugh at the sheer audacity of a premise, then quietly jam a grief-needle under your fingernail. The calamities here aren’t only wars and bombs and wolves, they’re intimate disasters too: the body betraying you, history pinning you down, the feeling that your choices are performance art in a universe that already wrote the ending. She’s also got a sharp meta streak. A few stories openly wink at storytelling itself, and that self-awareness becomes its own kind of horror. Like, sure, the movie ends and you go home. Unless you can’t. Unless the ending follows you into the kitchen while you’re making coffee and pretends it’s just a funny little thought.
When she’s at peak form, she nails that rare combo of “this is clever” and “this hurts.” She makes famous names feel human without doing the lazy thing where history becomes a costume party. These characters sweat, scheme, panic, love, rot. The genre toys are fun, but the emotional undercurrent is the real hook.
The prose has swagger: rhythmic repetition, list-like cascades, and a voice that can go from mythic to petty in a single breath, like a friend telling you the scariest shit they’ve ever seen and still pausing to roast you for flinching. POV is used as a weapon. Some pieces lean into direct address or constrained forms, and the form itself becomes a trap. The pacing is generally sharp.
The downside of that confidence is that a few endings land like smoke instead of a punch. Not “bad,” just unfinished-feeling, like the story stops because the author got bored of the room and wanted to show you the next one. Those are the moments where the collection’s ambition slightly outmuscles its emotional follow-through.
One big thread throughout the collection is inevitability versus agency: history as a machine that keeps grinding, and you’re just another squealing gear pretending you’re the driver. Another is grief as a physical space, the body as a cursed house you can’t move out of. The horror machinery translates those ideas into loops, time-slips, curated violence, and apocalypse-as-entertainment until the entertainment turns and shows its teeth. It instills is a nervous laugh that curdles into a quieter question the next day: if the world is always ending somewhere, what do we owe each other while it’s happening?
As a debut, it’s a strong statement of range: absurdist, ambitious, and sharp, with standout pieces that feel ready to be passed around like contraband. It sits comfortably in that contemporary slipstream lane where speculative fiction, horror, and literary craft all knife-fight in the same alley, and it wins more rounds than it loses.
Smart, funny, frequently gorgeous, and occasionally a bit too enamored with its own cleverness, but the hits are real as hell.
Read if you like historical remix horror that gets surreal and mean.
Skip if you hate voice-forward narration that sometimes shows off or want wall-to-wall scares instead of weird mood-horror.
July 15, 2025
Overall, this was a truly unique reading experience, bursting with imagination and creativity. The author blends historical figures into fictional, exaggerated, and at times seemingly illogical settings. For instance, in “Inside the House of the Historian,” Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe all attend a dinner party together. And in “The Napoleons Are Multiplying,” multiple versions of Napoleon were generated, each different in personality and ability.
Rather than focusing on historical accuracy, these fantastical setups are used to explore real-world questions, like the nature of love and sacrifice, how people respond under extreme circumstances, and the complexity of human connection. Even in more extreme stories, like “Let’s Play Dead,” where Henry VIII repeatedly tries to kill Anne Boleyn in increasingly dramatic ways, the tone remains playful and light, which makes the stories more accessible despite their wild premises.
I’m not usually drawn to this kind of surreal fantasy, so it took me a while to get my bearings. Honestly, I can’t say I fully grasped everything. Some stories, like “The Wolves,” have clearer plotlines and are easier to follow. Others, like “Inside the House of the Historian,” are more abstract and open-ended. Many of the stories end without a firm resolution. Still, even when I didn’t completely understand what was happening, the journey was always fresh and thought-provoking—an imaginative experience like no other.
Thanks to Henry Holt & Company and Netgallery for the arc. This review is my honest opinion.
Rather than focusing on historical accuracy, these fantastical setups are used to explore real-world questions, like the nature of love and sacrifice, how people respond under extreme circumstances, and the complexity of human connection. Even in more extreme stories, like “Let’s Play Dead,” where Henry VIII repeatedly tries to kill Anne Boleyn in increasingly dramatic ways, the tone remains playful and light, which makes the stories more accessible despite their wild premises.
I’m not usually drawn to this kind of surreal fantasy, so it took me a while to get my bearings. Honestly, I can’t say I fully grasped everything. Some stories, like “The Wolves,” have clearer plotlines and are easier to follow. Others, like “Inside the House of the Historian,” are more abstract and open-ended. Many of the stories end without a firm resolution. Still, even when I didn’t completely understand what was happening, the journey was always fresh and thought-provoking—an imaginative experience like no other.
Thanks to Henry Holt & Company and Netgallery for the arc. This review is my honest opinion.
January 14, 2026
The 9 short stories that comprise The Age of Calamities simultaneously float outside and within history, extricating details, intertwining them with an imagination and wit and a literary prowess so fierce that the words breathe fire as they scamper across every page. This IS an absurdist alternative history, with panache.
Each meticulously researched erstwhile character is ripped from known headlines of history; they have been shaken and tossed—straight up, not neat—then poured back onto the page with a flair and wit that would weaken the knees of Henry VIII, Napoleon, and Julius Caesar combined.
This debut short story collection is the most wildly entertaining and just FUN book I have read in months. Bouncing from the immortal to grief and possession to murder mystery time travel to werewolves to cloning to ghost children to lovers across time and space to horror movie ghosts to choose your own A-Bomb apocalypse. Yeah. It has all of that and more.
I seriously wonder if while writing this Senaa Ahmad thought, "Let's take everything we know about history, f*ck it all up, and see what happens."
Damn, I love an author who isn't afraid to go for it.
If you aren't brushed up on your world history before reading this book, fear not. Google will become your new best friend. I have no apprehension in admitting that I had to look up more than one character for a refresher.
The depth of ideas, genres, and themes explored in these pages is unfathomable. Here are just a few to whet your whistle: existentialism, horror, supernatural, love story, fleeing the patriarchy, resurrection, personal growth, cloning, seeking autonomy, revenge, grief, social and class hierarchy, spiritual submission, time travel, mortality, and lots of ghosts (both ethereal and corporeal.)
Enjoy the ride! I most definitely did.
Thanks to Henry Holt Books for a gifted finished copy of the book!
Below is a quick (non-spoiler) synopsis of each story if you are interested!
Let's Play Dead:
Henry VIII thought he killed Anne Boleyn the first time. And the second time. Now we are too many times into this debacle, and he needs a solution to her immortality problem...
The Napoleons Are Multiplying:
The Napoleons get existential when they start thinking for themselves in a rural English village.
The Wolves:
Ghangis Khan's wolves are more than meets the eye as they terrorize far and wide.
Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune:
Claribel explores a dangerous intimate relationship with Joan of Arc, but it's not what you think.
Inside the House of the Historian:
Take 6 historic figures and put them in a murder mystery house. Let the fun begin.
It Was Probably a Very Nice Day:
Brush up on your Russian history with these delightful children in the Winter Palace.
Not Everything Is Ancient History:
Julius Caesar meets another major historic figure where worlds and love collide.
The Houseguest:
Dee plays a famous axe murderer in films and is haunted by her memories.
Choose Your Own Apocalypse:
Take a wild ride in Los Alamos in 1945 with our narrator and Dr. O, and choose from the many ways a story can end.
Each meticulously researched erstwhile character is ripped from known headlines of history; they have been shaken and tossed—straight up, not neat—then poured back onto the page with a flair and wit that would weaken the knees of Henry VIII, Napoleon, and Julius Caesar combined.
This debut short story collection is the most wildly entertaining and just FUN book I have read in months. Bouncing from the immortal to grief and possession to murder mystery time travel to werewolves to cloning to ghost children to lovers across time and space to horror movie ghosts to choose your own A-Bomb apocalypse. Yeah. It has all of that and more.
I seriously wonder if while writing this Senaa Ahmad thought, "Let's take everything we know about history, f*ck it all up, and see what happens."
Damn, I love an author who isn't afraid to go for it.
If you aren't brushed up on your world history before reading this book, fear not. Google will become your new best friend. I have no apprehension in admitting that I had to look up more than one character for a refresher.
The depth of ideas, genres, and themes explored in these pages is unfathomable. Here are just a few to whet your whistle: existentialism, horror, supernatural, love story, fleeing the patriarchy, resurrection, personal growth, cloning, seeking autonomy, revenge, grief, social and class hierarchy, spiritual submission, time travel, mortality, and lots of ghosts (both ethereal and corporeal.)
Enjoy the ride! I most definitely did.
Thanks to Henry Holt Books for a gifted finished copy of the book!
Below is a quick (non-spoiler) synopsis of each story if you are interested!
Let's Play Dead:
Henry VIII thought he killed Anne Boleyn the first time. And the second time. Now we are too many times into this debacle, and he needs a solution to her immortality problem...
The Napoleons Are Multiplying:
The Napoleons get existential when they start thinking for themselves in a rural English village.
The Wolves:
Ghangis Khan's wolves are more than meets the eye as they terrorize far and wide.
Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune:
Claribel explores a dangerous intimate relationship with Joan of Arc, but it's not what you think.
Inside the House of the Historian:
Take 6 historic figures and put them in a murder mystery house. Let the fun begin.
It Was Probably a Very Nice Day:
Brush up on your Russian history with these delightful children in the Winter Palace.
Not Everything Is Ancient History:
Julius Caesar meets another major historic figure where worlds and love collide.
The Houseguest:
Dee plays a famous axe murderer in films and is haunted by her memories.
Choose Your Own Apocalypse:
Take a wild ride in Los Alamos in 1945 with our narrator and Dr. O, and choose from the many ways a story can end.
March 13, 2026
I should probably reread this book when I get smarter
October 11, 2025
So many famous people in so many new situations! Senaa Ahmad does what a lot of my favorite short story writers do, which is blend whimsy and feeling kinda down in a way that’s not oppressive but is sort of tenderly, pleasantly unpleasant. Favorites were the wolves, the one with lots of napoleons, and the one about making horror movies based on Lizzie Borden. Several others I found incredibly effective as well. The star off is bc she is TOO coherent, and at a certain point in the book it feels less like a wholeness than like a running out of ideas. Taken individually I love most of the collection and I hope that her next thing has a new concept but the same caliber of emotionally adroit bruising.
February 22, 2026
I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like this.
Surreal stories featuring historical figures is something I could love, but I felt like I was constantly missing the context. I was often unable to orient myself in a setting or envision the scene. I didn’t know if it was supposed to make sense or if there was a point we were getting at?
So many of these feel half baked. We have one story in which Henry VIII murders Anne Boleyn over and over again, because she just won’t stay dead.
Another story in which Julius Caesar invades New York and Nellie Bly… interviews him? Becomes his lover? Follows him to Gaul? I don’t know.
A dinner party featuring historical figures from different time periods in which the house might be trying to kill them.
The Choose Your Own Apocalypse story especially feels like a missed opportunity. You don’t actually get to choose- I’m not sure how you were supposed to read it. The page numbers are blocked out, and we’re missing both endings and middle pieces. Too much was missing to even piece together what might be happening.
I probably would read from this author again? I’d love to read a full length novel by her.
I think I’ll think about this collection for a long time and wonder what the hell I missed.
Surreal stories featuring historical figures is something I could love, but I felt like I was constantly missing the context. I was often unable to orient myself in a setting or envision the scene. I didn’t know if it was supposed to make sense or if there was a point we were getting at?
So many of these feel half baked. We have one story in which Henry VIII murders Anne Boleyn over and over again, because she just won’t stay dead.
Another story in which Julius Caesar invades New York and Nellie Bly… interviews him? Becomes his lover? Follows him to Gaul? I don’t know.
A dinner party featuring historical figures from different time periods in which the house might be trying to kill them.
The Choose Your Own Apocalypse story especially feels like a missed opportunity. You don’t actually get to choose- I’m not sure how you were supposed to read it. The page numbers are blocked out, and we’re missing both endings and middle pieces. Too much was missing to even piece together what might be happening.
I probably would read from this author again? I’d love to read a full length novel by her.
I think I’ll think about this collection for a long time and wonder what the hell I missed.
March 29, 2026
I've been fighting with this book for some time because Senaa Ahmad is an outstanding writer, with a real willingness to joyfully experiment with what short stories can do, and yet I couldn't force myself to connect with more than a couple of these. The easy standout is the first story in this collection, 'Let's Play Dead', which in many ways also serves as a manifesto for what Ahmad wants to do in The Age of Calamities. A woman we might call Anne Boleyn has been murdered by her husband Henry, but she keeps on coming back, no matter how many gruesome and destructive deaths he devises for her. Here, Ahmad's deliberately crazy, metaphor-heavy prose still shines ('In Anne's case, if it's a game, the game is Monopoly, her game piece is a pewter chicken with its head décapité... the properties disintegrate every time she lands on them, and the dice are made of fire'), but the guardrails of the central conceit keep the story in line. I loved how Ahmad logically develops the idea of Anne's immunity to death, and how she and Henry battle over it ('He invents the portable long-barrelled firearm... acute ballistic trauma... But... she's been busy, too, inventing: cardiopulmonary resuscitation... The 9-1-1 call... Organ transplants.') 'Let's Play Dead' is a great, exuberant, chilling story about centuries of history and patriarchy, and a real achievement on its own. Unfortunately, none of the other stories here worked for me. Partly, I think, because I do need something grounding in this kind of speculative fiction, and Ahmad's other offerings lack the central thread that 'Let's Play Dead' uses so effectively. I'd hoped to love this like I love the work of George Saunders and Karen Russell, but the balance felt off, making most of the stories so detached from even their own internal reality that they became unreadable. However, I'm very willing to accept that this is a failing in me as a reader rather than a failing of Ahmad's as a writer; she's clearly insanely talented.
I received a free proof copy of this collection from the publisher for review.
I received a free proof copy of this collection from the publisher for review.
February 10, 2026
I liked a few of these – namely, The Wolves and Choose Your Own Apocalypse – but not enough. Ultimately this was not a cohesive collection of ideas, only cohesive in throwing historical figures into shenanigans. We move.
July 26, 2025
3.5/5
The concept of this book is so cool! This is a pretty short collection of short stories (about 200 pages) and these stories follow different iconic figures throughout history and some whimsical situations they find themselves in.
Like I said above, I really liked the idea of this book, but I think I have just come to realize that short stories aren't really for me (which is sad because I really want them to be, I am trying so hard). I think that I struggle to connect with a shorter story, I like having the time to learn about characters and get invested in their problems.
This is definitely my favorite collection of short stories I've read thought, BY FAR! I did enjoy reading this, it reads super fast, and I was very much entertained by it. I think all of these stories were so unique, entertaining, and fun. I just wanted a little bit more. I just know that so many people are going to absolutely love this book. I also think the cover is cool, I like the colors and stylization of it.
Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!
The concept of this book is so cool! This is a pretty short collection of short stories (about 200 pages) and these stories follow different iconic figures throughout history and some whimsical situations they find themselves in.
Like I said above, I really liked the idea of this book, but I think I have just come to realize that short stories aren't really for me (which is sad because I really want them to be, I am trying so hard). I think that I struggle to connect with a shorter story, I like having the time to learn about characters and get invested in their problems.
This is definitely my favorite collection of short stories I've read thought, BY FAR! I did enjoy reading this, it reads super fast, and I was very much entertained by it. I think all of these stories were so unique, entertaining, and fun. I just wanted a little bit more. I just know that so many people are going to absolutely love this book. I also think the cover is cool, I like the colors and stylization of it.
Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!
January 29, 2026
Senaa Ahmad takes some old history and weaves into it magic, the deconstruction of what we accept as real, and a healthy dose of humor. There were multiple quotes in this that I had to write down, they have stuck in my mind for days thus far. Ahmad asks questions with this book that may never have been before asked, such as "What if Anne Boleyn couldn't die?" and "What if Ghengis Khan was so successful in his efforts because his army consisted of werewolves?". I strongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical retellings.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this novel.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this novel.
March 4, 2026
Here's how she did it: no one wants to see her die. Did you know it's that easy, to stay alive?
When you die, you should tell all the dead girls.
I stumbled across this book while bookshopping and it felt like fate! A Canadian author's short story collection all about history (and not about history, not at all). All of these stories are beautiful and funny and gut-wrenching and just so, so pleasurable to read. "It was Probably a Very Nice Day", "The Wolves", and "The Houseguest" are my favourites out of the collection, but all 9 stories will stick with me.
I will probably be reading this many, many more times!
January 24, 2026
boy, this was so much fun. these abstract short stories were fantastical, silly, and a little gothic. ahmad places iconic historical figures in surreal new situations, and it was so exciting to read.
the only story i wasn’t the biggest fan of was “the napoleons are multiplying”, everything else was stellar. absolute favourite story was “our lady of resplendent misfortune”.
the only story i wasn’t the biggest fan of was “the napoleons are multiplying”, everything else was stellar. absolute favourite story was “our lady of resplendent misfortune”.
March 14, 2026
What do you MEAN this is a debut? God I love the writing style
March 24, 2026
Inane without purpose and with nothing interesting to say. Uses historical figures as bobbleheads rather than characters or even storytelling devices
March 30, 2026
Senaa Ahmad had ideas that had never been thought of before. This was fun.
*3.5/5
*3.5/5
January 13, 2026
Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest thoughts. This short story collection is dripping with creativity. We have famous people from history in some very unique situations. As with any short stories collections there were definitely some i much preferred over others, but they were all impossibly imaginative and interesting even if the writing style didn't always resonate with me. I very much enjoyed the stories about Napolean and Lizzie Borden. My only other criticism about my specific reading experience was the eArc didn't have the page numbers for the Choose your own Apocalypse story which made it a bit confusing, but obviously shouldn't be an issue with the finished product.
August 28, 2025
If you enjoy weird and wacky short stories, this book is for you. It's a collection of historical characters and moments in time, viewed through the lens of a fever dream or possibly peyote. The collection begins with Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, where Anne refuses to stay dead, so Henry keeps inventing new ways to kill her. This is Anne as Everywoman, when husbands discard wives no longer wanted or deemed useful. My favorite scene was of her ladies-in-waiting sitting with their embroidery, making handkerchiefs for her but thinking, "I bayoneted this cloth nine thousand forty-two times and imagined it was the flesh of your enemies."
Most of the stories have the strangest pairing of historical figures, but the characters themselves don't seem to mind. Julius Caesar and Nellie Bly? Indeed, tripping back and forth between ancient Rome and New York City. I think I would enjoy dinner parties more if the guest list included Blackbeard, Queen Victoria, John Adams, Marilyn Monroe, and Nefertiti, as in another story. The Romanovs make an appearance in their own story, still tragic but warped and fantastical. "Our mother, the empress Alexandra, she'd never packed her own luggage before. In her leather case she stuffed roughly a million dresses and two tea sets. She forgot to bring anyone's toothbrush."
Did I understand all of the stories? Nope, but that's okay because that's how weird works. I hope Senaa Ahmad writes a novel next because I would love to read it!
My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC. All opinions and the review are entirely my own.
Most of the stories have the strangest pairing of historical figures, but the characters themselves don't seem to mind. Julius Caesar and Nellie Bly? Indeed, tripping back and forth between ancient Rome and New York City. I think I would enjoy dinner parties more if the guest list included Blackbeard, Queen Victoria, John Adams, Marilyn Monroe, and Nefertiti, as in another story. The Romanovs make an appearance in their own story, still tragic but warped and fantastical. "Our mother, the empress Alexandra, she'd never packed her own luggage before. In her leather case she stuffed roughly a million dresses and two tea sets. She forgot to bring anyone's toothbrush."
Did I understand all of the stories? Nope, but that's okay because that's how weird works. I hope Senaa Ahmad writes a novel next because I would love to read it!
My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC. All opinions and the review are entirely my own.
December 9, 2025
This surrealist short story collection delights in the darkly absurd, and I loved it. Each story shifts shape and tone, with no unifying time period or geography. The golden thread running through the collection is asking the most extreme version of the question "what if?" The result is unsettling, funny, and strangely moving, the kind of reading that widens the edges of your imagination. Whilst you're reading, nothing has to make sense.
🎖️What if a group of physically identical yet temperamentally different Napoleons rented a house together?
🐺What if men turned into monsters and chased their women across the steppe, only becoming men again under a full moon?
🏚️What if a house became sentient and pulled in a bizarre cast of historical figures for its own dark purpose?
👑What if Anne Boleyn was unkillable?
My favourite tales were Inside the House of the Historian and what us arguably the most fully formed yet unresolved story - the final tale, Choose Your Own Apocalypse.
I read each story with a sense of delighted dread, never knowing where I would land next. This is the kind of collection that disrupts your expectations and leaves you wondering how the author constructed her ideas so strangely yet so brilliantly. The language is also beautiful, sometimes lyrical in the manner of a myth, sometimes shakingly direct, and throughout demonstrating the inner thoughts of this unbelievable yet realised cast of characters.
I would recommend this for readers who loved Susannah Clarke's PIRANESI for its lyrical beauty and surreal setting, and Carmen Maria Machado's HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES for its unflinching point of view and melding of story and reality. I also think you would like this if you appreciate myths and legends, or if you find the most pleasure in the characters of history, rather than dates and facts. Serious suspension of disbelief is needed, and the rewards are well worth it.
I was privileged to receive an ARC in exchange for my honest review. US release date is 13 January 2026, UK 12 February, and I recommend you put it in your diary.
🎖️What if a group of physically identical yet temperamentally different Napoleons rented a house together?
🐺What if men turned into monsters and chased their women across the steppe, only becoming men again under a full moon?
🏚️What if a house became sentient and pulled in a bizarre cast of historical figures for its own dark purpose?
👑What if Anne Boleyn was unkillable?
My favourite tales were Inside the House of the Historian and what us arguably the most fully formed yet unresolved story - the final tale, Choose Your Own Apocalypse.
I read each story with a sense of delighted dread, never knowing where I would land next. This is the kind of collection that disrupts your expectations and leaves you wondering how the author constructed her ideas so strangely yet so brilliantly. The language is also beautiful, sometimes lyrical in the manner of a myth, sometimes shakingly direct, and throughout demonstrating the inner thoughts of this unbelievable yet realised cast of characters.
I would recommend this for readers who loved Susannah Clarke's PIRANESI for its lyrical beauty and surreal setting, and Carmen Maria Machado's HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES for its unflinching point of view and melding of story and reality. I also think you would like this if you appreciate myths and legends, or if you find the most pleasure in the characters of history, rather than dates and facts. Serious suspension of disbelief is needed, and the rewards are well worth it.
I was privileged to receive an ARC in exchange for my honest review. US release date is 13 January 2026, UK 12 February, and I recommend you put it in your diary.
January 31, 2026
Some short stories are delightfully goofy and fun and original, and some, like this whole collection, are ridiculously nonsensical and absurd. I really struggled with this book and it wasn't for me. The stories read like the ramblings of a tired parent trying to soothe a hyperactive toddler. Two points for creativity.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
January 18, 2026
now this is my type of book. holy shit. the writing style is so engaging and imaginative. the stories themselves are so inventive and mind boggling that id read a 400 page book about each. and that last one "Choose your own apocalypse" genuinely begging for a fully fledged choose your own adventure with that story line. over all oncredible. will be keeping an eye out for more of her work.
January 14, 2026
DNF maybe it could be fun if you don’t have prior knowledge of the subjects. The prose felt clunky and vapid. It’s one thing to be weird (which I like), but it’s another just to be nonsensical. Very surface-level. Baby’s first cultural commentary?
December 26, 2025
Interesting concept, but I am clueless as to what the author was trying to portray in literally any of the stories.
January 20, 2026
thank you so much to the publisher (henry holt) for sending me a copy :)
‘age of calamities’ is a collection of surreal, quirky short stories that blend history, mythology and fantasy all together. the writing is beautiful but quite confusing at times. i love the idea but the quality is too dreamlike for me, personally, to enjoy completely. i did love the historical references and had to do a quick google search about the fate and fame of each character mentioned before reading for it to make more sense. (which was fun to learn something new) overall i recommend if you enjoy liminal spaces, mythology, short stories or atmospheric, ‘weird-girl’ lit.
‘let’s play dead’ queen anne survives king henry viii beheading. they’re both surprised by this outcome, and henry sends multiple assassins to try and kill anne again and again. she dies multiple times, but does not stay dead. wouldn’t it have just been easier to just love her, instead of spending all this time trying to kill her? (this might be my fave out of all)
‘the napoleons…’ napoleon shows up one day, age 29, ready to conquer. and then so does another, and another. one napoleon swallows the moon. a bit confusing- i think i missed the deeper meaning to this one.
‘the wolves’ the boys of the town turn into unrecognizable creatures. wolves that come out beneath the moon, tearing people apart with their bare teeth. they are the wolves of genghis khan- one of the most brutal and destructive military leaders in history. perhaps the wolves are only a metaphor for the soldiers- the boys they once knew who went on to destroy the home they lived in, in pursuit of military brutalism, forgetting their origin. when the full moon returns, the wolves turn to men again begging for forgiveness.
‘our lady…’ joan of arc meets claribel, a childless mother and cleaning lady who allows joan’s ghost to take over her body while she sleeps.
‘inside the house of the historian’ dinner party at a historian’s house with a professor and handful of historical figures- queen victoria, nefertiti, john adam’s, marilyn monroe, etc. the historian dies in the second floor bathroom and it becomes a whole dunnit in a house that plays tricks on you.
‘it was probably a very nice day’ background going into this: the Ramanov sisters were murdered in their cellar in 1918 along with their little brother, Alexei, and their parents. slightly confusing, we follow the Ramanov sisters as they shift between the Winter Palace and a ship, existing in both places and neither at once. in the story, the ghosts of the girls are able to change the scene around them, floating through history and repressed memories of the cellar, exploring their house in the future, unable to come to terms with their deaths.
‘not everything is ancient history’ julius cesar and nellie have a relationship in the present. seems dreamlike, takes place in modern day nyc (nellie mentions Bellevue so is she being treated in a psych ward?) with historical roman figures. nellie seems to be blending reality with ancient history. (roman soldiers eating pastrami on the sidewalk)
‘the houseguest’ historical context: 1892 unsolved axe murders of andrew and abby borden with the primary suspect being their daughter, lizzie borden, who was acquitted during trial.
modern day movie producer is filming a movie based on this story. the cast is haunted by the ghost of lizzie borden.
‘choose your own apocalypse’ it’s a ‘choose your own ending’ story with multiple variations. takes place in los alamos, you’re working on the manhattan project struggling with morality and decision making. come across variations of oppenheimer (manifesting as a man in the middle of the road, a swarm of bees, etc)
‘age of calamities’ is a collection of surreal, quirky short stories that blend history, mythology and fantasy all together. the writing is beautiful but quite confusing at times. i love the idea but the quality is too dreamlike for me, personally, to enjoy completely. i did love the historical references and had to do a quick google search about the fate and fame of each character mentioned before reading for it to make more sense. (which was fun to learn something new) overall i recommend if you enjoy liminal spaces, mythology, short stories or atmospheric, ‘weird-girl’ lit.
‘let’s play dead’ queen anne survives king henry viii beheading. they’re both surprised by this outcome, and henry sends multiple assassins to try and kill anne again and again. she dies multiple times, but does not stay dead. wouldn’t it have just been easier to just love her, instead of spending all this time trying to kill her? (this might be my fave out of all)
‘the napoleons…’ napoleon shows up one day, age 29, ready to conquer. and then so does another, and another. one napoleon swallows the moon. a bit confusing- i think i missed the deeper meaning to this one.
‘the wolves’ the boys of the town turn into unrecognizable creatures. wolves that come out beneath the moon, tearing people apart with their bare teeth. they are the wolves of genghis khan- one of the most brutal and destructive military leaders in history. perhaps the wolves are only a metaphor for the soldiers- the boys they once knew who went on to destroy the home they lived in, in pursuit of military brutalism, forgetting their origin. when the full moon returns, the wolves turn to men again begging for forgiveness.
‘our lady…’ joan of arc meets claribel, a childless mother and cleaning lady who allows joan’s ghost to take over her body while she sleeps.
‘inside the house of the historian’ dinner party at a historian’s house with a professor and handful of historical figures- queen victoria, nefertiti, john adam’s, marilyn monroe, etc. the historian dies in the second floor bathroom and it becomes a whole dunnit in a house that plays tricks on you.
‘it was probably a very nice day’ background going into this: the Ramanov sisters were murdered in their cellar in 1918 along with their little brother, Alexei, and their parents. slightly confusing, we follow the Ramanov sisters as they shift between the Winter Palace and a ship, existing in both places and neither at once. in the story, the ghosts of the girls are able to change the scene around them, floating through history and repressed memories of the cellar, exploring their house in the future, unable to come to terms with their deaths.
‘not everything is ancient history’ julius cesar and nellie have a relationship in the present. seems dreamlike, takes place in modern day nyc (nellie mentions Bellevue so is she being treated in a psych ward?) with historical roman figures. nellie seems to be blending reality with ancient history. (roman soldiers eating pastrami on the sidewalk)
‘the houseguest’ historical context: 1892 unsolved axe murders of andrew and abby borden with the primary suspect being their daughter, lizzie borden, who was acquitted during trial.
modern day movie producer is filming a movie based on this story. the cast is haunted by the ghost of lizzie borden.
‘choose your own apocalypse’ it’s a ‘choose your own ending’ story with multiple variations. takes place in los alamos, you’re working on the manhattan project struggling with morality and decision making. come across variations of oppenheimer (manifesting as a man in the middle of the road, a swarm of bees, etc)
March 6, 2026
I think the best way to describe The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad is like when my brother and I were kids and I watched him playing with his Kame Rider, Power Ranger, Spider Man, Superman, The Undertaker and The Rock action figures, mashing them against one another due to a narrative that he cooked up. This short story collections came into existence from Senaa Ahmad's time in a Californian creative writing workshop and it shows, both in the typical "literary fiction"-ism but also in the creativity of Senaa Ahmad's deployment of the narrative and usage of historical figure.
Quite a few of the stories within the collection have appeared elsewhere, like the opening story "Let’s Play Dead", The Wolves and Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune, most of which, in my opinion are the heavy hitters of the collection and were the ones that Senaa Ahmad said she wrote during her time in California but a few of those, Senaa Ahmad mentioned have seen countless rewriting. It's because of these set of stories that Senaa Ahmad decided to write a few more, original to this collection that are in tune, similarly bat-shit insane in terms of creativity and thematically fit to create a collection.
Reading the summaries of the short stories of this collection at face, they do sound absolutely bonkers. There's Anne Boleyn who keeps getting resurrected after each kill attempt done in the behest of King Henry VIII, Genghis Khan and his armies are werewolves raiding and pillaging any form of community they met in their journey, and twenty something versions of Napoleon roaming around. Senaa Ahmad in her writing does not bother in explaining anything and instead drops all these historical figure and other original characters into a setting or situation and does what great writers does and that "show, not tell" the intention of each of the particular story was and as a whole, what's the big theme of the collection was. The important tidbits of the stories were subtly highlighted by Senaa Ahmad herself through her style of writing, picking which moments or details to go fully heavy on the description or flowery, to create a certain mood or atmosphere and visage. In the story: "Not Everything is Ancient History", New York City in the summer was written with more attention in contrast to the Ancient Roman soldiers wondering the street of Midtown Manhattan or how it came to be that Julius Caesar is trying to get it on with the famous 1880s stunt girl journalist- Nellie Bly but the moments between the two were shown in great details beautifully by Senaa Ahmad's lyrical and flowery prose.
As a whole, I don't think there's a bad or weaker story within the collection, in my opinion but I don't know if I'm just flabbergast and impressed at the sheer creativity that Senaa Ahmad had when penning these stories here, though I do have clear, personal favourites. The opening story "Let’s Play Dead" really did well at introducing the zany aspect of the narratives and what sort of stories this collection has, as well as Senaa Ahmad's writing style and theme of the collection. The "perpetual violence" inflicted against women are merely the setting as the true theme is the what the women do in response to it. This was abundantly shown in her writing where the killings of Anne Boleyn were short and almost just a snapshot of these scene while the detailed of her resurrections were explicit that it transforms her story from a tragic execution into a surreal, defiant loop of resurrection. It also demonstrate perfectly that the stories within this collection is a glitch in the system where the women refuses the role that history had assigned to them. Another favourite of mine is "Our Lady of resplendent misfortune" where it's basically a body horror and psychological narrative, that centers around consumption of some else's fortune. Last but not least is "Choose Your Own Apocalypse", a mystery narrative set in Los Alamos. It's the most formally experimental piece of the collection, utilizing non-linear and interactive structure to mirror the chaotic logic of nuclear physics.
I've read a few short story collections from the author's time in a creative writing workshop or course and not many were as creative and playful as this one. Granted, most of the narrative that came to existence from her time in that Californian creative writing workshop were rewritten, touched-up or reworked, Senaa Ahmad's quality in writing is clearly apparent in these stories.
Quite a few of the stories within the collection have appeared elsewhere, like the opening story "Let’s Play Dead", The Wolves and Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune, most of which, in my opinion are the heavy hitters of the collection and were the ones that Senaa Ahmad said she wrote during her time in California but a few of those, Senaa Ahmad mentioned have seen countless rewriting. It's because of these set of stories that Senaa Ahmad decided to write a few more, original to this collection that are in tune, similarly bat-shit insane in terms of creativity and thematically fit to create a collection.
Reading the summaries of the short stories of this collection at face, they do sound absolutely bonkers. There's Anne Boleyn who keeps getting resurrected after each kill attempt done in the behest of King Henry VIII, Genghis Khan and his armies are werewolves raiding and pillaging any form of community they met in their journey, and twenty something versions of Napoleon roaming around. Senaa Ahmad in her writing does not bother in explaining anything and instead drops all these historical figure and other original characters into a setting or situation and does what great writers does and that "show, not tell" the intention of each of the particular story was and as a whole, what's the big theme of the collection was. The important tidbits of the stories were subtly highlighted by Senaa Ahmad herself through her style of writing, picking which moments or details to go fully heavy on the description or flowery, to create a certain mood or atmosphere and visage. In the story: "Not Everything is Ancient History", New York City in the summer was written with more attention in contrast to the Ancient Roman soldiers wondering the street of Midtown Manhattan or how it came to be that Julius Caesar is trying to get it on with the famous 1880s stunt girl journalist- Nellie Bly but the moments between the two were shown in great details beautifully by Senaa Ahmad's lyrical and flowery prose.
As a whole, I don't think there's a bad or weaker story within the collection, in my opinion but I don't know if I'm just flabbergast and impressed at the sheer creativity that Senaa Ahmad had when penning these stories here, though I do have clear, personal favourites. The opening story "Let’s Play Dead" really did well at introducing the zany aspect of the narratives and what sort of stories this collection has, as well as Senaa Ahmad's writing style and theme of the collection. The "perpetual violence" inflicted against women are merely the setting as the true theme is the what the women do in response to it. This was abundantly shown in her writing where the killings of Anne Boleyn were short and almost just a snapshot of these scene while the detailed of her resurrections were explicit that it transforms her story from a tragic execution into a surreal, defiant loop of resurrection. It also demonstrate perfectly that the stories within this collection is a glitch in the system where the women refuses the role that history had assigned to them. Another favourite of mine is "Our Lady of resplendent misfortune" where it's basically a body horror and psychological narrative, that centers around consumption of some else's fortune. Last but not least is "Choose Your Own Apocalypse", a mystery narrative set in Los Alamos. It's the most formally experimental piece of the collection, utilizing non-linear and interactive structure to mirror the chaotic logic of nuclear physics.
I've read a few short story collections from the author's time in a creative writing workshop or course and not many were as creative and playful as this one. Granted, most of the narrative that came to existence from her time in that Californian creative writing workshop were rewritten, touched-up or reworked, Senaa Ahmad's quality in writing is clearly apparent in these stories.
February 25, 2026
Stories in the speculative fiction genre. The collection is tied together thematically by Ahmad’s use of historical figures as characters.
A few of these stories are well executed and polished—let’s play dead and the wolves are a speculative fiction take on male violence. (Let’s play dead was a finalist for the Pushkin prize and the wolves appeared in Mcsweeney’s).
I thought the house of the historian was the best story and was the only one that used genre elements in a way I found new and purposeful. It’s a story about the famous figures dead and alive that a historian invites to dinner. The second best story is the one about an actor that plays Lizzie Borden because it at least seemed to comment on fan fiction subculture:
Then there are several stories that are totally mundane except they involve weird mashups. Like let’s imagine if Julius Caesar was dating Nellie Bly. Ok, why?
Then there are a few stories that are unnecessarily difficult more than being unconventional because the use of speculative elements made them convoluted and messy (the napoleons and choose your own adventure).
A few of these stories are well executed and polished—let’s play dead and the wolves are a speculative fiction take on male violence. (Let’s play dead was a finalist for the Pushkin prize and the wolves appeared in Mcsweeney’s).
I thought the house of the historian was the best story and was the only one that used genre elements in a way I found new and purposeful. It’s a story about the famous figures dead and alive that a historian invites to dinner. The second best story is the one about an actor that plays Lizzie Borden because it at least seemed to comment on fan fiction subculture:
Then there are several stories that are totally mundane except they involve weird mashups. Like let’s imagine if Julius Caesar was dating Nellie Bly. Ok, why?
Then there are a few stories that are unnecessarily difficult more than being unconventional because the use of speculative elements made them convoluted and messy (the napoleons and choose your own adventure).
January 20, 2026
I really love the concept of this book—short stories that shuffle historical figures and timelines in an absurd narrative. And I love that so many historical women are featured.
Let’s Play Dead is my favorite where Henry VIII keeps trying to get rid of Anne Boleyn, but she keeps coming back to life. It felt good to read and I enjoyed the underlying messaging I got from it about women’s resilience through the ages. My second favorite story is The Houseguest about Lizzie Borden haunting the actress who plays her in a series of movies.
I honestly struggled with most of the other stories because they are so nonsensical. In some, it felt like you wouldn’t be able to tell who the stories are supposed to be about without the name of the historical figure because the characters’ actions don’t relate to the real person…and some of the plots didn’t grip me.
That said, maybe I just didn’t connect with it all because other readers I know have loved it all!
Thanks so much to Henry Holt Books for the ARC! This was published January 13th, so check it out!
Let’s Play Dead is my favorite where Henry VIII keeps trying to get rid of Anne Boleyn, but she keeps coming back to life. It felt good to read and I enjoyed the underlying messaging I got from it about women’s resilience through the ages. My second favorite story is The Houseguest about Lizzie Borden haunting the actress who plays her in a series of movies.
I honestly struggled with most of the other stories because they are so nonsensical. In some, it felt like you wouldn’t be able to tell who the stories are supposed to be about without the name of the historical figure because the characters’ actions don’t relate to the real person…and some of the plots didn’t grip me.
That said, maybe I just didn’t connect with it all because other readers I know have loved it all!
Thanks so much to Henry Holt Books for the ARC! This was published January 13th, so check it out!
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