Myth-Understandings

by Ian Whates (Editor), Pat Cadigan, Liz Williams

Communication: the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information.

Featuring a World Fantasy Award winning story from
Gwyneth Jones

plus original stories from:
Pat Cadigan, Storm Constantine, Justina Robson, Tricia Sullivan, Freda Warrington, Liz Williams, Leigh Kennedy, Deborah J. Miller, Sarah Pinborough, Kim Lakin-Smith, Kari Sperring, Heather Bradshaw, Elizabeth Priest and Claire Weaver

Fifteen stories of science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy and horror, from fifteen of the finest authors in today's speculative fiction marketplace... all of whom happen to be women.

Full contents:

1. Introduction - Ian Whates
Myth
2. Owl Speak -- Storm Constantine
3. Seaborne - Kari Sperring
4. And Their Blood Will Be Prescient to Fire - Freda Warrington
5. Do You See? - Sarah Pinborough
6. Queen of the Sunlit Shore - Liz Williams
7. Heart Song - Kim Lakin-Smith
8. The Grass Princess - Gwyneth Jones
Understandings
9. Found in the Translation - Pat Cadigan
10. TouchMe(tm): Keeping in Touch - Heather Bradshaw
11. We Shelter - Leigh Kennedy
12. Dinosaur - Deborah J. Miller
13. Further Orders -- Elizabeth Priest
14. The Tollhouse - Claire Weaver
15. Body of Evidence - Justina Robson
16. The Ecologist and the Avon Lady - Tricia Sullivan

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Short Stories

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ian Whates lives in a comfortable home down a quiet cul-de-sac in an idyllic Cambridgeshire village, which he shares with his partner Helen and their pets – Honey the golden cocker spaniel, Calvin the tailless black cat and Inky the goldfish (sadly, Binky died a few years ago).

Ian’s earliest memories of science fiction are fragmented. He remembers loving Dr Who from an early age and other TV shows such as Lost in Space and Star Trek, but a defining moment came when he heard a radio adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. From that moment on he was hooked and became a frequent haunter of the local library, voraciously devouring the contents of their SF section.

This early love of science fiction manifested most tellingly during his school days, when he produced an SF murder mystery as homework after being set the essay title “The Language of Shakespeare”, much to the bemusement of his English teacher.

Ian’s first published stories appeared in the late 1980s in small press magazines such as Dream and New Moon Quarterly, after which he took a break from writing in order to research his chosen fields of science fiction and fantasy. In other words, he read copious amounts of both. Clearly the research was extensive, because he published nothing further for some seventeen years. In the early 2000s he made the decision to pursue writing seriously, joining the Northampton SF Writers Group in 2004 after being introduced to its chairman, Ian Watson.

In 2006 he started submitting stories again, and has subsequently been surprised at how many otherwise eminently sensible people have chosen to publish him. A couple have even appeared in the science journal Nature, and one, “The Gift of Joy”, even found its way onto the five-strong shortlist for best short story in the British Science Fiction Association Awards. And it didn’t come last! Ironically, the award was actually won by Ken MacLeod’s “Lighting Out”, a piece Ian had commissioned, edited and published in the NewCon Press anthology disLOCATIONS (2007).

In 2006 Ian launched independent publisher NewCon Press, quite by accident (buy him a pint sometime and he’ll tell you about it). Through NewCon he has been privileged to publish original stories from some of the biggest names in genre fiction, as well as provide debuts to some genuinely talented newcomers. The books, their covers and contents have racked up an impressive array of credits – four BSFA Awards, one BSF Award to date, inclusion in ‘Year’s Best’ anthologies and recommendations and honourable mentions from the likes of Gardner Dozios and Locus magazine.

In addition to his publishing and writing, Ian is currently a director of both the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA), editing Matrix, the online news and media reviews magazine, for the latter.

His first two completed novels are both due to appear in early 2010: City of Dreams and Nightmare via Harper Collins’ imprint Angry Robot, and The Noise Within from Rebellion imprint Solaris, with sequels to follow. When not pinching himself to make sure this is all really happening, Ian is currently beavering away at the sequels… honest!

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really enjoyable anthology of tales from female writers who show that we can do it just as good as men. The volume is divided into two sections, one called Myth the other Understandings, each focusing on a more particular genre. Each story stands alone well and draws you in with superb characters and excellent writing, taking traditional elements of various genres and combining them together in new ways and with modern elements and twists. I particularly enjoyed Do You See, which has the feel of traditional Victorian ghost tales, and the Ecologist and the Avon Lady, which combines the traditional monster story with the modern environmental movement. A great collection.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This weeks post is written by Sam. He has kindly provided his thoughts on Myth-understandings. I just want to take an opportunity to thank him.

For me the measure of a short story is really whether it’s a story at all. So many feel like prologues to novels or just don’t make sense in isolation. Others seem to feel it’s okay for to skip out on character development or feel the need to hint at a massively complex world that leaves the reader with more questions than it does answers.

I bought this collection because Ian Whates (the owner of publisher NewCon Press) told me to. He’s a lovely friendly chap and even asked us what we liked to read before pushing the hard sell!

The stories are divided into two themed groups, the first being Myth and the second Understandings. In reality ‘myth’ translates to ‘literary fantasy, fairy tales and stories written in a loose mythical style’ and ‘Understandings’ translates to ‘everything else’.

Myth

Storm Constantine – Owl Speak

I found this story both wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It opens with a myth that informs the shape of the story. The characters are therefore bound to their fate. I like my fantasy to be about defying the norm and living for yourself rather than being bound to doom. Also, I wasn’t sure what the owls had to do with anything.

Seaborne – Kari Spelling

This one starts brilliantly. A spirit of some sort finds a survivor of a shipwreck. The relationship between man and spirit develops. Then the story loses its way. Things happen for reasons that aren’t particularly clear and, while the sadness and atmosphere are amped up, it doesn’t make a massive amount of sense.


And Their Blood Will Be Prescient To Fire – Freda Warrington

A vampire story about a vampire who misses her one true love (who is dead). Yes. Collective sigh. There’s also an over-arching narrative about a woman who has somehow figured out that the vampire is a vampire and is obsessed with her, but the whole layer just wasn’t necessary and turned the short story into what feels more like the prologue of a novel.


Do You See? – Sarah Pinborough

This was the story that sold me the book. I knew it won a British Fantasy Award last year and it really didn’t disappoint. The writer manages to tease out the mystery of the monsters identity to the very last page and the whole thing is crammed with more creeping dread than you can shake a stick at.


Queen of the Sunlit Shore – Liz Williams

I love the sea and the idea of monstrous depths, water-bound spirits and all that kind of stuff. Then the writer mixes it in with a seaside ghost story complete with a mysterious figure in a painting. It’s just classic horror that reminds of M. R. James (except in a much more readable style).


Heart Song – Kim Lakin-Smith

This is my kind of story. A myth come fairytale with a dark, heavy metal tinge. Doomed love, guitars (sorry kanteles), weird underwater dwelling women with brain-sucking powers and an ending so very, very bleak. Definitely one of the best in this collection.


The Grass Princess – Gwyneth Jones

A beautiful fairy tale that was let down by a bit of a weak ending. Still, it won a World Fantasy Award so who am I to criticise? I just think the titular Grass Princess could’ve done with a bit more personality or even just a bit more screen time.


Understandings

Found in the Translation – Pat Cadigan

This one comes with the prefix ‘Tales from the Big Dark’ so I’m assuming it’s part of a series. For an anthology like this, that’s a problem. The world is far too complex and there is far too much unexplained for it to make a lot of sense in isolation. It sounds like a great setting for a novel though!


TouchMeTM: Keeping in Touch – Heather Bradshaw

This was one of the most crammed stories I’ve read in quite a while. It constantly teetered on the edge of too damned much happening. Thankfully it managed to ride that wave and the result is a bizarre and funny story about working tech-support in a time when phone technology has taken a somewhat more personal path.


We Shelter – Leigh Kennedy

Confusing and really not very clear what was going on. There was some kind of group mind and hints at linked pasts, but it never really went anywhere or explained anything.


Dinosaur – Deborah J. Miller

Interesting idea that wasn’t particularly well explored. The author makes the cheap excuse of the main character never exploring her powers or trying to understand them and I found it hard to believe that news teams would fight to be the first to report a dinosaur sighting. The end, while suitably sad, didn’t make a lot of sense given what we knew of the character.


Further Orders – Elizabeth Priest

An awesome little tale about solitude and madness. Unfortunately the ending didn’t quite follow through on this promise. The last page introduction of another character and the revelation that comes with it felt like something I’d read before.


The Tollhouse – Claire Weaver

Souls stored in deep space and weird caretakers cataloguing them! This one had potential, but the writer withholds information about the world for a little too long. The ending isn’t quite deus ex, because we don’t know nearly enough about how or why this place works in order to make that distinction, but certainly feels a little easy. I wanted the character to earn it.


Body of Evidence – Justine Robson

The idea of a device that interprets people’s reactions for you is a good one. However, all the observations seemed very pedestrian and detached, and there wasn’t nearly enough humour. A change of character focus in the latter half makes the reader work that much harder to empathise and, as a device, doesn’t add anything.


The Ecologist and the Avon Lady - Tricia Sullivan

This is a strange one for Understandings to finish on, as I never quite understood what was going on. It was awesome regardless. Batshit crazy, trippy and awesome. The idea of an Avon Lady as an action hero who fights a reality altering monster is fantastic and even though the story itself makes absolutely no sense it was a pleasure to read.


All In All

This was a bit of a mixed bag with the Myth section providing the strongest stories and writing. Recommended for anyone who likes their darkness in short.

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology features all women authors. The book is split into two sections, namely Myth and Understandings. The first eight stories are meant to be mythic and the second eight are meant to deal with the theme of communication. So it’s misunderstandings with a lisp. On to the stories.

‘Owlspeak’ by Storm Constantine is about an arty, sophisticated girl in fantasy land who is mysteriously drawn to a plain man, a member of a very sober, uptight cult. They have difficulty in sustaining their relationship because of their very different outlooks. Love doesn’t conquer all. In ‘Seaborne’ by Kari Sperring a mysterious female creature whose nature is never fully revealed finds a man washed up on a beach. Something happens with a wolf and love fails again. Both of these stories were emotional and vague – not my type of thing, which is a shame because the last Kari Sperring story I read was wonderful.

‘And Their Blood Will be Prescient to Fire’ by Freda Warrington is about a vampire ballet dancer and a besotted fan whose sister the vampire meets and finds fantastically alluring. This was better fare for a plain-speaking fellow because I could tell what was going on. Hot lesbian vampire sex is a good subject too. I look forward to the film. ‘Do You See?’ by Sarah Pinborough is about a woman who hangs around a children’s park and sends a monster to get them sometimes at night. It was alright, as was ‘Queen of the Sunlit Shore’ by Liz Williams about a mysterious pale female who is a sort of grim reaper by the sea. In ‘Heart Song’ by Kim Lakin-Smith a female creature comes out of a well to lure an innocent chap sat there with his lute. More ghouls.

As it happens the first section finished on a high note with ‘The Grass Princess’ by Gwyneth Jones which won the World Fantasy Award for the best short story in 1996. It’s a reprint, the only one in the book, but well worth reprinting. A baby Princess is laid under a tree by her handmaids while they go off and frolic nearby. When they come back grass has grown over her and holds her in a steely embrace. The court magician can’t fix it and she ends up growing there in a sort of catatonic state. Heroes are invited to come and save her but to prove their worth they are first sent on quests to get stuff the King wants This story had almost a novel-length plot and was leavened with touches of wry wit. Excellent.

‘Myth’ had let me down and I hoped ‘Understandings’ would be better. It started promisingly with ‘Tales From the Big Dark: Found in the Translation’ by Pat Cadigan. The narrator, Hannah, lives and works in the Big Dark where sentient beings, abducted by aliens, are bought from all over time and space. She herself was abducted long ago and has settled into the new environment with assorted aliens. It is rare to meet anyone from your own time and world but there is one chap, Jean-Christophe, who is near enough to it that they can understand each other. She needs a universal translator to communicate with the other sentient beings. The story was a sort of slice of life but the strangeness of the setting made it interesting. The powers behind the Big Dark and the purpose of it were not clear but not much is in this collection.

‘TouchmeTM: Keeping in Touch’ is the first published story by author Heather Bradshaw. It’s an amusing tale which perfectly captures the working atmosphere of a call centre and its organizing bureaucracy. I hope more is forthcoming from this promising new writer. ‘We Shelter’ is by Leigh Kennedy and the title gives a hint of the confusion to come. The narrator uses the first person plural throughout as ‘we’ rescue a shipload of sick people who have just landed near the shelter. We moved our arms and legs and some of us got stretchers. Probably some kind of collective consciousness at work but clarity was not a priority again. Is this obfuscation art? In the kind of science fiction I like, the obscure references at the start are explained later.

‘Dinosaur’ by Deborah J. Miller is alluring largely because it features those fascinating creatures, albeit in an odd way. The protagonist was an interesting woman though the basic premise was a bit far-fetched even by fantasy standards. As Miller Lau, the author wrote the ‘Last Clansman’ trilogy, which I enjoyed.

‘Further Orders’ by Elizabeth Priest is about a female warrior hanging about in a meadow all alone awaiting further orders from her masters. Not a lot happens. ‘The Tollhouse’ by Claire Weaver is about a menial worker in some metaphysical warehouse where all the things people have sacrificed to get on in life are stored; by God? Who can say? They include the child sacrificed for the career, the brain sacrificed in the search for a better party drug and so on. The notion is intriguing and the story is sort of fun.


Mind’s eye is a body language and energy reader consisting of a chip and a little microphone you put in your ear. The chip analyses the body language and energy readings of both the wearer and other people and the earpiece tells you what they, and you, are really thinking. Rachel and other volunteers are well paid to put it in and try it out for twelve hours on a working day. Disillusionment ensues. ‘Body of Evidence’ by Justina Robson takes a look at the human condition in a way that could only be done in a science fiction or fantasy setting. The best of the genre does this.

In ‘The Ecologist and the Avon Lady’ by Tricia Sullivan a government agent is sent to kill a shape-changing monster that lives on a mountain and murders occasional tourists, though it gets on pretty well with the locals, especially an ecologist who lives on the mountain. The monster changes reality so much that the story gets very fantastic indeed but it remains interesting until the end. Philip K. Dick might have written this.

With the notable exception of ‘The Grass Princess’, I preferred Understandings to Myths by a big margin. For some readers, it might be the other way round but until they release this as two separate books you’ll have to buy the whole thing.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am fast becoming a fan of the short story format and to find an anthology of women speculative fiction authors all writing on the theme of myths is a guaranteed winner for me. Chatting to a group of writers at the BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) stall while attending Eastercon 2010 led to this particular purchase, especially as Ian Whates was one of those authors - he was rather persuasive, even though I had already heard of this collection and was going to buy it anyway. I should have got him to sign the book! I had read several of the writers included in Myth-Understandings before and had heard of some of the others, so I was looking forward to reading their short stories.

The anthology is divided into two sections: Myths is broadly fantasy and Understandings leans more towards science fiction. Communication, or the lack of it, is a strong theme throughout.
"Communication... Such a hazardous undertaking... So easy to be misunderstood"
For example, in "Seaborne" by Kari Sperring a unnamed spirit-type creature finds a barely alive human male cast from the sea into to her small patch of shore. By saving the man and caring for him as he recovers, she transforms from an innocent and carefree entity to one who feels pain, loss and despair; their communication being how she learns about emotions and feelings previously unknown to her. Another story, "TouchMe(tm): Keeping in Touch" by Heather Bradshaw, an amusing satire of modern life, explores the world of a call centre where the equipment provided by her company seems to be something more than a mobile phone: a personal device meant for communication between lovers that somehow sends touches by telephone.

My favourite story was "Do You See?" by Sarah Pinborough, a very creepy tale of whispered magic words and disappeared children that raised several questions about the narrator and her motivation. I also enjoyed "Further Orders", a beautifully descriptive début story by the teenage Elizabeth Priest which describes a 30-day period of waiting experienced by a young woman alone in a small meadow with only the trees, lake and various animals to occupy her time. The stories by Liz Williams [Queen of the Sunlit Shore:], Gwyneth Jones [The Grass Princess:] and Justina Robson [Body of Evidence:] were sufficiently intriguing to make me seek out more by these authors.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Myth-Understandings. Yes, there were some stories that were stronger than others, but this is only to be expected from an anthology. Not all them were to my personal taste, though this would not prevent me from recommending this collection as an excellent introduction to many well-respected British speculative fiction writers and their work.

http://speculativebookreview.blogspot...

[Ira Nayman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about anthologies of stories by female authors. On the one hand, science fiction has traditionally been dominated by male authors (and male readers); anything that would make it easier for women to get their stories into the hands of readers (short of publishing under men’s names, or, as many female science fiction authors do to this day, using only their initials to hide their gender) is welcome. On the other hand, I worry that such efforts might ghettoize writing by female authors; by putting it in one place, it makes it easier for people who don’t appreciate just how good women writers can be to avoid their work. My synthesis of these two positions is that, even now, such anthologies are necessary to promote the work of female genre writers, but some day (hopefully soon) they will be accepted as being just as good as men, and such anthologies won’t be necessary.

I was prompted to think about this issue by the second collection of short stories from Newcom Press which I bought at Eastercon: Myth-Understandings. The original concept was that it would be a collection of stories about communication, but about half of the stories had a mythical component; although the main theme prevailed throughout, half of the book could be considered fantasy with mythical elements. And, yes, all of the stories were written by women.

One highlight for me was Pat Cadigan’s second Big Dark story, “Found in Translation,” which was every bit as clever and entertaining as the first. Another was Gwyneth Jones’ “The Grass Princess,” which had a brilliant premise, and was full of wonderful surprises. Although he generally disdains reprints, editor Ian Whates decided to accept this story even though it had been previously published, a decision I think was excellent.

Other strong stories included: “Touch Me™: Keeping in Touch,” Heather Bradshaw’s amusing tale of intimate technologies and corporate malfeasance, and; Tricia Sullivan’s “The Ecologist and the Avon Lady,” a marvelously twisty (and twisted) story of a slowly disintegrating reality. As anybody familiar with my own writing will know, disintegrating realities are my thing!

This is probably another five star worthy volume. The only reason I give it four stars is because the first half of the book, dominated as it is with fantasy stories, is not to my taste. However, if it is to yours, you will undoubtedly enjoy Myth-Understandings muchly.

[Ade Couper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting...

"Myth-understandings" is a volume of short stories, all by women writers, on the theme of communication- & it's pretty good. Top stories for me were by the ever-reliable Sarah Pinborough, who delivers a deliciously scary tale, & Pat Cadigan, who writes a wonderful story about alien abductees. However, there are no bad stories here.

Worth a look.

[Jon Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Grass Princess, by Gwyneth Jones is particularly good; as was Dinosaur by Deborah Miller; and Body of Evidence by Justina Robson.