The Underwater Ballroom Society

The Casebook of Harriet George #2 - A Spy in the Deep

by Tiffany Trent (Editor), Stephanie Burgis (Editor)

An anthology of sparkling adult f/sf stories featuring underwater ballrooms of one sort or another, from a 30s ballroom to a Martian hotel to a grand rock 'n roll ball held in the heart of Faery itself.

The Queen of Life / Ysabeau S. Wilce
Twelve Sisters / Y.S. Lee
Penhallow Amid Passing Things/ Iona Datt Sharma
Mermaids, Singing / Tiffany Trent
A Brand New Thing / Jenny Moss
Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball / Cassandra Khaw
Spellswept / Stephanie Burgis
The River Always Wins / Laura Anne Gilman
The Amethyst Deceiver / Shveta Thakrar
A Spy in the Deep / Patrick Samphire

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

398 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2018

About the author

Tiffany Trent is the award-winning creator and author of the young adult dark fantasy series, HALLOWMERE, and THE UNNATURALISTS and THE TINKER KING. With Stephanie Burgis, she co-edited the Locus Finalist for Best Anthology, THE UNDERWATER BALLROOM SOCIETY. Her short stories have been published in MAGIC AND THE MIRRORSTONE, CORSETS AND CLOCKWORK, SUBTERRANEAN, and WILFUL IMPROPRIETY. When not writing or reading, she can be found playing with bees.

Awards/Honors:
-Green Earth Book Award Honor 2013
-SCBWI Work-in-Progress Grant 2008
-New York Public Library Book of the Teen Age 2008
-Year's Best Horror Honorable Mention 2008
-BookSense (IndieBound) Children's Pick 2007

Reviews

[Stephanie]

*ETA: And hooray! There's now a gorgeous paperback edition available as well!

This is the secret project that Tiffany Trent and I have spent the last few months organizing! I loooooove the stories in this anthology, and I am so happy to finally be able to share them all with you.

They're out now! And you can buy your own copy of The Underwater Ballroom Society at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, or Smashwords.

**Note: the price for this one has now gone down to $3.99 US/ £2.99 UK. Enjoy! :) **

I love every story in this anthology, and I can't wait to share them all with you!

(And for any of my readers who loved Jonathan & Amy in Snowspelled - Spellswept, my novella in this anthology, is their story! I am SO IMPATIENT for you to read it. :) )

(For anyone who hasn't read Snowspelled, though, don't worry - Spellswept is a prequel novella, set years before Snowspelled takes place. No prior knowledge is required - just the ability to enjoy forbidden romance, dangerous magic, and political intrigue in an underwater ballroom. What could possibly go wrong? ;) )

[K.J. Charles]

A varied anthology brought together by the underwater ballroom setting. I mostly bought this because Cassandra Khaw is in it (her story is short, strange and lyrically nasty, as one might imagine). I very much liked the savage feminist Twelve Sisters by YS Lee, doing a what-happened-next on the ever-creepy Twelve Dancing Princesses fairytale; the Stephanie Burgis story Spellswept is a niftily done short romance in a satisfyingly gender-role-reversed world. And an author to watch: Iona Datt Sharma's Penhallow Amid Passing Things skilfully builds a strange magical Cornwall with a lovely understated f/f Revenue/smuggler romance that I wanted a lot more of. I hope this is a precursor to a book.

[Sherwood Smith]

Last summer I was taking a sanity break from the unrelentingly horrible news, and in doing some research, came across a mention of an anthology published around WW II, called Famous Balls. (Copies are rare and go for zillions, so I haven’t read it.)

I thought, what a great idea for sheer wish-fulfillment and escapism! And I put the word out for a potential anthology.

At pretty much the same time, the editors here got a similar idea while chatting on Twitter, and as often happens with writers, the idea—balls underwater—caught fire. So while I’m still collecting stories for my own anthology, this one has come out, and of course I wanted to read it. When an idea hits in the Zeitgeist at the same time, it usually means its time has come. More about the Zeitgeist thing later.

There are ten stories here, and I enjoyed them all, some more than others as is inevitable. But I didn’t skip any, which to me makes a successful anthology well worth the price.

I had three favorites.

First, and first up, was Ysabeau S Wilce's "The Queen of Life," all the more remarkable because I’m not particularly interested in the fae, or at least the ‘beautiful heartless people’ version of the fae, with or without rock bands. And here were both fae and musicians.

But Wilce’s prose pyrotechnics immediately entranced me, just as it did in her YA novels. And when I saw that the main character was an older woman, I was hooked all the way to the terrific ending.

My second favorite was Iona Datt Sharma's "Penhallow Amid Passing Things," a glorious title, told in such graceful prose that I didn’t mind some somewhat jerky transitions that (to me) read as if this might have been a longer work cut down. More on that thought anon.

First of all, this tale is queer friendly. A dashing female smuggler up against an equally dashing revenue officer raised a halleluia. There are a bazillion m/m adventures and romances out there, but so few f/f, especially as well-told and atmospheric as this one, set in an alternate world in which magic is slowly vanishing. I finished it wishing quite strongly for more set in this world.

My third fave was the longest work, which I am so glad was permitted its natural length. This is the Zeitgeist at work again, for I am already familiar with, and very much enjoy, David Levine’s Arabella stories, which feature tallships that travel between plants, the eponymous Arabella being a Mars colony native. Levine’s series, as is Patrick Samphire's "A Spy in the Deep,” is set in an alt-Napoleonic era, with a Mars colony.

I thoroughly enjoyed Samphire’s tale, as our heroine, Harriet, is training to become a spy. She travels with her hapless-seeming brother-in-law to Mars on what is supposed to be an easy mission. When her contact turns up dead, Harriet helps her brother-in-law solve the mystery, which she figures out her own mystery. The exhilarating pacing and the vivid visuals kept me glued to the pages until the end, leaving me with a wish to read more in this setting.

Shout-outs to Y.S. Lee’s intense take on the Twelve Dancing Princesses, in “Twelve Sisters,” with its emphasis on the tight bond of the sisters, and the delightful imagination behind Shveta Thakrar’s mushroom magic in "The Amethyst Deceiver.”

I enjoyed all the other tales, but several, like Sharma’s tale, read to me like longer works stuffed into short form—narrative summary that might better have been scene, characters who needed a bit more fleshing out, abrupt transitions, a few too many dangling threads. In one, a crucial worldbuilding setup felt arbitrarily imposed until close to the end.

Even so, all the stories kept me reading over these mild speed bumps. The price is very modest for this much reading pleasure—I would have paid separately for my three favorites, gladly.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020-02-29: Spellswept 4 starsAmy is wonderful, being bright, super organized, adept at reading people and dealing with different personalities. I loved the romance between her and Jonathan -- it was kind of adorable. It was also interesting to see how powerful Cassandra is with no formal training. I also liked the background on this alternate England, with its division between who studies and uses magic, and who manages the politics and business--a nice role reversal here from the traditional.

[Teleseparatist · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received the ARC of this collection from one of the editors, Stephanie Burgis, for review purposes. My opinion is entirely my own.

TL;DR version: I loved two of these stories, enjoyed most; the collection was centred around an idea that resulted in varied interpretations that were a pleasure to read. Some stories were less successful, but didn't ruin the overall positive impression. Recommended (with slight reservations).

When reading any collection of short stories, and particularly an edited anthology of stories from different authors, I expect to find some of the stories more to my liking than others. This was also the case with The Underwater Ballroom Society, and while some stories didn't particularly grip me, the strength of the ones that did was enough to make this a collection I truly enjoyed. I think any reader who enjoyes variety and new voices will enjoy it as well.

The idea behind the collection is imaginative and it was a pleasure seeing all the underwater ballrooms in all their different iterations. My fandom history makes me enjoy prompt-based writing all the more, and I firmly believe a good prompt leads to interesting creative places: this collection confirms my opinion. From fairy tales to urban fantasy, to alternative magical histories to science-fictional versions of history, this collection showcases variety and imagination.

The opening story, Ysabeau S Wilce's "The Queen of Life", takes on subjects that don't particularly interest me - bohemian musicians and faery abduction. However, what bought me was the perspective: one of an older woman re-evaluating her life and wanting more ("The Queen of Life" is the guitar, but it's also the protagonist who becomes one). The writing was powerful and confident, making the story and the characters convincing. I enjoyed it far more than I'd expected.

Y.S. Lee's "Twelve Sisters" comes with a content warning for "implied domestic violence". In fact, domestic violence takes center stage in this retelling of the famous fairy tale from Brothers Grimm, in which, in the aftermath of the tale's ending, the sisters need to protect their eldest from her abusive soldier husband. The outright violence is arguably not even its most disturbing element; there is some biological horror to go with it. But over all, the story had charm and the sisterly relations were a pleasure to read about.

The third story, Iona Datt Sharma's "Penhallow Amid Passing Things" (how beautiful is this title, by the way?) was one of my favourites in the collection, and a story that has stayed with me. This queer tale of smuggler ring with a woman leader and the dashing (woman) officer chasing them had an amazing voice and mood, and some of my (everyone's) favourite tropes (antagonists combining forces to fight a bigger threat). The ballroom here was not terribly ballroom-like or that significant to the story, but the worldbuilding of a disappearing magic was fascinating and full of potential for further stories which I hope Sharma will write.

Unfortunately, I didn't find Tiffany Trent's "Mermaids, Singing" particularly memorable. The inspiration found in history of Asian migrants to London was interesting, but the story felt squeezed in: there was far too much of it to fit into the wordcount, which resulted in fragments that felt more like summaries than part of a story (particularly the backstories, recited breathlessly). Part of it may be my dislike for carnivalesque, but I've read a few circus stories in my day, and this wasn't even one of the better ones. In addition, I found the attraction between the protagonists to be fairly bland and there were a few turns of phrase (particularly related to the young woman's Chinese heritage) that turned me off in particular.

The next story, Jenny Moss's "A Brand New Thing" made a mixed impression on me. The story of a young woman who is transported to an underwater ballroom where she can be more freely herself among shadows of important intellectual figures of the era felt original and interesting on a certain level: the location in time and place, in particular, but also the characterisation of bookworm, neuroatypical protagonist Eve, who was rendered very sympathetically and convincingly. At the same time, however, the same humanity wasn't afforded to other characters in the story, particularly the other female characters - her sister is the villain, understandably, but overall it feels like understanding for Eve comes only from men (the mother is worse than the father, the female servant less understanding than the male; hope comes in the guise of a romantic connection with a guy).

The very short poetic text of "Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball" by Cassandra Khaw grew on me after reading, but for a story so concerned with beauty of language and metaphor (and so proficient at making use of it), I must say this: seeing English pluralisations of Slavic nouns bothers me. "Rusalkas" takes me out of a story (and as far as I know, translations of Propp and wikipedia both recognise "rusalki").

The next text in the collection was a novella or a novellette by Stephanie Burgis, "Spellswept" and another favourite. Set in the world of Burgis's Snowspelled , this prequel focuses on the romantic connection between aspiring politician Amy Standish and her mentor's black sheep of a son, historian Jonathan Harwood. This story combined some gender role reversal in a familiar historical romance setting with interesting character work. And it was simply charming and pleasant to read, funny and peopled with likeable and complex characters: predictable, but enjoyable all the same. It definitely convinced me to check out Snowspelled soon.

I'm not sure I quite got Laura Anne Gilman's "The River Always Wins", a story ostensibly about the last party organised in a club and really about the friendship between the characters and how it helps them deal with difficult issues. All the same, to me it felt squeezed, lacking the space to develop fully. I found the plot twist unsatisfying and the characters never grew on me; there was too much darkness in it and not enough space for that darkness to be explored. But I think other readers might enjoy it far more.

Shveta Thakrar's "The Amethyst Deceiver" was a fun short story about a family conflict, mushroom-y superheroes and the fight for the environment. The plot wasn't terribly complex (and the underwater ballroom felt incidental to it) but the story was fun and full of energy, just as the title suggested.

The last text in the collection, Patrick Samphire's "A Spy in the Deep" (set in the world of his The Dinosaur Hunters was also the longest, taking over approximately 1/4 of the available pagecount. I had my reservations going in: I felt like there were some warning signs in the opening pages, but the book largely avoided the pitfalls. The protagonist, Harriet George, is a young woman training to be a spy for the "British-Martian Intelligence Service". I enjoyed the Napoleon-era Martian politics and the ideas behind them, and found both Harriet and her brother-in-law to be enjoyable characters, but felt like the female protonist was surrounded with just a few too many men and relatively few women with any characterisation (I wish her sister could actually have made an on-page appearance). The plot was actually quite well constructed, and the climactic scene made good use of the locale, but I would have liked slightly fewer moments where Harriet learns men can be useful and clever. Still, the mystery was better than I'd expected, and I think the whole series would make a very enjoyable cozy sf/mystery read for a fan with more interest in that genre.

Overall, I was very happy to spend a few hours exploring different underwater ballrooms, in many different places and times. And I look forward to reading more fiction from Burgis and Sharma.

[katayoun Masoodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

very enjoyable and fun, liked all the stories, all interesting and fun though maybe had a soft spot for stephanie burgis and patrick samphire's stories, as they were maybe a bit longer and also was looking forward to reading them

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to win an ARC of this anthology and thoroughly enjoyed it. The standout story for me was definitely Iona Datt Sharma's "Penhallow Amid Passing Things", a beautifully atmospheric story with magic, smugglers and an f/f romance that I was approximately 1000% here for, which also managed the feat of feeling like it was just the right length whilst also making me want 900 more stories about the characters and the world. I also enjoyed revisiting the world of Snowspelled in Stephanie Burgis's "Spellswept", while Patrick Samphire's "A Spy in the Deep" made me want to check out his other Regency Mars books.

In fact, there weren't any stories in this anthology that I disliked - some appealed more to me than others, but there were things I liked about all of them, and I enjoyed seeing the different ways the various authors used the underwater ballroom concept. Recommended!

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Underwater Ballroom Society is a speculative fiction anthology containing stories with a variety of genres, prose styles, and themes but one shared element: each of them includes some sort of underwater ballroom.

My favorite story is "Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis, a prequel to her Harwood Spellbook novellas with Amy as the main protagonist. Two stories unfold during a party in the Harwood's underwater ballroom: that of Amy and Jonathan's engagement and that of Cassandra's first public spellcasting. It's a delight from beginning to end, and I actually enjoyed it more than Snowspelled and Thornbound.

There were a few other gems in this anthology:

"The Queen of Life" by Ysabeau S. Wilce, an ode to the growth and wisdom that comes with age and experience with an eighty-two-year old woman as the hero

"Twelve Sisters" by Y.S. Lee, a sequel to the "Twelve Dancing Princesses" fairy tale in which the sisters try to correct their father's mistake in selecting the next king based on his ability to solve one mystery

"Penhallow Amid Passing Things" by Iona Datt Sharma, a well-written story about two women usually on opposite sides of the law who find themselves united for a common cause (with a bit of romance!)

Full Review on My Website

[Jasmine]

The Queen of Life — Ysabeau S. Wilce
Twelve Sisters — Y.S. Lee
Penhallow Amid Passing Things — Iona Datt Sharma
Mermaids, Singing — Tiffany Trent
A Brand New Thing — Jenny Moss
Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball — Cassandra Khaw
Spellswept — Stephanie Burgis
The River Always Wins — Laura Anne Gilman
The Amethyst Deceiver — Shveta Thakrar
A Spy in the Deep — Patrick Samphire

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book for free from the Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.The nitty-gritty: An unexpectedly delightful and varied collection of stories about a most magical place, the underwater ballroom.

Having enjoyed Stephanie Burgis' adult fantasy novels, I was thrilled to receive a review copy of her new anthology. I had never heard of underwater ballrooms—I mean, really, is that a thing?—but Burgis has based her idea around an actual place, and she's invited other authors to let their imaginations run wild using this fascinating setting. And it worked. I enjoyed this collection so much, and I'm happy to say there isn't a bad story in the bunch, which isn't always the case with anthologies. I've decided to give you a quick blurb on each of the ten stories below, in addition to my thoughts and individual ratings:



The Queen of Life by Ysabeau S. Wilce - 4.5 stars

They said that the Muse of Music taught Robert Mynwar to play, that She made his guitar, the Queen of Life, with her own hands, carved the guitar's body from her own shin bone, strung the neck with strands of her own hair, and that the pearlescent inlay on the fretboard were teeth plucked from her own mouth.

I have never heard of Wilce before, but wow can she write! This wonderfully magical story about a famous guitar player is filled with glorious imagery. It's the story of the infamous Oberon, who decides to steal away rock guitarist Robert Mynwar and take him to Faery. The band's singer, a woman named Sylvanna de Godervya, sets out on a quest to bring him back. I loved the way the author incorporates music into the story, and Sylvanna's journey to rescue her beloved isn't quite the straight path she expected. This was a wonderful story to open up this collection!



Twelve Sisters by Y.S. Lee - 4 stars

Lee takes the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses and asks the question, "What happened next?" to great effect. In her version, the youngest sister remains unmarried, and while all her sisters are mostly happy with husbands and children, one sister is not. The younger sister, Ling, tells the story of how she and her sisters ban together to save Anya from her cruel husband. We discover in this story that the underwater ballroom is the enchanted  place where the sisters snuck off to dance the night away in the original tale. I loved the way the theme was incorporated into this story, and I also loved the underlying theme of spousal abuse and how the sisters dealt with it.



Penhallow Amid Passing Things by Iona Datt Sharma - 4 stars

Sharma's writing is spectacular! I loved the old-fashioned feel to this story about a kingdom that has lost its magic and is trying to find it again. I was immediately caught up in this tale about a woman who unwittingly helps smuggle a source of magic into the kingdom. I would love to read a novel by this author!



Mermaids, Singing by Tiffany Trent - 3.5 stars

I'm a sucker for circus stories, and Trent's tale focuses on the emotional side of magical beings who are enslaved in a circus. A downtrodden group of circus performers, compelled by magic to change forms and perform against their will, plan to escape, aided by a man/hound who has had enough. Like several other stories in this collection, this one deals with a world where true magic has been lost.



A Brand New Thing by Jenny Moss - 4 stars

This was a delightful tale with a Pride and Prejudice sensibility about a girl who is given a secret key to a magical ballroom. Eve is the "odd" sister who keeps her nose in a book at all times and just doesn't fit the norm, while her older and more lovely sister Edith is about to get married. I love the romantic aspect of Eve meeting a dashing young man in an underwater ballroom and discovering that she can join in the dance with a special key. But are her nighttime adventures real—or simply a dream?



Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball by Cassandra Khaw - 4 stars

This was the only flash fiction piece, and although it's barely two pages long, it definitely packed an emotional punch. I have never read anything by Khaw before, but her writing is stunning. I will definitely go back and read her novels after this enticing sample! Had this been longer and more developed, it probably would have received a higher rating.



Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis - 4.5 stars

I absolutely loved this prequel to Burgis' recent novel Snowspelled (which I have not read but you can bet I will now!). Spellswept has the feel of a Regency romance, but this society is completely flipped on its head. In Burgis' world, men are the only ones who are allowed to wield magic, but women run the show in the areas of politics and marriage. A girl named Amy is planning to ask for a man's hand in marriage at the upcoming ball, but it's purely for her political advantage. Meanwhile, the man she secretly loves, along with his young sister, becomes swept up in a magical scandal, one that could have serious repercussions. If you've already read Snowspelled , this delightful short story will fill in some of the blanks of the characters' early lives.



The River Always Wins by Laura Anne Gilman - 5 stars

It's hard to pick a favorite story in this glowing collection, but if I had to it would be this one. Gilman is the author of the recent Silver on the Road (another book I need to read, now that I've experienced the author's writing!), and this nostalgic story of a siren and a fury visiting a punk rock club that is about to shut down was surprisingly wistful in tone. It doesn't hurt that said club is located under a river (the underground ballroom aspect), and Gilman's atmospheric writing brings to life a world filled with magical creatures.

The Amethyst Deceiver by Shveta Thakrar - 3 stars

This was my least favorite story, simply because I just didn't get it. A group of creatures with mushroom-like qualities ban together to rescue one of their own. I loved how imaginative this story was, but perhaps it would have worked better in a longer format.



A Spy in the Deep by Patrick Samphire - 4 stars

Samphire continues his Harriet George series with this closing novella about—you guessed it—Harriet the Spy on Mars! This definitely felt like just one story in Harriet's life, and even though I didn't feel as if I were missing anything from not reading The Dinosaur Hunters first, I can tell this is going to be an ongoing series, which is a good thing! Harriet is in training to be a spy and has just been given her first real mission: to meet with an informant and collect information that could lead the British-Martian Intelligence Service to apprehend the ringleader of a smuggling operation. Her brother-in-law will accompany her on the mission to the Louros Hotel which lies beneath the waters of the Valles Marineris, where Harriet will meet the informant, collect the information and bring it back home. But things don't go as smoothly as Harriet had hoped, and suddenly she finds herself investigating a murder. This story had the cozy feel of a drawing-room mystery, but add in dinosaurs on Mars, robots, clockwork trains and more and you have one crazy and unique story.



All in all, I had a great time with this collection. It was interesting to see how each author incorporated the "underwater ballroom" theme into their tales, and in most cases, I was fascinated to note, the ballrooms themselves were not the main focus of the stories. I will be looking out for more work from several of these authors, who are now new favorites of mine.

Big thanks to Stephanie Burgis for providing a review copy.

 This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy

[Morgan Al-Moor · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I’d like to to thank Ms. Burgis, one of the editors, for kindly providing this book in exchange for an honest review.*

This was a lovely anthology featuring some of my favorite voices, with all of the stories sharing a common theme--an underwater ballroom! Pretty cool, right?
Here are my thoughts on each story:

The Queen of Life - Ysabeau S. Wilce: A story that mixes fairy tales and rock' n' roll. Beneath this fresh premise is a deeper story about how one sees their life and its meaning.

Twelve Sisters - Y. S. Lee's: A retelling of one of the Brothers Grimm's stories, or rather, a "sequel" to it, where after the happy ending we are presented with a failing marriage and an abusive husband. I should mention that the story deals with a pretty sensitive topic, which is domestic violence.

Penhallow Amid Passing Things - Iona Datt Sharma: Loved the worldbuilding here. A fully fleshed-out land of smugglers, officers, and magic. I actually tried to find out if this is a new story for the anthology or part of a longer form that had slipped my radar, because it read totally fresh to me.

Mermaids, Singing - Tiffany Trent: Set in Victorian England, featuring a creature ruthlessly forced to work in a circus. It's a little on the darker spectrum of fantasy, and manages to delve deep into some real life topics.

A Brand New Thing - Jenny Moss: A story of a young bookworm who travels to an underwater ballroom to escape her reality--a very intriguing concept and a lovely protagonist's voice. 

Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball - Cassandra Khaw: This story (and the next one) are my favorites in the anthology. I'm quite familiar with Ms. Khaw's writing style--sharp, lyrical, and poetic. She "wields" the prose with phenomenal skill, and this story is no different.

Spellswept - Stephanie Burgis: My other favorite story, which is a prequel to Ms. Burgis' story Snowspelled. It focuses on the relationship between Amy Standish and Jonathan Harwood, and has the same charm and lightheartedness of its sequel.

The River Always Wins - Laura Anne Gilman: A story that mixes a dance club, memories, and sorrow in a powerful blend. This one is pretty multilayered, and I read it twice to make sure I didn't miss any of the hidden messages.

The Amethyst Deceiver - Shveta Thakrar: A very "energetic" and fun short piece about "mushroom-people"! You have to read this one to understand what I'm talking about, one of the coolest concepts I've come across!

A Spy in the Deep - Patrick Samphire: This story is the longest, but is very tightly woven that I didn't actually feel its length at all. It's more on the sci-fi side, and features a heroine training to be a spy for the "British-Martian Intelligence". I loved the concept a lot, and it compelled me to go look for more of Mr. Samphire's work.

This book is full of fresh concepts and some of the best writing you can come across. A definite recommendation.

[Sara Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

DISCLOSURE: I was given a ebook to read in order to review.

This was a REALLY COOL anthology and I highly recommend it.
The writing was engaging and exciting throughout and it was a real delight, even the stories that I didn't love I still read because they were well-written.

THIS IS A GREAT COLLECTION!!

My favorite story of the collection was "The Queen of Life," by Ysabeau S. Wilce, it reminded me of one of my favorite books, ECSTASIA by Francesca Lia Block (so if you loved that story and want a whole novel in that vein, please check out that book!)

I also loved "The River Always Winds" by Laura Anne Gilman. I too mourn the loss of SeaBee's (or CBGB in this world...)

"Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball" by Cassandra Khaw was a delicious snippet that reminded me of the very best of Cat Valente.

"Penhallow Amid Passing Things" by Iona Datt Sharma was lovely and poignant, if a bit confusing.

"Twelve Sisters" by Y.S. Lee was a great follow-up to the fairy tale we all know.

A few of the issues I had:
1. While the cast was wonderfully diverse (huzzah!!) almost all of the stories took place in England or an English proxy. That got a little predictable and tiresome for me.

2. Nearly all the stories feature a literal ballroom under the literal water and they were all almost exactly the same, architecturally. I know this is the "Underwater Ballroom Society" but I was hoping for some more variation on that theme. ("The Queen of Life" and "The River Always Wins" and "Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball" did not feature this and were my favorite stories)

3. Two of the stories were parts of larger novels/story arcs and I liked these the least. They were the longest in the collection and referred to events and characters outside the scope of the narrative.

4.5/5 Better and more consistent than most anthologies, but you have to really like water and domed ballrooms under it.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of the book for an honest review. My review (albeit late) is below. You can also read it on my blog Once Upon A Book Blog(ger).
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A collection of stories by many fabulous and talented authors, The Underwater Ballroom Society focuses on one unifying theme: an underwater ballroom. From the dancing princesses, a martian female detective/spy, the fairy realm (in combination with some rock and roll, of course), to a creepy circus, you will find many fun and satisfying short reads. They will make you laugh, they will make you contemplative, and they will make you want to visit an underwater ballroom of your own.

What sparked my interest in the book was a few things. First, I loved reading the series of books by two of the authors listed, namely Stephanie Burgis (Kat Incorrigible, The Dragon With a Chocolate Heart, Snowspelled) and Y.S. Lee (The Agency Series). Second, how romantic and mysterious would plots be if they were to each feature an underwater ballroom? The stories are a must for those who love fantasy, mystery, romance, and adventure. I highly enjoyed reading The Underwater Ballroom Society and have now found new authors to enjoy!

The Underwater Ballroom Society takes its name from the real life story of the Witley Park "underwater ballroom" (you can read more on this via Atlas Obscura here). Through a conversation between authors Tiffany Trent and Stephanie Burgis, they sparked an idea to create a collection of stories featuring an underwater ballroom. More authors joined in the conversation, each wanting to take part in such an endeavor, thus creating the masterpiece that is now available for your reading pleasure.

In all, it was a great read that I could break into pieces due to the short story format, and now I have new authors and books to look into!

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is a collection of wonderful stories – all with a nod to an underwater ballroom. I was lucky enough to be given an ARC in exchange for an honest review, and I can truthfully say that I absolutely adore this collection!

The first story, Ysabeau S. Wilce’s “The Queen of Life” is great fun; a mix of fairy tales and myths, and rock’n’roll! loved the twists and turns of this, and it’s got a really upbeat vibe. Y.S. Lee’s “Twelve Sisters” is a wonderful take on what happens next after the soldier solves the mystery of the princess’ worn-out shoes and midnight dancing…and also provides a haunting woven-in story that gives more depth to the fairytale, and shows us more of the princesses. Iona Datt Sharma’s “Penhallow Amid Passing Things” involves smugglers, Revenue inspectors, magic, illicit goods, adventure…I loved the relationships and characters woven into this, and I’d love to see more of the wider world in a longer story even though this story itself is an excellent read in its own right!

Tiffany Trent’s “Mermaids, Singing” puts us into Victorian England, with mudlarks on the banks of the Thames, a freakshow circus with real creatures…and a captured shapeshifter with no memories and a chance to escape. The story’s very well-written and the period comes through nicely, but I thought the motivations could have been laid out a bit more clearly; I did struggle to understand why some of the characters were acting as they did, but loved the weaving of Victorian London into the strangeness of another world. Jenny Moss’ “A Brand New Thing” is a change of tone again, with a sweet, fairy-tale like quality; a girl who loves to read, who doesn’t quite fit in, and who is given a key to a dream world…and Cassandra Khaw’s “Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball” was my favourite; short, sweet, lyrical and evocative, mixing fairytale and darker myths.

“Spellswept” by Stephanie Burgis is an even better read if you’ve read her novel “Snowspelled”, but it’s a great short! It’s Regency with magic, and a family who dare to challenge the way things are done – for the best reasons. Laura Anne Gilman’s “The River Always Wins” is a mix of grunge, punk, anger, dance, memories, with a nice dash of weird thrown in: I love how she’s conjured up the emotions, the mix of anger and no-fucks with the sinking feeling of growing up, becoming boring, until everything’s stirred up again…Shveta Thakrar’s “The Amethyst Deceiver” was the one sour note for me; the story is excellent and well-written and I loved the setting (1920’s vibe with added weird!) but I didn’t entirely understand the point of the plot & events; while the story itself makes sense, I felt the character motivations were harder to understand. It certainly doesn’t detract from the read though! And the final story, Patrick Samphire’s “A Spy in the Deep” is a turn-of-the-century adventuring plus Martian sci-fi mix; a new spy-in-training is given a tough assignment, with a couple of problems thrown into the mix including a fellow-trainee who doesn’t like her, a bumbling brother-in-law, and an unfortunately timed murder…

The whole collection is a wonderful, changeable mix of genres, storytelling styles, characters and vibes; I love the central thread of the underwater ballroom – never overtly stressed but always present – and how every author has turned that into something with such a different tone and place. The anthology is wonderful, and well worth a read!

[Debbie is on Storygraph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong collection of short stories, all of which include an underwater ballroom. Other than that connection, each is pretty unique and they all feel different too. Some are obviously weaker than others, but I finished them all and never felt like that I was rushing through one just to get it done with.

My favorites of the lot were:
- "Twelve Sisters" by Y.S. Lee - a story based on the Twelve Dancing Princesses, only what happens after the story ends.
- "Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis - it helped that I had read the rest of the Harwood Spellbook series, so I came into it already invested in the characters and the world here. It's Amy being terrifyingly competent and beginning to eke out the new paths that she and the rest of the Harwoods blaze onto.
- "Mermaids, Singing" by Tiffany Trent - I want this to be expanded into a full novel, stat. There's so much world building that we didn't see and is only implied, and I am greedy and want more.
- "A Spy in the Deep" by Patrick Samphire - This is the second in a series of Harriet George, spy on Mars during the Napoleonic Wars. There's apparently dinosaurs on Mars? But her simple assignment turns out to be anything but. It's utterly delightful. This reminds me a lot of Carrie Vaughn's Marlowe and Harry short stories. I'll definitely be checking out the first story.

[SR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really wonderful collection of stories, varying from tone poems of a sort (Cassandra Khaw's "Four Revelations...") to heists (Shveta Thakrar's "The Amethyst Deceiver") to clubbing gone magical (Ysabeau S. Wilce's and Laura Anne Gilman's contributions) to post-fairy tales (Y.S. Lee's "Twelve Sisters") to historical and alternate-universe historical fiction with a flair for the fantastic (stories by Iona Datt Sharma, Jenny Moss, Tiffany Trent). I loved all of the stories and have a lot of interest in the last novella's series by Patrick Samphire.

The anthology first caught my eye because it holds the prequel to the Harwood Spellbook series by Stephanie Burgis, which I LOVE. The prequel is just as lovely as the other novellas.

If you enjoy steampunk, clockpunk, punk punk, adventures, fairytales, fairies of any variety, folklore, gorgeous writing, and sweet romances (including at least one between women), please consider this anthology!

[Meenoo]

I was delighted to receive an ARC of The Underwater Ballroom Society. I enjoyed this unique collection of short stories around the underwater theme very much. The stories are fun and imaginative and I enjoyed reading each one, which is rare for a collection of short stories. If I absolutely had to choose favorites, I would choose:

Y.S. Lee's "Twelve Sisters"--what happens after the end of The Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale
Shveta Thakrar's "The Amethyst Deceiver"--a delightful heist story involving a ring of spies who possess magical mushroom powers!
Patrick Samphire's "A Spy in the Deep"--a young spy in Regency Mars!

However, each story has its own magic, and you will not be disappointed in this book!

[AK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all collections of short stories, there were some I loved and some I didn’t think worked. With fantasy, the short story is an especially difficult structure to work within due to the necessary world building. I did enjoy the variety of stories that arose from the titular inspiration... lots of fae and fairytale aspects, with a dash of steampunk and some magic gone awry. All in all a good time.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely excellent collection of short stories, all featuring an underwater ballroom. I particularly loved Stephanie Burgis' prequel to her novel 'Snowspelled': 'Spellswept' features Amy and Jonathan getting together, and sees Cassandra Harwood's (the protagonist of 'Snowspelled') first public demonstration of her magical powers; Y S Lee's 'Twelve Sisters', a sequel to the Grimms' fairytale 'Twelve Dancing Princesses'; Tiffany Trent's 'Mermaids, Singing'; Shveta Thakrar's 'The Amethyst Deceiver', which features people with mycelial-based 'superpowers' (a particularly timely tale for me, personally, following the recent series of Star Trek: Discovery!); and Iona Datt Sharma's 'Penhallow Amid Passing Things'.

Honestly, this anthology is an excellent collection of stories and well worth your time.

I received an e-ARC of this book from one of the editors in exchange for an honest review.

[Llinos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the concept of this anthology as soon as I heard it - fantasy and science fiction stories that feature an underwater ballroom - and the final product was if anything even more satisfying and entertaining than I had expected. The variety of subgenres, styles and moods was impressive - I got so absorbed in the world of each story that often I was even surprised when the underwater ballroom showed up, but its inclusion always ended up feeling essential. Particular favourites include Iona Datt Sharma’s Penhallow Amid Passing Things, Y.S. Lee’s Twelve Sisters, Ysabeau S. Wilce’s The Queen of Life and Stephanie Burgis’s Spellswept, but honestly every story in the bunch was smart and compelling, and I wasn’t bored for a second. A delightful experience all round!

[Ceillie Simkiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my full review here!

[Tsana Dolichva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Underwater Ballroom Society edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent is a themed novella anthology in which every story features some sort of underwater ballroom. It might sound like an oddly specific idea to pin an anthology on, but it works well, with the wide variety of underwater ballrooms dreamt up by the authors.

This is a long book and it took me a while to get through it (with a few minor breaks). For all that it contains only ten stories, most of them are quite long (hence novella anthology) and the book is quite weighty overall. The stories take us from fairyland, to steampunk Mars with a variety of secondary and primary world fantasies in between.

Of course, I enjoyed some stories more than others, for all that the anthology as a whole was of high quality. I started listing my favourite stories, just now, and stopped when I realised that list would be more than half the book. You can certainly get the gist from my reviews of individual stories below. By the way, if you've been following my blog, you'll have seen some of those reviews before, but the last few have not appeared before, so don't accidentally skip over them.

This was a fun read and I enjoyed being introduced to several new authors whose other work I am now interested in tracking down. If the idea of underwater ballrooms intrigues you, this is absolutely the book you should be reading. If you are ambivalent about underwater ballrooms (as I admit I was) then this is still an excellent anthology of fantastical tales.

~

The Queen of Life by Ysabeau S Wilce
A novella about rockstars and fairyland, death and fame. I found the opening a little too slow, as it took a while to set the scene and establish sufficient backstory so that what felt like the “real” story could start. When that came, it was an interesting journey into fairyland filled with deception, glamour and a corgi steed (sort of). I enjoyed the second half of it more than the first.

Twelve Sisters by Y S Lee
I like subverted fairytales and sequels to fairytales, as this one is. After the events in The Twelve Dancing Princesses (which I haven’t read and that made no difference to my enjoyment of this story), the youngest princess endeavours to save her oldest sister from an abusive relationship and also, as their father lies on his deathbed, to save the country from a malicious king. A great read.

Penhallow Amid Passing Things by Iona Datt Sharma
This story took a little bit to get into its stride, but I enjoyed it once it did. Smuggling, a brief lesbian romance, and fading magic are the elements that make up this story. The world was well constructed, for all that we only saw a small part of it. I find myself wondering whether there are other stories set there.

Mermaids, Singing by Tiffany Trent
I really enjoyed this novella. It’s set in Victorian London and follows a weredog from another world and a half-Chinese British girl from this one. The depth of world building is excellent and the story balances the weird fantasy elements with the more mundane well.

A Brand New Thing by Jenny Moss
A story set in the late 1920s about a neuroatypical girl, her disapproving family, books and something magical. I really enjoyed it and was delighted by the book references and metaphors. I was also pleased with the happy ending.

Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball by Cassandra Khaw
Not a novella; actually a fairly short story. Much shorter than I expected. But on the other hand, about the level of surreal that I’ve come to expect from Cassandra Khaw. The title pretty much says it all.

Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis
This novella is one of the longer stories included in The Underwater Ballroom Society and is a prequel to Snowspelled, which I read as an individual volume last year. It’s set in a world where politics are run by women and men — as the more emotional sex — are left to deal with learning and using magic. My first impression of this world was that it wasn’t sufficiently gender-flipped enough, particularly with women still wearing dresses. However, in Spellswept we see more clearly that the balance in society is quite delicate and men have more power that it might seem on the surface (and certainly more than most women in the real-world Regency period did). Anyway, I enjoyed this novella a lot and found the story and continued exploration of the characters delightful. Spellswept and Snowspelled both stand alone and can be read in either order. I enjoyed knowing what would happen to some of the characters in the future (and hence some of what had to happen in Spellswept) but that certainly wasn’t a requirement for enjoyment.

The River Always Wins by Laura Anne Gilman
An underwater club dance floor more than a ballroom per se. Humanoid supernatural creatures going to the club of their youth one last time on its final opening night. It didn’t really work for me from the start and certainly the revelation at the climax didn’t pack enough punch, for all that the lead up was done well.

The Amethyst Deceiver by Shveta Thakrar
A secondary world, Victorian-flavoured story, featuring racism, magic fungus and something like a heist. I liked it, particularly the protagonist and the concept.

A Spy in the Deep by Patrick Samphire
This novella was clearly a sequel to something, but, aside from a few reminders of a past adventure (which tipped me off), stood alone quite well. The setting was a steampunk Mars during distant Napoleonic wars. If you think that sounds like something I’d hate because it’s so implausible, fear not the setting was sufficiently divorced from reality to amuse me rather than annoy. (There’s really no other way to put an underwater ballroom on Mars.)
The protagonist, Harriet, is a member of British Mars Intelligence and in this story has been set her final practical exam. She is to retrieve a package under cover of a distant and socially significant ball. Her mission is complicated by the presence of her policeman brother in law and a murder. It was an enjoyable read and has made me curious about the other books/stories with the same setting. There is a prequel about Harriet and apparently a few other stories about other characters with the same steampunk Martian setting.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.

[Maddalena · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Stephanie Burgis contacted me to propose I read and review this collection of short stories from various authors, I was quite intrigued: I had enjoyed both her two historical fantasy novels (Masks and Shadows and Congress of Secrets) and her novella Snowspelled, with its alternate version of Regency England where magic is as common as teapots, so that I was fairly certain I would appreciate these short works centered on the shared theme of an underwater ballroom.

The location itself would have been enticement enough as a narrative lynchpin, but once I learned from the preface that an underwater ballroom does indeed exist as the remnant of a once-lavish estate, my curiosity did skyrocket: I have by now learned that Ms. Burgis loves to employ true historical details as her writing’s cornerstones, and the fact that she proposed the same core theme to other writers, to do as they pleased within their stories, made for a potentially fascinating journey. And that’s what this collection was, indeed.

Each story is wildly different, ranging from steampunk fantasy to what I labelled as “fairy stories for grown-ups”, but each of them features the famous underwater ballroom in one way or another, and the overall effect is a delightful one. Now, if it were only remotely possible to experience at least one of these amazing ballrooms, that would be nothing short of perfect…

In "The Queen of Life" by Ysabeau S. Wilce, we see the unusual juxtaposition of the fae world with our own reality, exploring the concepts of music and immortality, and of the meaninglessness of a long life devoid of the rich pleasures we can only find in the mortal sphere.

"Twelve Sisters" by Y. S. Lee is what made me think of the definition of 'fairy stories for adults': in fairy tales, once the hero does the deed and wins the princess’ hand, the focus fades into the usual ‘happy ever after’, while here we see how that same ever after could be anything but happy, and the hero… well, anything but heroic. It’s one of the more poignant offerings of the anthology, and the one that was able to better blend fantasy with some modern harsh reality.

"Penhallow Amidst Passing Things" by Iona Datt Sharma is a story about smugglers and law enforcers in a very peculiar 18th century setting, one where both roles are given to quite fascinating female characters. Seriously, I would not mind a full novel describing this kind of world in deeper detail…

"Mermaids, Singing" by Tiffany Trent is the story from Ms. Burgis’ co-editor, a dark fairy tale in which a mistreated hound, forced to perform in a cruel circus, discovers the truth about its true nature and that of its fellow prisoners, while at the same time offering a look into 19th century London and an aspect of its life that comes from history: clearly Ms. Trent shares her co-editor’s penchant for inserting real-life details into stories, which affords some more depth to the tale.

"A Brand New Thing" by Jenny Moss will no doubt appeal to all book lovers, since it focuses on a young woman from the early years of the 20th century, who prefers to lose herself in the stories she reads rather than facing a somewhat dreary reality. Still, fiction can be satisfying only to a certain extent…

"Four Revelations from the Rusalka's Ball", by Cassandra Khaw is probably the weirdest, darkest offering of the whole collection, one I’m somewhat still trying to recover from, and wrap my mind around. Which means it was quite effective.

"Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis takes us back to the author’s alternate England – or rather Angland – a country where men wield magic and women dictate politics, a wonderful topsy-turvy look into a staid society where gender roles are reversed in so many delightful ways. If you wondered, while reading Snowspelled, about the tantalizing hints given about Jonathan Harwood and his wife Amy, here you will find all the answers you wanted, besides getting a glimpse into main character Cassandra and her beginnings as a magic-wielding female, the true scandal of the times.

Laura Ann Gilman is an author that’s been long on my radar, so I welcomed the opportunity to sample her writing in this anthology: her "The River Always Wins" is a bizarre, intriguing story about the strange friendship between a Siren and an Erinyes, or Fury, and of a night spent in their old haunt of a peculiar nightclub, where old, buried memories will surface again with dramatic intensity.

"The Amethyst Deceiver" by Shveta Thakrar is probably one of the strangest stories I remember reading, and I’m still trying to come to terms with her concept of… well… mushroom people. Weirdness can indeed take so many shapes where creativity is involved!

And last but not least, "A Spy in the Deep" by Patrick Samphire takes us to a steampunk version of Mars, colonized by the British Empire and rife with dastardly plots and untold secrets. The flavor of this story reminded me somehow of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate, but with a more serious bent to it and a charming heroine I would like to encounter again in other stories – or a full-fledged novel.

Short stories can be tricky creatures, and I know several of my fellow bloggers are quite wary of them because they don't always offer the same involvement as a book, but the fact that these particular stories strive to cater to our sense of wonder, to our desire for the magical, the uncanny, the bizarre, makes them perfect even for the most contrary of book lovers. Try them out and take a spin in the underwater ballroom, you never know what might be waiting for you there…

Originally posted HERE and HERE

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review appeared first on Narratess.com

The stories in The Underwater Ballroom Society have one thing in common: underwater ballrooms. Writers Tiffany Trent and Stephanie Burgis thought the concept of an underwater ballroom was a great idea for an anthology. Soon enough they found other writers who joined in.

I laughed, I cried, I loved and was terrified. This anthology plays with your emotions like a faerie plays with a fair maiden's heart. Each ballroom has its own story, own origin, and use. The water is either real, imaged, or long gone. But each one of these stories is a fairy tale in its own right. They're all magical and worth reading.

The anthology as a whole receives five stars. The collection of all the different stories, genres and authors is excellent. Each story adds its own flavour to the mix. Take your time exploring each ballroom. They deserve it.

The Queen of Life - Ysabeau S. Wilce

The Queen of Life starts by describing the fame of the Love's Devotion band and it immediately reminded me of Within Temptation, a Dutch metal band. Their first album was definitely inspired by faeries. It wouldn't surprise me if Oberon wanted to kidnap them for his court as well. I added their song 'Ice Queen' below, the song that I had to think off while reading this story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6c85...

The story is enchanting, and not just because Sylvanna is travelling to the Fae. She faces Death with confidence in his defeat and her precious corgi leads her into the Dark Realm so she's not under a glamour when she wishes for Robert's release. It reads like a classic fairy tale and is definitely enjoyable.

Twelve Sisters - Y. S. Lee

Lee has taken a faerie tale and wrote what comes after. This time it's not the happy ending, although it's ending is happier than the beginning. It reminded me that the folk tales most fairy tales are based upon weren't the Disney versions we see now. They involved violence in many ways, torture, abuse. Love rarely was part of the story. I love what she did in this follow-up.

Penhallow Amid Passing Things - Iona Datt Sharma

I have to admit that my attention was divided when I read this one. It's less fairy tale like than the others, more adventure style. Smugglers working in deep, elaborate tunnels to make sure the wares stay hidden. And one of those tunnels leads to an old underwater ballroom. It didn't help it felt complicated to me. There were references to later and earlier and it made me feel that I missed things. The story itself was interesting and I now wonder how the story continues.

Mermaids, Singing - Tiffany Trent

I've read some really good fantasy books centred around the circus and if this was a complete novel, I'd add it to the list. The story is sweet and painful at the same time. Trent has created two interesting worlds and connected them in an original way. I wish I could read more about Abby's adventures in Scientia.

A Brand New Thing - Jenny Moss

The best stories are the ones that break the mundane. Why should you be like everybody else while you're such an interesting person? Eve is a girl to my heart. She's odd, by society's standards, but she follows her heart and there is where she finds love. My heart fluttered reading this.

Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball - Cassandra Khaw

If it was up to me, I would never attend the Rusalka Ball. Even if there's the promise of heaven, my life isn't worth it. This story is only a couple of pages long, but it's long enough to create a vivid picture of a Rusalka Ball, even if you don't want to see what happens there. That's magic. Khaw knows how to paint a masterpiece inside your mind with a limited amount of words.

Spellswept - Stephanie Burgis

Stephanie Burgis writes the stories that I want to read and Spellswept is another perfect example. I had read Snowspelled before so I familiar with the characters of Amy, Cassandra and Johnathan, but Spellswept happens before Snowspelled. It doesn't matter in what order you read them, but once you've read one, you'll want to read the other.

Amy takes the stage now and Burgis has done a great job at introducing new characters to highlight the relationships between the main cast. I loved meeting Miranda, Amy's mentor and mother of Cassandra and Johnathan. The end had me in tears. It was heartfelt, beautiful and a perfect way to end a magical evening.

The River Always Wins - Laura Anne Gilman

Not your classical ballroom, but an underwater club, filled with mythical creatures, trying to have fun on the last evening before the club is closed down. There's an interesting dynamic between the main characters and the others. You can clearly see the relationships between the different races. It's elegantly written, while the story itself is as punk as the public of the club.

The Amethyst Deceiver - Shveta Thakrar

When you think you know everything, but there's still something your missing. The theme of deception was well executed. And the reason why the deception was necessary was touching and a real twist.

What I like most about this story, is the Asian touch. I still want to see more, so I'm excited to read more by Thakrar in the up-coming anthology A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh. That anthology focuses completely on Asian/East-Asian folklore. If you liked this anthology, you will probably like that one as well.

A Spy in the Deep - Patrick Samphire

After getting to know the setting (Regency Britain on Mars - heck, count me in), Samphire's story held me in its grip. Harriet George is an interesting girl and she's taken on an interesting mission. It reminded me of the Agatha Christie stories I read and watched long ago. A dozen witnesses in one room, with one murderer in the middle. A classic whodunnit. I'll be sure to read the other Harriet George stories in the future.

[Res · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a surprising number of different ways to write a story about an underwater ballroom.

I really enjoyed Iona Datt Sharma's "Penhallow Amid Shining Things," a lovely and emotionally complex story that puts a smuggler and a revenue officer in a tentative temporary alliance.

Also worth reading: Y.S. Lee's "Twelve Sisters" (a follow-up to the Twelve Dancing Princesses tale) and Isabeau Wilce's "The Queen of Life" and Laura Ann Gilman's "The River Always Wins," two different kinds of rock 'n' roll fairy tales.

[Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have been so excited about this anthology ever since I first heard about it, and it doesn’t fail to meet my expectations. Whilst I didn’t love absolutely every story included - “The Queen of Life” by Ysabeau S. Wilce left me feeling rather disturbed, though I can’t put my finger on why - the collection as a whole is a multitude of marvellous worlds, all containing an underwater ballroom (or other room used for dancing). I will now give a short review of each story, hopefully not giving too much away.

Ysabeau S. Wilce, “The Queen of Life”: This one left me feeling really unsettled, though I’m not sure why. Think fae taking musicians, other musician rescuing - or are they?

Y.S. Lee, “Twelve Sisters”: A slightly dark follow on from the story about 12 princesses who mysteriously dance the night away. A great finishing of the story for those who were disturbed by it.

Iona Datt Sharma, “Penhallow Amid Passing Things”: This was a lovely little story that I really enjoyed, though I felt like a lot of things weren’t explained as much as I’d like - but if they had been it would have been a whole novel. A nice little ships passing in the night romance, only with magic and an underwater ballroom - obviously!

Tiffany Trent, “Mermaids, Singing”: I loved this story, and will be finding a way to read more from this author. Magical adventure involving fae with a little romance thrown in. I can’t think of a way to describe it better without giving plot points away.

Jenny Moss, “A Brand New Thing”: I really enjoyed this story too. A lovely tale about an unusual girl finding her independence, with a little romance too. This is another one I’d really have liked to have a full novel version of.

Cassandra Khaw, “Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball”: More of an interlude than a story, it wasn’t particularly my kind of thing, but I’m sure lots of people will enjoy it.

Stephanie Burgis, “Spellswept”: This one is the best, and the reason I bought the anthology. I saved reading it until last, and it was wonderful. It is the prequel to Snowspelled, and I was expecting great things from it, and it delivered in spades. It was wonderful to see Cassandra go from hiding her gift to starting to take charge of her destiny, and to see Amy grow into the lovely, supportive and strong character she is in Snowspelled. It actually made me cry happy tears, and it’s not often that happens. Exactly my kind of story.

Laura Anne Gilman, “The River Always Wins”: This wasn’t my favourite, a bit too unhappy for my personal taste, but still a great story.

Shveta Thakrar, “The Amethyst Deceiver”: A strange story about a type of fantastical being I’ve not come across in all my reading. It drew me in though, and I rather enjoyed it in the end.

Patrick Samphire, “A Spy in the Deep”: By far the longest tale in this collection, this is sci-fi, rather than fantasy. I don’t normally read sci-fi, but I rather enjoyed this spy adventure set on Mars.

Overall, a great romp through a range of genres and storytelling styles, all centred on the magical concept of an underwater ballroom. Though you’d never catch me in one (that’s just asking for trouble), I greatly enjoyed visiting them in my imagination. As a bonus, I’ve also discovered some new authors to explore.

[Rene Sears · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is packed full of stories that share one conceit: that they involve an underwater ballroom. The approaches are wildly different, and all enjoyable. I started to list standouts, but really, all of them are well worth reading.

"The Queen of Life" by Ysabeau S Wilce is a wild ride, about a guitarist in a rock band who was taken to Faery, and what happens to his bandmates over time. Bonus points for corgi guides to Faery.

"Twelve Sisters" by Y. S. Lee is a take on the Twelve Dancing Princesses--what happens if the happy ever after to a fairy tale isn't so happy? This was a bittersweet story with a very satisfying ending.

"Penhallow Amidst Passing Things" by Iona Datt Sharma features a smuggler and a revenuer working together when a king's man needs help with a very dubious package. The voice here is wonderful & I loved the secondary characters as well.

In "Mermaids, Singing" by Tiffany Trent, an amnesiac werewolf escapes a cruel carnival and tries to free his fellows. I really enjoyed this one.

"A Brand New Thing" by Jenny Moss sees a girl who escapes into books find perhaps more of an escape than she was looking for.

Cassandra Khaw's "Four Revelations from the Rusalka's Ball" is a very short story, but no less of a punch to the gut for its length.

"Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis returns to the world of Snowspelled (though not timeline-returns; this is a prequel novelette/novella), an alternate England where gentlemen pursue magic while ladies run politics. Amy Standish is on her way to a brilliant political career lined up, under her mentor, Miranda Harwood. The only problem is Miranda's son Jonathan--he won't study magic, so he could never be a good politician's husband. But on the night of the Spring Equinox ball, and Amy's political debut, many secrets come to the surface. This is a funny & delightful story. It certainly stands alone, but Snowspelled is well worth reading as well.

In Laura Anne Gilman's "The River Always Wins," a siren returns to the punk club where she and her friend, a Fury, danced away their youth, and in the process, she confronts old truths. I didn't predict the end, and it was satisfying.

"The Amethyst Deceiver" by Shveta Thakrar is a delightful romp about betrayal, forgiveness, and mycology. (The titular Deceiver is a kind of mushroom and also a superhero of sorts--the Mycologists area group of people who all have mushroom-inspired powers.)

"A Spy in the Deep" by Patrick Samphire returns to Harriet George and the world of Regency Mars. I loved Harriet in The Dinosaur Hunters, and I loved her here, a little older and further on in her chosen career of spy. She's on her first solo mission, and has to solve the mystery of a murder at an underwater hotel, without revealing that's she's on a mission to her brother or anyone else. Harriet's determination and humor drive this story.

All in all, a very fun collection with many different approaches and moods.

[Diane]

Anthology in progress — I haven't decided which/ how many of the stories I'm going to read right now. So far, the editing / proofreading is excellent, but the tone quite varied.

1) The Queen of Life,
by Ysabeau S. Wilce —
2.9 stars or so: 4 for the writing, but 2.25 for my taste in characters/ mood/ plot.

A wildly imaginative, well-written world (containing a couple words I'm not sure whether they're merely too obscure for my own large vocabulary and the built-in dictionary, or made up by the author), but a rather dark take on Faery. Of course, rock stardom and decadence isn't my favorite milieu, either.
I have to confess, at first I thought one character was a be-careful-what-you-wish-for crossroads demon, but that's not where the story was heading.
There wasn't really anyone to like or root for, though, not even the corgi (since I can't see why he's so happy to be in the faery realm). The lead has a clever plan, but her reasons begin with anger, heartbreak, and a misapprehension, and end not even that admirable.
This long(?) short story doesn't have its own entry on Goodreads, so I'm also not sure exactly how many pages it is.

2) Twelve Sisters,
by Y.S. Lee
2.5: well-written, but dark again.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses has never been a favorite of mine, so I don't mind that this author chose to point out how the king their father handed his eldest daughter off to an unappealing stranger against her will. Here, that soldier is not just ambitiously greedy, but sadistically cruel: a horrible husband and a man who should never be made king... so the youngest sister (unmarried, her now-dying father's caregiver) recruits the rest to bring about his downfall.
Domestic abuse is a serious topic, handled here subtly and well, but again I couldn't really feel engaged by the rather ruthless protagonists. I was interested to see the world where they danced explained as a sort of virtual reality, designed by their wishes and dreams, not a portal to some fairy realm; that makes more sense to me, and here emphasizes that they had power, and were stripped of it.

7) Spellswept
(the Harwood Spellbook #0.5),
by Stephanie Burgis —
4.5 stars, the story that led me to this anthology. I read it first, and it lived up to my hopes.

A happy-ending alt-Regency fantasy-romance, it takes a typical Regency trope (marriage of convenience) and gives it a clever gender-swapped twist. This prequel is set when the heroine of Snowspelled is just 13, and I love the exciting way Cassandra's abilities have to be revealed. I also appreciate having more than one capable female center-stage, and a love-interest/ brother/ son who cares about and respects them all.
See my full review for more.
Also available as a single, with a lovely cover; 75 pages.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get an advanced reader copy of this book and while I knew the works of Stephanie Burgis, which was how I heard about it, I went into the book largely blind about what to expect except that there would be ballrooms underwater involved. It sounded like an intriguing concept but one that could potentially limit the kinds of stories told. As with just about every short story collection my level of engagement with the stories was varied but on the whole I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of stories within and their quality.

Stories is perhaps not a strictly accurate term of everything included in this anthology although the closest generalised term I can think of. There are seven entries that are fairly classic short stories, two novellas, and what I would probably classify as a prose poem for a total of ten entries all fitting roughly into the fantasy genre plus an introduction discussing the concept and creation of the book and a short afterword. As a whole, the collection manages to establish a certain vibe with the stories although they can be quite tonally different and they are well placed around each other to create a degree of flow that helps with the disruption of reading numerous short works in a row. Additionally all the stories in this collection are competently written, there isn't any story that stands out in terms of language as awkward or badly written. But inevitably any reader is going to have their favourite plot lines and characters that they particularly engaged with. Personally looking at pure statistics I liked five stories (thankfully including the two novellas), thought three were fine, and didn't particularly like two.

With a theme as niche as an underwater ballroom examining the way the different stories integrated the idea is almost as interesting as which ones had the strongest plots and characters independent of the concept. I found that some of the stories had more trouble integrating this component into their storyline than others. For some stories that underwater ballroom felt integral and irreplaceable to the plot while other stories felt more like it was just a conveniently intriguing set piece to a story that didn't really require it. Interestingly in this way I felt that some that pushed the definition of what an underwater ballroom could strictly be considered actually worked better in integrating the idea because what was presented seemed to fit more naturally into the setting. 'Penhallow Amid Passing Things' by Iona Datt Sharma did a fantastic job of using its non-traditional ballroom to represent a lost past slowly being eroded by the sea and really added to the story's wistful but still ultimately hopeful tone. I also enjoyed the way 'Twelve Sisters' by Y. S. Lee seamlessly integrated an underwater ballroom into the story of 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses' in a way that made sense and added to the way magic was presented within the story's world. On the other side more traditional underwater ballrooms were integral into the way the plot played out in 'Spellswept' by Stephanie Burgis and 'A Spy in the Deep' by Patrick Samphire while 'Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball' by Cassandra Khaw felt like an atmospheric, creepy exploration of what kind of culture and environment might naturally produce underwater haunts. I did find that some of the ballrooms could blur together with each other when there weren't strong distinguishing factors to make them stick in my mind, however.

As to the plot and characters there was plenty of variation. I found the larger than life language and characters in 'The Queen of Life' contrasted, if somewhat extremely, with a plotline that was largely concerned with the benefits of growth through life and experience. By contrast, Jenny Moss' 'A Brand New Thing' had an endearing, non-neurotypical heroine trying to figure out where she fits into the world when her ability to see the dreamy wonder of things is repudiated by a family is unable or unwilling to really appreciate or understand it. In 'Spellswept' the plotline is similarly concerned with characters trying to break out of the established niches of their society and find what will make them happy and fulfilled – presented in a touchingly human and hopeful manner. The conflict of the heroines of 'Penhallow Amid Passing Things' feels organic and touching, making an interesting reflection of the conflicting forces within the landscape they inhabit. Shveta Thakrar's 'The Amythest Deceiver' presented a unique idea of magic and an intriguing heroine but felt almost rushed in the short time frame, making you wonder about all the parts of the story you weren't told. 'A Spy in the Deep' presented a heroine with similar drive and ambition but the longer story allowed for a fuller development of a mystery plot and the heroine's perceptions. However, some stories I didn't necessarily engage with the protagonists or fully understand the meaning of the plot although none were a difficult read.

On the whole I enjoyed this short story collection, particularly a few personal stand outs: Iona Datt Sharma's 'Penhallow Amid Passing Things', Stephanie Burgis' 'Spellswept', and Patrick Samphire's 'A Spy in the Deep'. However, I confess that the concept of an underwater ballroom lost novelty over the course of the book, leading to the loss of a hand up for the stories on the basis of uniqueness and leaving them to ride on the overall quality of the execution of their ideas. On the whole I think most succeeded pretty well even if there were a few that didn't engage me. I'm happy that I read this book, if simply to get to the really good stories, and I think most people who like the fantasy genre would have at least one or two in this collection they would find notable. The concept of an underwater ballroom might not be as original at the end of the collection as it was at the beginning but these stories have definitely convinced me I'd like to dance in one.

[Xanthe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was delighted to receive an advance review copy of The Underwater Ballroom Society edited by an author whose work I’ve plowed through in the past year, Stephanie Burgis, and including short stories on the theme by a few favorite authors a few I’ve been looking forward to reading. I have to confess up front that I really struggle with short story collections; I read one story, and then I have to put the whole collection down to let that one story sort of swim around in my head for a little while. Oftentimes, I don’t pick up the collection again, and it’s not the collection’s fault. This is my long way of saying that I read The Underwater Ballroom Society very sloooooowly and deliberately, determined to give each story its fair attention and remember to pick it up again to continue to the next.

And I’m so glad that I did. Aside from Stephanie Burgis, who edited the collection and whose novella was looking forward to reading (a prequel to her magical alt-history Snowspelled, I was so glad to see stories from two authors whose work I’ve loved but who I haven’t read anything from in a while: Y. S. Lee author of one of my favorite historical spy series, The Agency, and Ysabeau S. Wilce who wrote the exuberant and charming Flora Segunda which I adored. Their contributions might be the ones that enjoyed the most as well: a retelling/continuation of the classic fairytale of the twelve dancing princesses and a rock n roll trip to fairyland to retrieve a long, lost love (with a twist or two), respectively. All the stories included a reference to an underwater ballroom, interpreted in different ways in each story, so it was fun to start each one and then discover how the author would fit in that element. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that almost every story incorporated something aquatic, but after that it was all over the place. I really enjoyed the variation on the setting and theme; stories were set on Mars set during an alternate-timeline of the Napoleonic Wars (very alternate to get onto another planet!), smuggling off the coast of Cornwall, a punk club under a river in a modern city, and more. Each story was a surprise and the collection as a whole was great fun. I loved reading new stuff from some of my favorites and now have a bunch of new (to me) authors’ writing to explore.