Kat’s Reviews > Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction > Status Update

Creepy!

The Jewbird by Bernard Malamud
This tale of a bird being persecuted is at first funny and then disturbing and sad

Gather Blue Roses by Pamela Sargent
In this family, generational trauma is literal pain, and forces the narrator to live an isolated life

Trouble with Water by Horace L. Gold

Didn't love the stereotypical female characters, but the intersection of Irish lore and Jewish humor was interesting.

This story of aliens and Jewish refugees forming a new community is absolutely delightful.

I love the language and the twist ending!

Contemporary Jewish stereotypes in sci-fi situations seems to be a running theme in these short stories.

The gradual increase of mysticism is very effective.

This one, about an elderly Jewish couple in Southern California, who greet the arrival of an automaton/golem by refusing to be interrupted in their conversation, made me laugh out loud at the airport.

The first story is a pastiche of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stories. At first, I thought it was uncreative and cynical, relying on stereotypes for humor and apparently assuming that human culture will never change.

Then again, my roommate's Holocaust-survivor aunt has quite bluntly compared Trump to Hitler, so it may be that I'm a naive idealist and it's Tenn who will be proven right in 1000 years.