Bri Fidelity’s Reviews > The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1 > Status Update

'Foster Mother' and 'Creature' - Two interlinked stories about genetically engineered monsters (probably the same one) who aren't as monstrous as they were intended to be.

'Grandma' - Scenes from the retirement of a superheroine, as witnessed by her gawky, unsuperpowered granddaughter.

But really there isn't a single bad story after p. 378.

'In the manuscript is written, "Oh my love, oh my love, come back before dawn," and the spaces between the words stand for words that have been left unwritten. First there would have been shouts and curses, then prayers, then this.'

'Janice has a slight stutter. Normally she speaks rapidly and in a kind of shorthand so as not to take up anyone's precious time, but with her stutter, she can hold people's attention for a moment longer than she would otherwise dare.'

'Looking Down' - A winged man, left behind when his flock moves off for the winter, is nursed back to health by one of his human worshippers: but why?

'If The Word Was To The Wise' - What lies in the secret safe of banned books in the subbasement of the great library?

'There Is No Evil Angel But Love' - An old lady, secretly in love with her neighbour, takes advantage of a bad cold to move into his apartment.

'Secrets of the Native Tongue' - A woman uses a mistakenly-sent invitation to a symposium to reinvent herself as a glamorous intellectual.

'Moon Songs' - A brother and sister find a tiny insect that sings incredibly eerie songs, but only when pricked with a pin.

'Acceptance Speech' - A man is abducted by aliens and forced to become their Poet Laureate.

'They belted my dagger about me, they coiled my whip over my shoulder, and led me to the arena, a place where I'd only heard poetry before, though I'd often wondered at the brown stains on the far wall. When I'd asked about them, you'd always answered that they were the stains of bad poems.'

'Clerestory' - A young couple squat in a public exhibit: but is it art?

'Living At The Centre' - A bored old woman decides, in lieu of senicide, to go on a quest to a bay enshrined in local legend.

'As If' - All the world's artists and intellectuals are rounded up and tortured, that they might better reveal the secrets of their homeworld.

'Fledged' - A man's dinner party plans are thrown into disarray when his long-lost first wife blows in off the patio during a storm, wearing a huge and inexplicable set of wings.

'Not Burning' - A lonely librarian, 'only slightly deranged', reads a self-help book and decides to turn her life around, with decidedly mixed results.

'Being Mysterious Strangers...' - Another long march; this time only 67 strong.

'One wishes the best for them. That they should lie down (exhausted in the dark) [...] on the sands of a drab beach and wake up to a thousand ships in a sparkling bay. Or that they should sleep (exhausted in the dark) next to what seems like only a large square stone and yet wake up to a thousand ornate plinths in long rows [...] and upon each, the golden feet of the statues that once stood there[.]'

'Eclipse' - A woman, in accidentally attending the wrong dinner party, suddenly finds herself self-confident - for a couple of hours or so.

'The Circular Library of Stones' - A mad old woman unearths the ruins of an ancient matriarchy - or is it just senile wishful thinking?

'Vilcabamba' - A forcibly civilised Indian tries to make sense of his early memories while en route (he hopes) to his ancestral homeland.