A Country Called Winter, by Theodora Goss

This story belongs in that small but significant set of stories featuring small, obscure countries that are semi-magical but exist in our world.  Veriska (approximately) is from a country called Winter (approximately).  She came with her mother when they left for America.  A lot of the story is centered around her relationship with the son of the Danish ambassador, and how his foreignness contrasts with hers.

Her ambition is to get a doctorate in English literature and go into teaching.  She is pretty buried in that space.  But (spoiler alert) it turns out that she is royalty in Winter, and will be instrumental in getting Summer to come.

It's nice, not a lot of powerfully original stuff here but well written.

Queen Lily, by Theodora Goss

Queen Lily crept onto the Locus Award list, probably because Theodora Goss has written some other good things.  I just couldn't get into this one at all.  The point of view changes without warning or sense, and is just confusing.  The setting is Alice In Wonderland, which has had a lot of rework over the years so if one is going to go back there one has to have something really new to say.  About all there is here is that Lewis Carroll was a pedophile--we knew that already.  I have to rate this one down.

Come See the Living Dryad, by Theodora Goss

Come See the Living Dryad by Theodora Goss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is one of those SF stories that justifies the name Speculative Fiction, rather than science fiction or fantasy. It's based on a real condition a real person, but not as depicted in the story. The back-and-forth between the present and the past is handled pretty well. I couldn't quite give it four stars just based on feeling--it feels sort of ephemeral or not quite satisfying, like a tasty broth without quite enough body. That's a pretty non-specific critique, but it's how I felt at the end. Overall it was a good read, and probably worth its nomination for a Locus award.



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The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


If you're going to do a Victorian mashup novel in 2018, after so so many of them have been done, it needs some kind of special sauce to make it stand out. This book was fine, but the special sauce was supposed to be the interjections. Those would have been good if they hadn't ended up being trivial--either semi-spoilers or absolutely pure character development without moving the plot. It read OK, and some reviewers really seem to like it, but I don't know for whom it would really hit the mark--maybe YA readers who have seen kids' versions of the original stories as movies. The Athena Club has lots of adventures and there's lots of girl power, but it's a pretty light snack of a book. All the characters have potential, though, so possibly future books that maybe focus on one character more will be better? I don't know.

For a more interesting kind of interjection, try Ship of Theseus by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. Not sure how that one would work on a Kindle though.



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Red as Blood and White as Bone, by Theodora Goss

Here's my review on LibraryThing.

The Singing of Mount Ahora, by Theodora Goss

The Singing of Mount Ahora won the World Fantasy Award for best short story in 2008, and I would say it was well-deserved. The form is one where multiple stories are woven together to form a whole (in this case it is three). And it's very satisfying as a fantasy tale, told in that sort of sing-song that makes it feel like you're being read to. And it's a love story. What more could one want? Four stars from me. I am writing this on an iPad Mini, still getting used to the keypad and cut-and-paste functions, so here is the link to the story.