Travis's Reviews > Bone Swans: Stories

This is a surprisingly good collection of stories, especially since it was a fairly random selection, just something that I saw on the library shelf and found intriguing. But it was a choice that I am very happy with. Even my least favorite story in the collection was engagingly written, it just has themes and a premise that don't particularly interest me. I am disappointed that my library system doesn't have anything else by this author (though she apparently is a narrator for several audiobooks, but none that would appeal to me), but looking at her profile here it appears she just hasn't written that much.

"Life on the Sun": this feels like a fairly typical sort of fantasy short story, but one enlivened by good writing and a distinctive setting. I'm still not really sure what the title means. And the author's afterword reveals that it is sort of a sequel to a novella, which I'm now interested in trying to find.

"The Bone Swans of Amandale": the longest story of the bunch (appropriate, then, that it lent its name to the collection) it is an interesting blend of fairy tales with a more conventional sort of fantasy setting. Or perhaps, it is a story set in something like medieval Europe, where fantastical elements common to fairy tales, like ogres and giants and the Pied Piper, are a real and regular part of the world, but which also feels just a bit like a fairy tale itself, albeit one of the darker ones. I found it interesting that the Pied Piper was given a backstory overlapping a bit with Thomas the Rhymer. I don't think I've ever encountered something like that before, but it also feels like it fits.

"Martyr's Gem": my favorite story in the collection, I think. I like how well the world-building and descriptions of the setting and society of the characters is woven into the narrative.

"How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One": perhaps my second favorite story. Like "Bones Swans" it is heavily influenced by fairy tales, but it does so in a different way. Rather than just including different fairy tale elements, it is basically a retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin" but in a more overtly fantasy setting, and giving very different motivations to the characters, and a quite different resolution.

"The Big Bah-Ha": my least favorite story of the bunch. Decent writing and some interesting ideas or images (view spoiler)[I kind of like the quiet acceptance of the impending demise of the last human and the need to close up at least one part of the afterlife as a result (hide spoiler)], but none of the elements are particularly appealing to me and it has issues of scale, like how did the disease spread so far, and why are the Tall Ones confined to the one cemetery when the whole world is apparently ravaged by the disease?