Jessica Amanda Salmonson

A collection of stories published in 1979 and intended to challenge the assumptions about the role of women in high fantasy/sword and sorcery fiction of the time, although the definition of 'Amazon' seems quite flexible, ranging as it does from sorcerous women who sacrifice their powers for a man's love, even a man who seems completely disinterested to begin with, to then-contemporary women vigilantes dishing out retribution on men who commit crimes against women.

The book includes stories by well-known writers such as C J Cherryh, Andre Norton and Elizabeth A Lynn. I found it rather uneven - one of the stories features such a lot of backstory it is pulled down by the weight - Wolves of Nakesht which apparently the writer intended to turn into a novel or series and would perhaps have been better served by presenting a story earlier in the apparently long history of the main character. Others, such as Morrien's Bitch, were clunkily written in places. But there were also some interesting tales such as Agbewe's Sword, set in Abomey, an African county where there is a women's army as well as a men's army, and Falcon Blood, a Witch World backstory tale by Andre Norton in which we discover the reason for the antipathy towards women by the Falconers. That had a Sulcar sailor as the female protagonist and her stalwart nature has finally made some inroads on the Falconer character's prejudices by the end.

I particularly enjoyed Bones for Dulath by Morgan Lindholm (Robin Hobb) set in her Ki/Vandien series which I rate above her Hobb-penned fiction, and Lynn's The Woman Who Loved the Moon a tale with an Asian setting where the character of the title discovers the perils familiar to anyone who has read Western set stories of visits to fairyland. A beautiful lyrically told story. Despite some weaker elements in the collection, stories like this elevate the rating to 4 stars.… (more)

I was deeply disappointed by the way that this book seems to have stripped out pretty much all the queerness of the first book. If you were to pick up this book without having read the first, there would be no indication that Tomoe is attracted to women at all. The beautiful ninja who seemed set to become the main love interest doesn't appear and in fact is never even mentioned. Tomoe's tendency to note the beauty of almost every single woman she interacts with is gone; one character who got this treatment in book 1 is described a few times as "beautiful" but it comes off as an objective description that comes directly from the narrator, rather than as something that relates Tomoe's point of view. The nature of Tomoe's past relationship with Lady Shigeno is never mentioned either; it's possible that someone who had not read the first book might be able to infer that her decision to cut Tomoe off entirely after Tomoe marries (out of familial duty/filial piety) is in part driven by jealousy and hurt, but the subtext is extremely subtle. The book essentially shoves Tomoe into the closet and shuts the door, which is a jarring change from how explicit and unapologetic the first book is about her sexuality. (There aren't even any mentions of queer relationships/attraction between other women; there are a few brief mentions of such between men, mostly characters who are secondary at best, but that's it.) I don't really have much grounds to speculate, but the only way this makes sense to me is if the original publisher leaned on the author to tone it down--so I don't really blame her, but still, it's a letdown.… (more)

Generally overrated as a “masterpiece” of psychological horror. Salmonson’s prose can be wonderful and then cringingly terrible by turns. The first 3/4 of the book seems almost plotless with little bits and pieces of incoherent stuff about the characters amidst too much existential peering into the abyss (pun intended). Once Salmonson decides what she wants to do with all these ideas things improve immensely but not enough to salvage the first parts of the book.

In the end the whole thing comes off as a poor man’s [a:Clive Barker|10366|Clive Barker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1430330407p2/10366.jpg].… (more)