Reviews

Making Monsters: A Speculative and Classical Anthology by George Lockett, Djibril al-Ayad, Neil James Hudson, Tom Johnstone, Mathilde Skoie, Misha Penton, Margaret McLeod, Megan Arkenberg, Hannah Silverblank, Maria Anastasiadou, Hunter Liguore, Alexandra Grunberg, Valentine Wheeler, Barbara Davies, Annegret Märten, Hûw Steer, H.A. Eilander, Barbara E. Hunt, Emma Bridges, Valeria Vitale, Catherine Baker, Rachel Bender, Margrét Helgadóttir, Liz Gloyn, L. Chan, Hester J. Rook, Danie Ware

ginalucia's review against another edition

4.0

Like pretty much any anthology, there will be some pieces you love, and others you don’t love quite as much.

In this case, there wasn’t a bad piece in the bunch. Each and every one was well-written and engaging.

There were, however, a few that particularly stood out to me. The Last Siren Sings was beautifully written, as was Aeaea on the Seas. Field Reports from the Department of Monster Resettlement had some fantastic characters. Justice Is a Noose was captivating and left me wanting more. Water and When Soldiers Come got creative with the source material. I enjoyed them all.

A few others I skimmed or didn’t quite feel as engaged with. It’s not that they were bad, far from it. They just didn’t interest me as much as the others did.

Anthologies are hard to rate for this reason. Some of the work was 5-star material, others, more like 3 - again for my personal taste. In this case, I think 4 is fair.

Well worth a read if you’re itching for more mythology from some fresh perspectives.

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