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A review by coffeeandink
Heiresses of Russ 2012 by Steve Berman, Connie Wilkins
3.0
Disappointing. The only story I loved was Amal el-Mohtar's "To Follow the Waves" and balancing it out was a story I -- well, I didn't hate it, but I intensely disliked it: "Feedback" by Lindy Cameron. I loved "To Follow the Waves" when I first read it in Joselle Vanderhooft's Steam-powered and was glad to see it here; a dream-crafter falls in love with her own creation (the issues of consent here are handled well) . "Feedback" is cumbered by exposition-heavy dialogue in which the characters sound like encyclopedia entries, and the narrator is a bigot who feels justified in using ablist insults as long as the other person makes an ablist insult to her first (different disabilities). The story does not appear to question this. It also elides the same significant consent issues "To Follow the Waves" examines.
The rest of the stories are decent but unexceptional. I suspected that Wilkins' taste would not accord with mine when the other story she selected from Steam-Powered was S.L. Knapp's "Amphitrite," not Shweta Narayan's "The Padishah Begum's Reflections". I would recommend both last year's volume (also co-edited by Joselle Vanderhooft) or Steam-Powered 1-2 over this if you're looking for a strong collection of recent lesbian speculative fiction.
The rest of the stories are decent but unexceptional. I suspected that Wilkins' taste would not accord with mine when the other story she selected from Steam-Powered was S.L. Knapp's "Amphitrite," not Shweta Narayan's "The Padishah Begum's Reflections". I would recommend both last year's volume (also co-edited by Joselle Vanderhooft) or Steam-Powered 1-2 over this if you're looking for a strong collection of recent lesbian speculative fiction.