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A review by aceinit
Dangerous Women by Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin
2.0
A longer review than usual follows, and a breakdown of each individual story, as I have been asked by multiple people whether or not they should read this book due to its all-star lineup (and Martin’s presence as editor and contributor, in particular).
The TL;DR answer is: no. Do not waste your time with this boring, mess of a book that barely adheres to its own theme.
The longer answer is as follows:
I really wanted to enjoy this collection but, wow, this is probably the greatest disappointment of an anthology I have ever read. I have absolutely no idea why I did not ragequit this book less than halfway through because, let me tell you, what I was promised
is definitely not what I got. I suppose it’s because I wanted to give each author a fair shot. If you go into this book with the same mindset, and find yourself becoming more and more disheartened with every passing story, do yourself a favor and stop. It really, really doesn’t get any better the longer you stick it out. This is, in fact, the most tedious, boring collection of short stories I have ever read.
Below are my thoughts on each story, followed by a rating of “Dangerous Woman,” “Maybe in the right light” “Why is this even included here?” and “Obligatory Token Female Character.” Obligatory Token Female Character is one who (a) only exists to show how manly the manly men are by acting as an object of inexplicable lust and (b) seems to be in the story only because “oh, right, it’s called dangerous WOMEN...I might want to include one of those after talking about men for 2/3 of the story. See, look how it fits the theme now! LOOK!”
- “Some Desperado” by Joe Abercrombie: Despite Shy South being one of my least favorite Abercrombie creations, her story opens the anthology with a bang. When cornered, Shy bears her teeth and shows exactly why she is not someone to be crossed. A western-style story with guns, knives and bone-crunching fights. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “My Heart is Either Broken” by Megan Abbott: Personally, I loved this one and thought it was a very subtle, perfect fit. I’ve seen a lot of people say they feel like it doesn’t belong, but here we are dealing with a very real issue seen too often in the news: a missing child, a parent who is a suspect, and an ending that drives home that the nightmare has really just begun. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “Nora’s Song” by Cecelia Holland: Slow, plodding, with the primary focus on a very young princess who is watching her royal mother play what is presumably a very dangerous game of politics. I say presumably because my knowledge of this particular period in history is pretty much nonexistent. As a result, this is one of those stories that has a lot of allusions but never actually goes anywhere. Rating: Maybe in the right light / Why is this even included here?
- “The Hands That Are Not There” by Melinda Snodgrass: A really, really, really interesting ending. I will give it that much. The problem is that we spend so long in desolate bars and alien strip clubs oogling the girlflesh that I’d lost most of my interest by the time the story took a turn for the unexpected. Rating: 1/2 Obligatory Token Female Character, 1/2 Dangerous Woman
- “Bombshells” by Jim Butcher: I'm sure this qualifies as blasphemy, but I highly prefer Molly Carpenter over Harry Dresden. Dresden never failed to irk me, and I never finished the series because of it. Molly, however, I dig. She shows that you can be insecure about your capabilities but still fully capable of kicking butt and taking names. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “Raisa Stepanova” by Carrie Vaughn: This story about a female Russian fighter pilot seems like the perfect setup for a Dangerous Woman story, but it fizzles out towards the end. I would have liked to see this story end more dynamically than it actually did. As things stand, after all the action in the early pages, the conclusion is a severe disappointment. Rating: Maybe in the right light
- “Wrestling Jesus” by Joe R. Lansdale: I will admit that I love the premise here: two geriatric guys fighting it out fist over aging fist every couple of years over a woman who has bewitched them body. The “dangerous woman” in questing here is very much a background character, but with Lansdale’s writing style and the setup, it works. The problem is, that Lansdale’s story also serves as the first course of what will become a recurring theme in this anthology: women existing solely to drive men to do things and never becoming anything more than flat, clichéd eye candy whose sex appeal is the whole reason for her existence. Rating: 1/2 Obligatory Token Female Character, 1/2 Dangerous Woman (And only because this is the first story of its kind in the collection. The ones to come will be graded much more harshly.)
- “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm: Admittedly, this story hit a little close to home for me. I am dealing with an aging grandparent, and having a lot of the same conversations that take place in this story. It was a hard read. However, there is also absolutely nothing “dangerous” about our elderly protagonist of her friends. The day-to-day activities of basic home life drone on, even with the presence of an otherworldly place living right next door to our main character’s. It is too mundane, too uneventful. Rating: “Why is this even included here?
- “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson: I have shameless love for Sanderson, thanks to his Mistborn trilogy. Here, he introduces us to Silence, an innkeeper/undercover bounty hunter, and her daughter, William Ann. When a man with a very large price on his head comes into Silence’s inn, she must employ every trick in her book and then some to secure a financial future for herself and her daughter. Factor in a double-crossing third party and some very creepy ghosts, and you have one of the standout stories in the anthology. Rating: Dangerous
- “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block: Sexpot woman does sexy things with a guy with serious anger management issues, and asks him to kill her husband because, since they’re having sex, why would the guy not totally be up for a little homicide on the side. There is absolutely nothing in this story that isn’t a cliche. Even the “twist” ending has been done to death. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman: Apparently infertile queen worries about marriage beds, a husband who doesn’t love her, fertility and other Serious Womanly Business. The land is in the midst of rebellion but, trust me, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know about this one is that the author had to stick in an afterword explaining WHY her woman was a dangerous one. And even that’s not particularly convincing. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman: Grossman is one of those authors I’ve wanted to read for a while now. And this story did convince me to read him. He’s got a quirky magic system going on here that’s like Hogwarts but without the whimsy, and he writes neat, quirky characters. The problem is that there’s not a lot of danger in a story about petty revenge, even when a more menacing ghost gets involved. A fun read, and female-centric, but not entirely fitting for this particular anthology. Rating: ½ Maybe in the right light, ½ Why is this even included here?
- “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress: Set in post-apocalyptic Manhattan, the dialect of Kress’s entry almost made me skip it entirely. Even after reading it, I’m still not sure I liked it. However, as we progress from subservient Nurse to a woman who is determined to protect her wards at all costs, this one definitely earns a rating of Dangerous.
- “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland: Alternate history version of New Orleans, with consequences far more severe than Katrina. This one focuses on a corrupt cop and a woman who captures his attention and his lust. She has an agenda that he discovers too late. Of course she does. But her grand scheme is revealed a little too late and whose methods are a little too slow to ever accomplish her end game. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon: This is the point where I nearly (and should’ve) stopped reading. Gabaldron's endless entry was one of the worst, and the second longest story in the collection. A female character isn't even introduced until the halfway mark and, with a third of the story still to go, has yet to do something other than be sexy and flirtatious. Her worst offense is inconveniencing our male hero who is supposed to deliver her to her future husband. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon: Kenyon's story gets in, does what it needs to, and gets out again in only a few pages. The dialogue in the frame story feels stiff and laughably cliched, but at least it sticks to the theme the rest of the time. Rating: Dangerous
- “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling: . Stirling's alternate history story is well-written and female-centric, but feels like it's missing the "dangerous" element, or any element other than worldbuilding, since its focus is more on aftermath than any active action. Our female lead and clan leader arrives to judge a man accused of rape. As the story states pretty early on, this is a judgment only, not a trial, not any active action. The whole of the story is completely passive, with no suspense to build up to or let down. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes: Though he does an interesting set-up and premise, I'm still not feeling the "dangerous" vibe. Given that this story is about hunters and hunted, that really says something. On one hand, we have a woman teaching a child to hunt and kill. On the other, a family running for their lives. Yet it focuses almost exclusively on petty squabbles instead of building any actual suspense. Rating: Maybe in the right light.
- “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan: A story about two very different sisters, their aging mother and a possible conspiracy at a convalescent home. And yet another story that alludes to interesting things going on without every showcasing anything. The most dangerous we get is the two of them watching a documentary about female serial killers in the opening pages. And the central character actually referring to herself as “a bad, sneaky, dangerous woman” while admittedly standing mired in indecisision? Give me a break. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector: Zombies, superheroine types, and plenty of heavy-hitting ladies kicking butt and taking names. Still, this being my introduction to the Wild Cards series, I was frustrated by the lack of information about the virus itself. WHY is this alien virus called the Wild Card virus and the terminology around it so closely associated with card games? A brief explanation would have made this a much less vexing read. Still, the rating is decidedly Dangerous.
- “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin: Martin continues his quest to give name to every single citizen who has ever walked the foot of Westeros and because of his insistence on naming every single name, this is the most tedious read in the collection. I am fairly certain no reader is sitting at home thinking “but the bannermen, George! WHO WERE THE BANNERMEN!?” If Martin had stuck to the story, like he did in books 1-3 of ASoIaF and not persisted in naming every single player no matter how minor, as in books 4 & 5, this pivotal moment in Westerosi history would’ve made for an intense read. As things stand, it is the most boring story, royal usurpations, war, laying waste to the countryside, and dragons that I have ever encountered. Rating: Dangerous for our usurped princess.
Final Tally:
Dangerous Woman: 7
Maybe in the right light: 2.5
Why is this even included here?: 5.5
Obligatory Token Female Character: 4
The TL;DR answer is: no. Do not waste your time with this boring, mess of a book that barely adheres to its own theme.
The longer answer is as follows:
I really wanted to enjoy this collection but, wow, this is probably the greatest disappointment of an anthology I have ever read. I have absolutely no idea why I did not ragequit this book less than halfway through because, let me tell you, what I was promised
“Here you’ll find no hapless victims who stand by whimpering in dread while the male hero fights the monster or clashes swords with the villain, and if you want to tie these women to the railroad tracks, you’ll find you have a real fight on your hands. Instead, you will find sword-wielding women warriors, intrepid women fighter pilots and far-ranging spacewomen, deadly female serial killers, formidable female superheroes, sly and seductive femmes fatale, female wizards, hard-living Bad Girls, female bandits and rebels, embattled survivors in Post-Apocalyptic futures, female Private Investigators, stern female hanging judges, haughty queens who rule nations and whose jealousies and ambitions send thousands to grisly deaths, daring dragonriders, and many more.”
is definitely not what I got. I suppose it’s because I wanted to give each author a fair shot. If you go into this book with the same mindset, and find yourself becoming more and more disheartened with every passing story, do yourself a favor and stop. It really, really doesn’t get any better the longer you stick it out. This is, in fact, the most tedious, boring collection of short stories I have ever read.
Below are my thoughts on each story, followed by a rating of “Dangerous Woman,” “Maybe in the right light” “Why is this even included here?” and “Obligatory Token Female Character.” Obligatory Token Female Character is one who (a) only exists to show how manly the manly men are by acting as an object of inexplicable lust and (b) seems to be in the story only because “oh, right, it’s called dangerous WOMEN...I might want to include one of those after talking about men for 2/3 of the story. See, look how it fits the theme now! LOOK!”
- “Some Desperado” by Joe Abercrombie: Despite Shy South being one of my least favorite Abercrombie creations, her story opens the anthology with a bang. When cornered, Shy bears her teeth and shows exactly why she is not someone to be crossed. A western-style story with guns, knives and bone-crunching fights. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “My Heart is Either Broken” by Megan Abbott: Personally, I loved this one and thought it was a very subtle, perfect fit. I’ve seen a lot of people say they feel like it doesn’t belong, but here we are dealing with a very real issue seen too often in the news: a missing child, a parent who is a suspect, and an ending that drives home that the nightmare has really just begun. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “Nora’s Song” by Cecelia Holland: Slow, plodding, with the primary focus on a very young princess who is watching her royal mother play what is presumably a very dangerous game of politics. I say presumably because my knowledge of this particular period in history is pretty much nonexistent. As a result, this is one of those stories that has a lot of allusions but never actually goes anywhere. Rating: Maybe in the right light / Why is this even included here?
- “The Hands That Are Not There” by Melinda Snodgrass: A really, really, really interesting ending. I will give it that much. The problem is that we spend so long in desolate bars and alien strip clubs oogling the girlflesh that I’d lost most of my interest by the time the story took a turn for the unexpected. Rating: 1/2 Obligatory Token Female Character, 1/2 Dangerous Woman
- “Bombshells” by Jim Butcher: I'm sure this qualifies as blasphemy, but I highly prefer Molly Carpenter over Harry Dresden. Dresden never failed to irk me, and I never finished the series because of it. Molly, however, I dig. She shows that you can be insecure about your capabilities but still fully capable of kicking butt and taking names. Rating: Dangerous Woman
- “Raisa Stepanova” by Carrie Vaughn: This story about a female Russian fighter pilot seems like the perfect setup for a Dangerous Woman story, but it fizzles out towards the end. I would have liked to see this story end more dynamically than it actually did. As things stand, after all the action in the early pages, the conclusion is a severe disappointment. Rating: Maybe in the right light
- “Wrestling Jesus” by Joe R. Lansdale: I will admit that I love the premise here: two geriatric guys fighting it out fist over aging fist every couple of years over a woman who has bewitched them body. The “dangerous woman” in questing here is very much a background character, but with Lansdale’s writing style and the setup, it works. The problem is, that Lansdale’s story also serves as the first course of what will become a recurring theme in this anthology: women existing solely to drive men to do things and never becoming anything more than flat, clichéd eye candy whose sex appeal is the whole reason for her existence. Rating: 1/2 Obligatory Token Female Character, 1/2 Dangerous Woman (And only because this is the first story of its kind in the collection. The ones to come will be graded much more harshly.)
- “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm: Admittedly, this story hit a little close to home for me. I am dealing with an aging grandparent, and having a lot of the same conversations that take place in this story. It was a hard read. However, there is also absolutely nothing “dangerous” about our elderly protagonist of her friends. The day-to-day activities of basic home life drone on, even with the presence of an otherworldly place living right next door to our main character’s. It is too mundane, too uneventful. Rating: “Why is this even included here?
- “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson: I have shameless love for Sanderson, thanks to his Mistborn trilogy. Here, he introduces us to Silence, an innkeeper/undercover bounty hunter, and her daughter, William Ann. When a man with a very large price on his head comes into Silence’s inn, she must employ every trick in her book and then some to secure a financial future for herself and her daughter. Factor in a double-crossing third party and some very creepy ghosts, and you have one of the standout stories in the anthology. Rating: Dangerous
- “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block: Sexpot woman does sexy things with a guy with serious anger management issues, and asks him to kill her husband because, since they’re having sex, why would the guy not totally be up for a little homicide on the side. There is absolutely nothing in this story that isn’t a cliche. Even the “twist” ending has been done to death. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman: Apparently infertile queen worries about marriage beds, a husband who doesn’t love her, fertility and other Serious Womanly Business. The land is in the midst of rebellion but, trust me, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know about this one is that the author had to stick in an afterword explaining WHY her woman was a dangerous one. And even that’s not particularly convincing. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman: Grossman is one of those authors I’ve wanted to read for a while now. And this story did convince me to read him. He’s got a quirky magic system going on here that’s like Hogwarts but without the whimsy, and he writes neat, quirky characters. The problem is that there’s not a lot of danger in a story about petty revenge, even when a more menacing ghost gets involved. A fun read, and female-centric, but not entirely fitting for this particular anthology. Rating: ½ Maybe in the right light, ½ Why is this even included here?
- “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress: Set in post-apocalyptic Manhattan, the dialect of Kress’s entry almost made me skip it entirely. Even after reading it, I’m still not sure I liked it. However, as we progress from subservient Nurse to a woman who is determined to protect her wards at all costs, this one definitely earns a rating of Dangerous.
- “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland: Alternate history version of New Orleans, with consequences far more severe than Katrina. This one focuses on a corrupt cop and a woman who captures his attention and his lust. She has an agenda that he discovers too late. Of course she does. But her grand scheme is revealed a little too late and whose methods are a little too slow to ever accomplish her end game. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon: This is the point where I nearly (and should’ve) stopped reading. Gabaldron's endless entry was one of the worst, and the second longest story in the collection. A female character isn't even introduced until the halfway mark and, with a third of the story still to go, has yet to do something other than be sexy and flirtatious. Her worst offense is inconveniencing our male hero who is supposed to deliver her to her future husband. Rating: Obligatory Token Female Character
- “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon: Kenyon's story gets in, does what it needs to, and gets out again in only a few pages. The dialogue in the frame story feels stiff and laughably cliched, but at least it sticks to the theme the rest of the time. Rating: Dangerous
- “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling: . Stirling's alternate history story is well-written and female-centric, but feels like it's missing the "dangerous" element, or any element other than worldbuilding, since its focus is more on aftermath than any active action. Our female lead and clan leader arrives to judge a man accused of rape. As the story states pretty early on, this is a judgment only, not a trial, not any active action. The whole of the story is completely passive, with no suspense to build up to or let down. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes: Though he does an interesting set-up and premise, I'm still not feeling the "dangerous" vibe. Given that this story is about hunters and hunted, that really says something. On one hand, we have a woman teaching a child to hunt and kill. On the other, a family running for their lives. Yet it focuses almost exclusively on petty squabbles instead of building any actual suspense. Rating: Maybe in the right light.
- “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan: A story about two very different sisters, their aging mother and a possible conspiracy at a convalescent home. And yet another story that alludes to interesting things going on without every showcasing anything. The most dangerous we get is the two of them watching a documentary about female serial killers in the opening pages. And the central character actually referring to herself as “a bad, sneaky, dangerous woman” while admittedly standing mired in indecisision? Give me a break. Rating: Why is this even included here?
- “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector: Zombies, superheroine types, and plenty of heavy-hitting ladies kicking butt and taking names. Still, this being my introduction to the Wild Cards series, I was frustrated by the lack of information about the virus itself. WHY is this alien virus called the Wild Card virus and the terminology around it so closely associated with card games? A brief explanation would have made this a much less vexing read. Still, the rating is decidedly Dangerous.
- “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin: Martin continues his quest to give name to every single citizen who has ever walked the foot of Westeros and because of his insistence on naming every single name, this is the most tedious read in the collection. I am fairly certain no reader is sitting at home thinking “but the bannermen, George! WHO WERE THE BANNERMEN!?” If Martin had stuck to the story, like he did in books 1-3 of ASoIaF and not persisted in naming every single player no matter how minor, as in books 4 & 5, this pivotal moment in Westerosi history would’ve made for an intense read. As things stand, it is the most boring story, royal usurpations, war, laying waste to the countryside, and dragons that I have ever encountered. Rating: Dangerous for our usurped princess.
Final Tally:
Dangerous Woman: 7
Maybe in the right light: 2.5
Why is this even included here?: 5.5
Obligatory Token Female Character: 4