Mythic Journeys

March 18, 2019
This weighty compendium features 28 contemporary storytellers using modern literary techniques to retell and reexamine ancient legends, with both sharp and blurry results. Among the best are the shortest—Brooke Bolander’s “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies,” an uncompromising tale of the Furies taking revenge on a serial killer—as well as the longest—Rachel Pollack’s “Immortal Snake,” a postmodern mashup of the legend of the kingdom of Darfur mixed with Egyptian, biblical, and Greek elements. Most incisively, Elizabeth Hand’s “Calypso in Berlin” updates the nymph who captivated Odysseus, showing the power of art to both literally and metaphorically transform lives, while Neil Gaiman’s “Chivalry” uses mock epic to gently poke fun at those enthralled by sagas’ devices and trappings. Telling a futuristic myth in ancient tones, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due’s “Trickster” combines a monstrous alien tyranny with the East African deceiver, Mantis. Some of the pieces read as chapters from longer works, but they are still fairly strong blends of myth with science fiction (Yoon Ha Lee’s “Foxfire, Foxfire,” Ken Liu’s “The Ten Suns”) or inventive retellings of the classics (Priya Sharma’s “Thesea and Astaurius”). Unfortunately, modernization only produces made-for-TV monsters in John Shirley’s “Zhuyin,” the only story original to this volume. Fans of fables will find this a delightful exploration of the ways ancient stories can still captivate.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
Editor Guran has compiled a wide range of previously published stories all united by the theme of retelling myths and legends in new settings. While some big names of the "myth retold" fantasy subgenre are present, such as Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint, newer and lesser-known writers are well represented. The stories include intrusions of myth into the mundane world, as in Catherynne Valente's "White Lines on a Green Field," in which Coyote arrives in a small town and becomes the beloved star of the football team, and Yoon Ha Lee's "Foxfire," in which shape-shifting foxes and tigers exist against a backdrop of civil war. There are also fantasies set in their own unique worlds, such as Rachel Pollack's "Immortal Snake," in which a city dominated by its astronomers ritually kills and replaces its "immortal" ruler. And there are sf or hybrid stories in which legends take new forms, like Ken Liu's "The Ten Suns," set on a forgotten terraformed planet, and John Shirley's "Zhuyin," featuring a horrifying experiment inspired by the Chinese mythological snake. The stories are all excellent, and the variety of storytelling makes this a solid choice for fantasy and general readers alike.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)