Heiresses of Russ is named in honor of author Joanna Russ, whose masterful language and rage-fueled but controlled points of view produced exquisitely structured and finely wrought fiction about ideas. This anthology promises to “celebrate the spirit of Russ’s fiction: sorceresses and spectral women, lost daughters and sisters of myth.” It delivers a variety of stories by and about women, the best of which take the reader into a uniquely lesbian and speculative world.
These stories cross and blend genre–science fiction, horror, myth, steampunk–but at least half of them are contemporary fantasy that, as the jacket copy states, “tests the boundaries of gender, identity and a woman’s desire.” However, as Russ’s fiction tended to focus on women’s power and agency inside tight patriarchies, the title promises more than some of the stories deliver.
Two of the strongest stories in this collection take the reader to New Orleans. In Jewelle Gomez’s “Storyville, 1910,” the characters’ mixed-race identities drive an unconventional narrative about identity in a creepy story about a brave woman who saves other women. In contrast, N.K. Jemisin’s “New Orleans” set in a busy Caribbean dirigible port is a steampunk spy-vs.-spy whose ferocious hero seems cut from the same cloth as Russ’ Trans Temp agents.
Other standouts in this collection: Zen Cho’s trickster story “The Guest” uses sly and perfectly pitched language to make transparent its honest character study of sympathetic misfit Yiling; Nora Olsen’s “World War III Doesn’t Last Long” provides a satisfying speculative setting–a radiation apocalypse–and the most realistic people and action; Camilla Kleinheincz’s “Rabbits” takes the reader into an imaginative and hypnotic circus setting; and Ellen Kushner’s “The Children of Cadmus” takes the sharpest look at gender roles and masculine women. Fans of Tanith Lee will find one of her short stories under her pseudonym of Esther Garber.
This book should be an annual publication to continue elevating and promoting lesbian science and speculative fiction. Queer speculative fiction collections that have not been refreshed since Nicola Griffith and Scott Pagel’s excellent three-volume Bending the Landscape series of lesbian and gay science fiction, fantasy and horror will benefit from this title. This title is also great for patrons with a strong interest in contemporary urban fantasy and for speculative anthologies.
Reviewer: Joel Nichols
Free Library of Philadelphia