Thursday, October 6, 2016

Dido, Retold, by A.T. Greenblatt

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(Modern Fantasy) Ancient Dido walks the streets of modern Carthage, cursed to find and fill the cracks she once created. (3,612 words; Time: 12m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆, Not Recommended

"," by , appeared in Strange Horizons issue 09/19/16, published on .

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: There are nice allusions to the story of Dido and Aeneas. The island she came from was Tyre, and Aeneas was her tragic lover. Just from the official stories, she had plenty of reasons to be resentful. Dido's own curse in the stories was cast by her against the Romans (the nation Aeneas would found), declaring eternal enmity between them and the people of Carthage.

Con: We're never entirely sure of the point of the curse, nor was there any clue that healing the last crack would mean that women would be left out of the stories. The abrupt conversion of the story into an allegory about female invisibility in literature is jarring and doesn't quite work.

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