★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention
(Tall Tale) This is the story of how the belted kingfisher got her red band. (5,417 words; Time: 18m)
"Fisher-Bird," by T. Kingfisher [bio] (edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe), appeared in The Mythic Dream (RSR review), published on September 17, 2019 by Saga Press.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2019.545 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: This is a retelling of one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, in which he gets rid of the the Stymphalian birds, but with Fisher-bird playing a very sassy Athena.
The best part of this story is Fisher-Bird’s dialogue, with earnest “Stronger” playing a great straight man. If you know the original myth, it’s great fun seeing it reenacted. (E.g. the Stymphalian_birds become just “stimps.”) My favorite was probably the back-and-forth where Fisher-Bird tells Stronger that there are lots of things worse than death, and most of them involve eyeballs. Stronger muses that he’s having a very strange month, and Fisher-Bird suggests he try being a bird.
Fisher-Bird is clearly a belted kingfisher, and, as you can see from the picture, it really does look like it has dried blood on it.
Con: Given the nature of the story, there’s no tension, since we know Fisher-Bird has to survive. It’s a fun, light-hearted tale, but not a profound one.
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
T. Kingfisher Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
Pro: This is a retelling of one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, in which he gets rid of the the Stymphalian birds, but with Fisher-bird playing a very sassy Athena.
The best part of this story is Fisher-Bird’s dialogue, with earnest “Stronger” playing a great straight man. If you know the original myth, it’s great fun seeing it reenacted. (E.g. the Stymphalian_birds become just “stimps.”) My favorite was probably the back-and-forth where Fisher-Bird tells Stronger that there are lots of things worse than death, and most of them involve eyeballs. Stronger muses that he’s having a very strange month, and Fisher-Bird suggests he try being a bird.
Fisher-Bird is clearly a belted kingfisher, and, as you can see from the picture, it really does look like it has dried blood on it.
Con: Given the nature of the story, there’s no tension, since we know Fisher-Bird has to survive. It’s a fun, light-hearted tale, but not a profound one.
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
T. Kingfisher Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
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