Publisher's Weekly Review
With snapshots of futures that haunt, obsess, or tantalize, this collection from Hugo-winner Hurley (The Light Brigade) offers 16 hard-edged pieces that gleam like gems in a mosaic. Undermining the admiration for military adventure that pervades much science fiction, "The Red Secretary" presents a world that indulges in war and then purges all its practitioners, cyclically. In "The War of Heroes," underdogs who rise up to defeat the oppressor discover that "[a] Hero is one who not only slays monsters, but creates monsters to slay." The stories that celebrate fighting monsters acknowledge that losing is no shame (in "Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light!", a callback to the work of SF legend James Tiptree Jr.) and that identity is a matter of choice more than genetics (in "The Fisherman and the Pig"). Hurley works at the edges of genres, mixing SF with detective noir ("The Sinners and the Sea," "Garda"), military adventure ("The Light Brigade," "The Improbable War"), and fantasy quest ("The Plague Givers") in ways that refresh the motifs of the mixed fictions. In "Tumbledown," the benefit of making hard choices is getting to tell the stories "about the world we'll make together," and readers will eagerly follow Hurley into these possible worlds and many more. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Assoc. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The reader who takes up the invitation implied by the title may not be entirely cheered by what they find there.The various fantastic milieus depicted by the short stories in this collection are fairly bleak. Humans make it to the stars only to despoil and fight over what they find there. Biological warfare has caused illness, deformity, mutation, and death. The conquered gradually knuckle under, join the conquerors, or adapt the brutal techniques of their conquerors in order to resist. Characters face heartbreak and betrayal in what might be a futile battle against endemic corruption. Hurley makes poetry out of grim detail, shining a light on both the best and worst of humanity and squeezing what hope she can out of the whole mess. A weary, body-switching mercenary is forced into new bloody deeds but finds comfort in his pets. An abandoned child grown into a lonely and disregarded mechanic develops a relationship with a sentient warship who longs for freedom. A young man who discovers that the technology-filled past was not as distant as he was led to believe commits the sin of embracing truth. A woman left both disabled and cynical by plague digs deep into her uttermost resources in a desperate attempt to save a distant settlement. And a woman's bravery in the face of impossible odds inspires generations. Fans are sure to find interest in a prequel story to The Stars Are Legion (2017) as well as the original story which Hurley expanded into The Light Brigade (2019). Unfortunately, putting all of these stories in one place emphasizes the frequent reuse of the author's motifs and character types, partially undercutting their strength.Somewhat much of a muchness but very high quality. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In her introduction, Hurley (The Light Brigade, 2019) admits that short stories aren't her typical fare: her heart belongs to novels. And yet, she has produced one of the best story collections of the past few years. Hurley imagines brutal worlds, and her work is typically violent and vulgar. But as these stories make clear, her visions offer much more than shock value: these tales are emotionally powerful, lyrical, occasionally hopeful, and flirt with the profound. She creates worlds and characters as full and fascinating in a dozen pages as any she offers in her longer works. They throw into stark relief the core themes of her larger body of work: physical and linguistic expressions of gender or bodies fraught with illness ( Elephants and Corpses, Tumbledown, ""The Plague Givers""); war and the cycle of violence ( The Red Secretary, Garda, The War of Heroes ); storytelling as a medium for both social control and individual freedom (""Sinners on Solid Ground,"" The Corpse Archives ). What makes Hurley's stories unique is her focus on what comes after: after war, after plague, after the collapse of civilization. These are stories that pack a punch. Highly recommended for existing fans and as an introduction for new readers.--John Keogh Copyright 2019 Booklist
