Sirens is the fourth of the Magical Menageries series, edited by Rhonda Parrish. Trust me to start this set with the last one, Equus which I read eight years ago, and I’m working backwards for a change. I’ll have the others for you later in the year. Or next.
Sirens
Edited by Rhonda Parrish
Sirens are beautiful, dangerous, and musical, whether they come from the sea or the sky. Greek sirens were described as part-bird, part-woman, and Roman sirens more like mermaids, but both had a voice that could captivate and destroy the strongest man. The pages of this book contain the stories of the Sirens of old, but also allow for modern re-imaginings, plucking the sirens out of their natural elements and placing them at a high school football game, or in wartime London, or even into outer space.
Featuring stories by Kelly Sandoval, Amanda Kespohl, L.S. Johnson, Pat Flewwelling, Gabriel F. Cuellar, Randall G. Arnold, Micheal Leonberger, V. F. LeSann, Tamsin Showbrook, Simon Kewin, Cat McDonald, Sandra Wickham, K.T. Ivanrest, Adam L. Bealby, Eliza Chan, and Tabitha Lord, these siren songs will both exemplify and defy your expectations. (Goodreads)
My Review
As always, Rhonda Parrish has selected a brilliant set of short stories for her anthology. By setting the theme of sirens, she challenged authors to come up with new ideas of women who tempted sailors to their deaths on the rocks of their islands.
Many of the stories do involve the sea, rocks and/or islands. All evoke the magic of the tides, waves and storms. Some take the sirens literally, others use them as a starting point or a metaphor. Several have sirens who have been separated from their sisters and their islands, and some have nothing to do with the sea at all.
I enjoyed every one of these stories, although some were more chilling than enjoyable, as there’s a fair amount of horror involved. But I began to feel a little jaded. Sirens do have a certain requirement to fulfill our ideas, and while the settings and circumstances changed dramatically, I reached a stage where the plot no longer thickened. The anthology is excellent value for money, but it could have been shorter with no loss of value. Then again, I imagine Ms Parrish had enough trouble trying to reduce her shortlist to these finalists!
Worth reading, but possibly better to put down and pick up again a week or so later.
I generally find collections, especially themed collections, are best nibbled at, rather than devoured at a gulp.