My Goodreads review of “Andrion” by Alex Penland
Andrion by Alex Penland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Full disclosure: I met Alex Penland at a conference of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. She talked about her forthcoming novella, and I offered to read it, and if I liked it, to give it a blurb. (Blurbs are short promotional descriptions of a work, usually a paragraph on the back or on the website.)
Alex had done her research into ancient Greece and the people who lived there, and I hoped she could bring the possibilities of that historic time to life.
I read ‘Andrion’ and I think she did just that. In particular, I was impressed by the emotion packed into the story, echoing the intensity of ancient Greek drama, where characters embody their emotions and express them with raw energy.
My blurb:
Ancient Greece had an open secret: its vaunted ideas of democracy and freedom never applied to women. Alex Penland captures the sights, sounds, beauty, and jostling politics of Ancient Athens. A love for that city — and other kinds of love — emboldens a young woman to do what no woman has done before: rebel, using the latest technology of Athens in this imaginative steampunk tale. Righteous anger shines in this story like a beacon.
