Athena's Daughters, vol. 2: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Athena's Daughters #2

by Maggie Allen (Editor)

Maze running executioners, menopausal super heroes, psychic scientists, precog nuns, sentient crows . . . These are just a sampling of the diverse ladies that will enthrall, excite, and entertain you in this anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories written by women.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 27, 2015

About the author

Maggie Allen recently started writing short fiction, but from her day job at NASA she has years of experience writing and podcasting about various non-fiction topics in astronomy and astrophysics. Maggie has other short stories published in A Hero By Any Other Name, the Time Traveled Tales anthologies, Athena's Daughters, Soothe the Savage Beast, War of the Seasons: The Heart, and Contact Light. She co-edited Athena's Daughters, Volume 2. These titles may be found at: http://silenceinthelibrarypublishing.com. Maggie is a guitarist and singer in the rock band, "Naked Singularity," which released its first album of original music in 2013. They are currently working on their second album. Her band's website may be found here: http://naked-singularity.com, and her writer website here: http://writermaggie.blogspot.com.

Reviews

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume was much more enjoyable than the first one, although I still wish I liked it more. At 330 pages it is a much more manageable length and it seems like most of the stories themselves are of a similar length as well. The first volume I thought suffered from too many stories that were very similar, but this one seemed to have a better mix of genres and ideas. I appreciate the idea behind this series and I do think there were some interesting stories here, but unfortunately nothing really stood out to me as being amazing. Perhaps if they do a third volume it will continue being better and would finally be a a four star read.

[Erin Penn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-balanced, diverse anthology.

Second of the Women-centric anthologies from Silence in the Library and a much faster read at *only* 330 pages of manuscript fiction and 21 stories. Still suffers from the unevenness of skill that is present in all anthologies, especially since the editors make a point of developing new writers as well as using some amazing "anchor"/mature writers. Also, again, amazes at the DIVERSITY of characters - Hispanic, black, Asian, white, old, young, middle-age, straight, gay, and doesn't impact the story. These are stories about women, all females, the full-spectrum of the bearers of double-X chromosome. And the stories themselves range from science fiction to fantasy, past to future, sad to joyous, one-shots to a side story in an established series.

Now to the standout stories
"The Killing Garden" by Carrie Ryan - An amazing character/sociological piece the editors put at the very beginning of the book. If you read nothing else in this anthology, read this historical drama.

"Red is the Color of Mother Dirt" by JY Yang - A political sci-fi. A wonderful sociological study (and anyone who has read my reviews knows how much I love great worldbuilding), which is amazing to find in a short story. So little room to create a whole world while also introducing and developing characters and telling a complete story. Ms. Yang did this all with grace.

"The Black Mamba and the Leopard" by Alison J McKenzie - A folk-myth fantasy-thriller. Loved the main character and her problem solving skills. Not quite the must-read of the Killing Garden, but close. A five-star story in my opinion.

"The Miraculous" by Tess Tabak - Written in second person. No, really, second person. I've heard about stories like this, but never seen one. And the story is about what happens after the Zombie Apocalypse you just survived. Did you ever think loneliness...monotony... would be the biggest issue? You understand the main character very well by the last sentence.

"Hot Flash" by Antha Ann Adkins - Another excellent superhero origin story (with an amazing illustration). And I thought only teenagers had the hormonal instability to set off a superhero mutation.

"Crow Bait and Switch" by Tish E. Pahl - A cuddly, creepy sci-fi. 'Nough said.

Now read the book!

[Johanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this and the first volume at the same time alternating depending on time available and length of up coming story. I received both books during the initial Kickstarter campaigns and read the kindle versions.
I very much enjoyed this book. As with any anthology there were good stories, amazing stories and a few that I wasn't that into. I enjoyed that many were part of a larger world and have added several books to my Goodreads want to read list as a result of the short story in this book.
For me personally, one of the big draws to this publishing house and this book was the ability for the authors to write differently. To challenge ideas and to not worry about "mass market appeal". The stories made me think, they made me cry and they made me uncomfortable. I want that when reading.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty scrappy collection of uninspired stories.