Uncanny Magazine, Issue 23, July/August 2018

Uncanny Magazine #23

by Lynne M. Thomas (Editor), Michael Damian Thomas (Editor), Sam J. Miller (Contributor)

COVER
"The Uncanny T-rex" by Galen Dara

EDITORIAL
"The Uncanny Valley" by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

DINOSAURS!
"The Uncanny Dinosaurs—Introduction" by Brooke Bolander, Sam J. Miller, Mari Ness, Nicasio Andres Reed, A. Merc Rustad & Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, K.M. Szpara, JY Yang, and Lynn M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
"Red Lizard Brigade" by Sam J. Miller
"You Can Make a Dinosaur, but You Can't Help Me" by K.M. Szpara
"Bones in the Rock" by R.K. Kalaw
"By Claw, By Hand, By Silent Speech" by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry & A. Merc Rustad
"The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander
"The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon, California, and the Unknown" by Brit E. B. Hvide
"Expecting a Dinosaur" by Mari Ness
"Give the People What They Want" by Alex Bledsoe
"Nails in My Feet" by Mary Robinette Kowal
"Everything Under Heaven" by Anya Ow

NONFICTION
"Island Futures" by Tobias S. Buckell
"Joy and Applause" by Alasdair Stuart
"The Seduction of Numbers, the Measures of Progress" by Marissa Lingen
"Thirteen Reasons Who: A Timeline of a Question" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

POETRY
"Octavia's Letter to Marcus Anthony on the Discovery of His Faithlessness" by Cassandra Khaw
"The One" by Brandon O'Brien
"The Year We Got Rid of Our Ghosts" by Ali Trotta
"FIND A HOT ASIAN GIRLFRIEND NEAR YOU" by Cynthia So

INTERVIEWS
K.M. Szpara interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim
Anya Ow interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Dinosaurs, Hugo Awards

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2018

About the author

In my day job, I am the Head of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Rare Book and Manuscript Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the largest public university rare book collections in the country. I used to manage pop culture special collections that include the papers of over 70 SF/F authors at Northern Illinois University. I also teach a Special Collections course as an adjunct in the iSchool at Illinois, and used to do so at SJSU.

I'm an eleven-time Hugo Award winner, the Co-Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Uncanny Magazine with my husband Michael Damian Thomas. The former Editor-in-Chief of Apex Magazine (2011-2013), I co-edited the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords, Whedonistas, and Chicks Dig Comics. I moderated the Hugo-Award winning SF Squeecast and contribute to the Verity! Podcast. You can learn more about my shenanigans at lynnemthomas.com.

Reviews

[carol. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course I didn't read the whole magazine, silly. But I did read Brooke Bolander's fabulous story, 'The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat.'
Think Ursula Vernon crossed with someone a bit darker and bloody (although she's gone there herself lately). It's a modern and welcome riff on a fairy tale, told as a story to a listening youngster, one presumes.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...


Humans are very soft and spook easily. One brush with fangs in the dark and they bruise like dropped peaches, never understanding that life is a series of extinction events barely avoided.


Cross posted (where it won't be deleted): https://wordpress.com/post/clsiewert....

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.

this is the FOURTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your 2019 reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.

if you scroll to the end of the reviews linked here, you will find links to all the previous years’ stories, which means NINETY-THREE FREEBIES FOR YOU!

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2018: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

reviews of these will vary in length/quality depending on my available time/brain power.

so, let’s begin

DECEMBER 8: THE TALE OF THE THREE BEAUTIFUL RAPTOR SISTERS, AND THE PRINCE WHO WAS MADE OF MEAT - BROOKE BOLANDER



The strength of the pride is in the many. Split us apart and we are nothing, but together—oh, together—there is nothing we cannot bring crashing and spouting to earth.

this is pure brooke bolander goodness. every time i see her name on a story, i'm pretty confident i'm going to dig it, and this one was no exception. a fairytale reversal where the 'monsters' are three dinosaur sisters—They lived in a wood together, they stole sheep and cattle together, and all in all, there was no tighter-knit hunting pride of matriarchal dromaeosauridae between the mountains and the sea.

when a shiny blond prince who is too unimaginative and coddled to recognize danger wanders into their forest, the sisters' formidable hunting prowess is stymied by his lack of fear, and the youngest sister decides to investigate the matter; allowing the prince to take her back to his place, so she can determine if there's some bigger threat headed their way.

once in the kingdom, she suffers the indignity of being stabled like a beast, playing nice while she's taking stock of the situation. she meets the prince's betrothed; an intelligent and powerful woman underestimated and reduced to an ornamental caregiver for prince dum-dum.

the two have much in common, and much to discuss.

it's a story about the wrong people in power, the snowballing of uninformed decisions, of fast-grown confidence, and how cats can never be fooled. it's a fairytale with a happy ending...for some, and even a lesson or two, if dum-dums can be taught.

and it's got all those great bolander lines:

Humans are very soft and spook easily. One brush with fangs in the dark and they bruise like dropped peaches, never understanding that life is a series of extinction events barely avoided.

this is a delicious and humorous story, and i'm so glad to be back on the short story project!

read it for yourself here:

https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...

*******************************************

THE STORIES:

DECEMBER 1: FOR HE CAN CREEP - SIOBHAN CARROLL
DECEMBER 2: TAM-O'-SHANTER - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 3: TRASH BIRD - REZA FARAZMAND
DECEMBER 4: COLOR AND LIGHT - SALLY ROONEY
DECEMBER 5: SEONAG AND THE SEAWOLVES - M. EVAN MACGRIOGAIR
DECEMBER 6: KAIJU MAXIMUS "SO VARIOUS, SO BEAUTIFUL, SO NEW" - KAI ASHANTE WILSON
DECEMBER 7: BEWARE OF OWNER - CHUCK WENDIG
DECEMBER 9: OUT OF SKIN - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 10: PROBABLY STILL THE CHOSEN ONE - KELLY BARNHILL
DECEMBER 11: THE HUNDREDTH HOUSE HAD NO WALLS - LAURIE PENNY
DECEMBER 12: GIRLS, AT PLAY - CELESTE NG
DECEMBER 13: MR. THURSDAY - EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
DECEMBER 14: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - MADELINE ASHBY
DECEMBER 15: A FOREST, OR A TREE - TEGAN MOORE
DECEMBER 16: OUTFOXED: A FABLE - DYLAN MECONIS
DECEMBER 17: THEN LATER, HIS GHOST - SARAH HALL
DECEMBER 18: OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD - M.R. JAMES
DECEMBER 19: PREMIUM HARMONY - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 20: KNOWLEDGEABLE CREATURES - CHRISTOPHER ROWE
DECEMBER 21: THE HOLE THE FOX DID MAKE - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 22: MRS. FOX - SARAH HALL
DECEMBER 23: SEASONAL WORK - LAURA LIPPMAN
DECEMBER 24: THE PLAGUE - KEN LIU
DECEMBER 25: ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: BLOOD IS ANOTHER WORLD FOR HUNGER - RIVERS SOLOMON
DECEMBER 27: CIRCUS GIRL, THE HUNTER, AND MIRROR BOY - J.Y. YANG
DECEMBER 28: ALL ALONG THE WALL - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 29: SWEETNESS - TONI MORRISON
DECEMBER 30: DERIVING LIFE - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 31: EVERY LITTLE THING - CELESTE NG

come to my blog!

[Cynnamon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairy tale told from the monster POV.
I found it a bit perturbing that the monster POV equals the feminist POV.....

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” by Brooke Bolander.

“SQUEAK SQUEAK. CRUNCH. THEY CRUNCH SO GOOD.”

Brooke Bollander of the Talons that Crush Galaxies, I bow to thee. Why, you ask? Because:

Best title ever.
+
Matriarchal dromaeosauridae.
+
Cheerfully moronic prince who doubles as steak tartare.
+
RRKKKKKKKT!
+
Canny, asocial princess in no bloody shrimping distress whatsoever.
+
Hahahaha.
+
Now that’s what I call a HEA!

=

Best fairy raptortale ever.




This is short. This is FREE. This is here.

[Teal]

"The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander:

Women = Good.
Men = Bad.

There, I saved you from having to read it.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

***The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat by Brooke Bolander***

Nice little fairy tale that’s basically about female empowernment.

It’s quite humorous, sometimes a little bloody, and ultimately pretty satisfying.

I loved the roles of the Princess and the Prince in this one. Albeit for very different reasons. ;)
And then there are the raptors, of course. RLLLL? *nods* RLLLL!

Hugo 2019 nominee for Best Short Story.

You can read it here: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...
You can also listen to it, either using the same link or a podcast app for example. I’m recommending the audio version, as I think it’s definitely more fun that way. It’s the Uncanny Magazine Podcast #23B. The story starts after 10 minutes and 31 seconds.

Pre-review musings:

Listening to this again now, as my review somehow got deleted during one of those short story / magazine merges. And I can't quite remember what I had written about it.

I encourage everyone to regularly make a back-up of their library. In case you don't know how: Go to "My Books", scroll down until the column on the left says "Tools", click on "Import and export", on the next page click on "Export Library". This will create a csv. file that you can save on your computer.

Actual review for the story to follow tomorrow, I suppose.


____________________________

2019 Hugo Award Finalists

Best Novel
• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
• Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
• Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
• Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
• Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Best Novella
• Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
• Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
• Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
• Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson
• The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Best Novelette
• If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho (Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog)
• The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections by Tina Connolly (Tor.com)
• Nine Last Days on Planet Earth by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com)
• The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com)
• The Thing About Ghost Stories by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine)
• When We Were Starless by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld Magazine)

Best Short Story
• The Court Magician by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed Magazine)
• The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine)
• The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine)
• STET by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine)
• The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine)
• A Witch’s Guide To Escape: A Practical Compendium Of Portal Fantasies by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine)

Best Series
• The Centenal Cycle by Malka Older
• The Laundry Files by Charles Stross
• Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee
• The October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire
• The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard
• Wayfarers by Becky Chambers

Best Related Work
• Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee
• The Hobbit Duology (a documentary in three parts), written and edited by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan
• An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards 1953-2000 by Jo Walton
• The Mexicanx Initiative Experience at Worldcon 76 by Julia Rios, Libia Brenda, Pablo Defendini, and John Picacio
• Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon

Best Graphic Story
• Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä, colors by Jason Wordie, letters by Jim Campbell
• Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington, art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino, and Tana Ford
• Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
• On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
• Paper Girls, Volume 4 , written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang, colors by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
• Saga, Volume 9, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples

Best Art Book
• The Book of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition illustrated by Charles Vess, written by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon by Julie Dillon
• Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, and Sam Witwer
• Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, editor John Fleskes
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed
• Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, editor Catherine McIlwaine

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan Children’s Books)
• The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform / Gollancz)
• The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (Little, Brown / Hot Key Books)
• Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
• The Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin (David Fickling Books / Scholastic)
• Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (Random House / Penguin Teen)

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat
BY BROOKE BOLANDER | 8654 WORDS

Entertaining take on fairytales, with unusual protagonists.

“Once upon a time, long, long, long, long, long, long, ago, there were three raptor sisters, hatched beneath a lucky star. They lived in a wood together, they stole sheep and cattle together, and all in all, there was no tighter-knit hunting pride of matriarchal dromaeosauridae between the mountains and the sea.“

Nothing too surprising, an easy read. Enjoyable.

Can be read for free here: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...
————
You Can Make a Dinosaur, but You Can’t Help Me
BY K.M. SZPARA | 9188 WORDS

Interesting story about a trans man and his Jurassic Park-inventing dad. I had hoped for the story to go a different direction, but this worked as well. My mind is spinning this into a novel.

Can be read here: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/y...

[Fiona Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Good morning to you, old mother!” said the guard at the drawbridge. “Are those apples for the King?”

The first old woman looked down at her basket, then back up at the guard.

“YES,” she said in a loud, croaking voice. “FRUIT FOR THE SHINY APE KING’S FLAT TEETH.”

“MAMMALS LOVE FRUIT,” her sister added, nodding emphatically.

The elderly were often saying such things, so the guard took no mind.

Funny, original, and everything good that I've come to expect from Brook Bolander.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nommed for '19 Hugo, this short has everything a meme-starved young girl could ever dream for. The heroines are, of course, Raptors, and the idiot Ape-King is a temporary fancy. :) Quite funny and timely for those of us still watching Jurassic World and similar. :)

Talking points? Nothing much except the focus on female-gender heroes and monsters being the protagonists. Again, humorous, but not much else. Tickled my ragged funnybone. :)

[Lata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contender for a 2019 Hugo: A story of sisterly love that gets 5 tasty, stupid princes from its beautifully feathered and gloriously fanged raptor-ous audience.

[Beige · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters - 4 ¼ stars

The only fairytale, to date, that I've enjoyed. It's all down to the awesome narrator, Mama Raptor extraordinaire!

[Schizanthus Nerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat is a 2019 Hugo Awards finalist in the Best Short Story category.

This was a predictable but fun fairytale featuring three raptor sisters, whose names translate into human as Allie, Betty and Ceecee. They are a “hunting pride of matriarchal dromaeosauridae”. The youngest sister, Ceecee, encounters a bumbling Prince and his stead while hunting in the forest and as a result the sisters’ happy lives get more complicated.

I found the Prince to be more a caricature than anything else. I liked the Princess and appreciated her yearning to shed the yoke that had been placed upon her. Although I understood its purpose, I think I would have liked this tale of female empowerment more if the man in the story had a personality that extended beyond his stupidity.

You can read this short story online here.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s the dinosaur issue: 8/10 stories are related through the Ingen, I mean the Owen Corporation. I love the idea but overall it was a low three stars with nothing memorable.


Red Lizard Brigade by Sam J. Miller ★★★★☆
Brutal start! Russia is building a dinosaur army with wormhole technology to conquer the West. Lovers find themselves at crossroads when one wants to defect.


The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat by Brooke Bolander ★★★★☆
"And they lived happily all the rest of their days, too, for there’s no luck like that of those who have dined on tyrants and survived to sing the tale."
A classic folktale/fairytale style story with the addition of dinosaurs! Fun with a happy ending!


Bones in the Rock by R.K. Kalaw ★★★½
"I have the right to implore. I have swallowed tar, and life after life, your tar remains in me."
Ancient earth magic and sheer determination drive a creature through life after life to find the mate she lost in the cataclysm.


You Can Make a Dinosaur, But You Can’t Help Me by K.M. Szpara ★★★☆☆
“A queasy feeling grips your stomach. The trans dinosaurs aren’t a problem to be fixed - [they are] to be put down.”
A story exploring the sex changing dinosaurs from Jurassic Park through the transgender perspective.

There is so much explaining that goes into being transgender. It made me think of a joke Kevin Bridges made about Scottish people dying young because of the exhausting effort of communication: https://youtu.be/YRo9d4Gxj3I

Two critiques:

If your going to write an intro into transgender issues story for the general population don’t start it with a sex scene.

The ending was wishy fantastical and resolved nothing.


By Claw, By Hand, By Silent Speech by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry & A. Mere Rustad ★★★☆☆
"She is so real, but the cognitive dissonance of stroking the spine of a long dead creature is almost impossible to reconcile, even as she signs my name."
A deaf paleontologist teaches a lonely dinosaur sign language.


The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon, California, and the Unknown by Brit E. B. Hvide ★★★☆☆
"She held a chunk of meat in her jaws and whipped it around proudly before laying it at my feet like a gift. It looked fresh and nondescript, so I thanked her for it and didn’t think to question where it came from.
Cooked up, it tasted like pork."
Epistolary tale of the Donner Party with a vengeful ghost and little dinosaur.

Expecting a Dinosaur by Mari Ness ★★★☆☆
This was a long poem about a dinosaur attack caught on social media. The Owen Corporation makes sure the town is blamed for not preparing for a dinosaur attack. Sounds like the Trump Era.

Give People What They Want by Alex Bledsoe ★★★☆☆
“For everything that exists, there’s someone who wants to see it.”
The dangerous illicit business of underground dinosaur porn.

Nails in My Feet by Mary Robinette Kowal ★★☆☆☆
Two page story told from the point of view of an old dinosaur puppet lamenting his forgotten career.

Everything Under Heaven by Anya Ow ★★☆☆☆
Two women meet to hunt dragons for different reasons. I wasn’t into it.

I don’t rate the non fictions but I will say they were particularly rant filled this issue - not my cup of tea. Get enough of that on the news.

[Chi · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I only read The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat.)

Re-read 9 March 2023

Still so deliciously awesome!

---

I. Loved. This. Story. So. Much!

The story is just as ridiculous(ly awesome) as the title of the story, and I usually hate stories where nasty tyrants and such get no comuppances. It's definitely not a problem here. *grin*

[Rebecca Crunden]

Now, the King’s subjects knew all about this particular forest, and avoided it like the plague, and if the Prince had thought to ask them they could have easily told him why this was so. If you know a blessed thing about royalty, however, you’ll have already guessed that he had bothered doing no such thing.

What an absolute delight this was! Three raptors and a princess against an awful prince.

[Crowinator · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Price Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander

I actually got anxious reading this story worrying about the princess and the three raptor sisters, so that's a win.

I received this story as part of the 2019 Hugo Voters Packet.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A special dinosaur themed edition of Uncanny Magazine (which I took out a subscription to this year)! This was a lot of fun and the stories were of a consistently high quality. My favourites were:

The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat by Brooke Bolander - an interesting twist on a traditional fairy-tale

By Claw, By Hand, By Silent Speech by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry & A. Merc Rusted - a deaf researcher creates a bond with a dinosaur she’s studying using sign language

Bones in the Rock by R. K. Kalaw - a dinosaur searches for the missing bones of her long lost love.

Red Lizard Brigade by Sam J. Miller - a pair of lovers find themselves divided.

All the above stories (and more) can be found online for free.

https://uncannymagazine.com/uncanny-m...

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for: The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat by Brooke Bolander

Oh this is SO GOOD. It's funny and sharp and I would like to befriend a raptor sister please and thank you.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

The humor was very well done, I certainly had more than a dozen chuckles and one or two loud laughs, but other than that there was nothing much to its mundane plot.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read it. I mean, it's great. It's what Jurassic Park should have been.

[Lis Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three beautiful raptor sisters live in a lovely wood near excellent hunting grounds, and are happy and content. Then a very foolish prince rides into their woods, and is so oblivious to the fact that he's being stalked by the youngest sister, even after she eats his horse, that they conclude it must be a trick. The villagers must be fed up, and have sent out poisoned bait.

They need to find out what else the humans may be planning. They need to investigate. One of them needs to go to where the human pack leaders nest...

The youngest raptor sister offers herself to the prince as a replacement steed, and his ego is sufficiently large, and his wits sufficiently lacking, that he takes it as his due rather than a cause for concern.

Much of the court is smarter than the prince, but not that much smarter. There is, though, a very intelligent princess, married off to the prince for political reasons, who has her own skills and talents.

This is a lot of fun, and I won't say anything more. Just go read it. Highly recommended.

I received this story in the 2019 Hugo Voters Packet.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

“To see it would have burst your heart, and then they would have eaten what was left of you.”

Something of a farce. Fun to the point of being silly. Like a one-line joke extended into a story.

“Glamour never worked on cats. They saw right through the Princess’s spell, recognized the kindred hunters beneath, and found pressing reasons to be elsewhere.”

2019 Short Story Hugo Award finalist. Published in Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018.

“It was a good life, sprinkled with just the right amount of companionship and just the right amount of solitude, and none of them ever regretted their choices, which was a fine way to grow old if you can manage the trick.”

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read 'Three Raptor Sisters' free online for a discussion.

Oh clever. And a joy to read. I would have appreciated a warning that it's a little long, even a little long-winded, but I do recommend the story. I can't think of any discussion points though. Nor do I think it award-worthy.

[Chessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaaaaggghhh this was so good! If you like fairy tale fantasy settings but with raptors and sly humor, this is for you! And you can read it online for free, so what on earth are you waiting for?!

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beginning - Middle - ???? Hey! Where's the ending?

Dammit! I like my stories with a definitive ending - that ties up most of the loose bits. Only one story in this magazine does that. The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat It has imagination and reads like a fairy-tale but with feathery raptors thrown in.

Worth it just for The Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters.

4 Stars for that one. 2 stars for most of the others. 1 star for a couple of them.

[Silvana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating and review only for "The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander.

2.5 stars rounded down. Well, I read at least two Bolander stories before and I liked them. This one, I am glad it's not like a Chuck Tingle story (though sounds like one). It's a cute tale about female empowerment, yet I feel the raptors were there just for gimmicks. Interesting, though.

[saradevil · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightfully modern fable.

[Carien · Rating 5 out of 5]

fairytale as told by a dinosaur.
Very fun!

[Annschi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat": Extrem trashig.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read "The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander. It was excellent.