Jackalope Wives and Other Stories

by T. Kingfisher, Ursula Vernon

From award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes a collection of short stories, including "Jackalope Wives", "The Tomato Thief", "Pocosin", and many others. By turns funny, lyrical, angry and beautiful, this anthology includes two all-new stories, "Origin Story" and "Let Pass the Horses Black", appearing for the first time in print.

Content:
- The Kingfisher & the Jackalope (2017)
- Godmother (2014)
- Jackalope Wives (2017)
- Wooden Feathers (2017)
- Editing (2013)
- Bird Bones (2015)
- That Time with Bob and the Unicorn (2016)
- Razorback (2017)
- The Dryad's Shoe (2014)
- Let Pass the Horses Black (2017)
- Telling the Bees (2015)
- The Tomato Thief (2017)
- Origin Story (2017)
- Pocosin (2017)
- It Was a Day (2013)
- Acknowledgments (2017)

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Fairy Tales, Anthologies, Mythology, Poetry

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2017

About the author

T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children's books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.

This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.

When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent short story collection exploring old folk and fairy tales in new, twisty ways, by the very talented T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon), including what is probably my favorite fantasy short story ever, "Jackalope Wives." I finally broke down and bought a copy of the whole collection, so now I’ve read all of the stories that I haven't found online over the years ... and did MORE fixing of messes made by GR librarians who fouled up the merging reviews thing (which is at least better than disappearing my reviews entirely ...). Pro tip: Ursula Vernon also conveniently lists all of her online short stories here on her T. Kingfisher website.

Partial review—additional comments pending about the stories not reviewed below (online links to several of the stories are included):

The stars of this collection are "Jackalope Wives" and its sequel novelette, "The Tomato Thief," which won a Nebula and a Hugo respectively.

5 stars for "Jackalope Wives": When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, the jackalope wives take off their rabbit skins and dance in the moonlight to the notes of wild music. (“And now you will ask me about the musicians that played for the jackalope wives. Well, if you can find a place where they’ve been dancing, you might see something like sidewinder tracks in the dust, and more than that I cannot tell you. The desert chews its secrets right down to the bone.”) But, so the story goes, if a man steals a jackalope wife’s rabbit skin and burns it, the jackalope wife will stay in human form and he can keep her. Grandma Harken’s moody, semi-magical grandson tries to do this, but loses his nerve when the girl screams in pain and gives her half-burnt rabbit skin back to her. When she puts it on, she’s not only got severe burns but is caught between her two shapes, human and jackalope. It’s up to Granny Harken to try to fix the mess her grandson has created.

This is a fantastic short story, evocative of Native American legends. I loved Vernon’s writing in this:

The Patterned Man stared at her, unblinking. The ravens laughed to themselves at the bottom of the wash. Then he dipped his head and bowed to Grandma Harken and a rattlesnake as long as a man slithered away into the evening.

Grandma Harken (love the implications of her name!) is a memorable character: she’s impatient and abrupt, but also caring (though she tries to hide it with her grumpy comments) and insightful. This story is enjoyable not only on the surface, but on deeper levels, as it explores themes of selfishness, sacrifice, and respect for the ways of nature, among other things. Free online here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalo...

5 stars for "The Tomato Thief": Now that Grandma Harken’s troublesome grandson has been shipped back east, she can relax in her desert home and enjoy ripe tomatoes from her garden in peace … or not. Her prized tomatoes start disappearing from the vine, with no footprints or signs to show who or what is the thief. Grandma Harken grabs her rocking chair and her shotgun and sits out on the porch, waiting for the thief. It takes a few nights and some creativity to evade the sleep spell that strikes her each night, but eventually she sees a shapechanging figure picking her beloved tomatoes. But Grandma Harken hides a bit of a soft heart under her gruff exterior, and when the thief turns out to be a victim, Grandma Harken once again takes action to solve another person’s problem.

Like “Jackalope Wives,” "The Tomato Thief" is told in a folksy voice, and has a Native American-flavored mythology. In this sequel, the mythology is explored further and takes some unexpected turns. My favorites were the train-gods, who woke when the white men built train tracks across the desert, took over the trains, and chose as train-priests some of the laborers who had built the tracks, “[p]eople who had, with toil and tears, earned the gods’ regard.” The railroad magnates, who were furious when their trains developed a mind of their own, tried to take back control with the help of the government’s armies but ― after a couple of regiments were eaten by the train-gods ― they changed their minds. So:

Freight got moved, more or less. Sometimes it wound up in the wrong place or was summarily dumped in the middle of nowhere. The machines were capricious gods. (This was part of the reason for the price of coffee.)

They were very good about letters, though. Anna’s grandson was the current train-priest, and he said that his god thought letters were prayers and moved them as a kind of professional courtesy.

You appreciated that sort of thing in a god.

Grandma Harken is an endearing character, mixing grumpy determination and homespun wisdom. "The Tomato Thief" is longer and more fragmented than the wonderful “Jackalope Wives,” and didn’t have the same impact on me, but it’s still well worth reading if you liked the first story and want to spend a little more time enjoying Grandma Harken’s company. Free online here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/the-tom...

4.5 stars for "The Dryad's Shoe": This is a delightful twist on a retelling of Cinderella. Hannah loves gardening and has far better things to do than try to attract the Duke's son, with or without magical shoes and ballgowns. Sometimes it’s difficult to do your own thing when the world ― or your fairy godmother/dryad in the tree (and the titmouse that the dryad uses as its mouthpiece) ― wants you to do or be something else. But a girl who’s sufficiently determined can figure out a way.

“Why didn’t you go to the ball?” squawked the bird. “That was the point!”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. What would I do at a ball? A bunch of people standing around being snippy at each other and not talking about anything of any purpose. I caught a bit of it from the servants as I was passing through the manor. No thank you.”

“There’s dancing, though!”

“I don’t dance,” said Hannah shortly. “Dancing’s not a thing you just pick up in a garden.”

This is a humorous and quirky tale, with several twists on the old fairy tale. The snippy conversations between Hannah and the magical titmouse sent by the sentimental dryad are entertaining, and it’s heartening to see Hannah stick to her guns and continue pursuing her own dreams. “The Dryad’s Shoe” is a bit one-note, but it’s an entertaining read and carries a positive message Free online here: http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/n...

4 stars for "Pocosin": This is another folksy tale with a lot of heart. An old possum god, dying of snakebite ("It had likely been another god that poisoned him, she thought—Old Lady Cottonmouth, with her gums as white as wedding veils"), makes its way to the home of a witchwoman named Maggie Gray. She's reluctant to take it in, but when three powerful beings come sniffing around for the possum, Maggie decides she needs to stand up for someone who can no longer protect himself. Free online here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/pocosin/

4 stars for "Telling the Bees":

There was a girl who died every morning, and it would not have been a problem except that she kept bees.

With this intriguing beginning, we are introduced to an unnamed girl who lives alone in small cottage. Early each morning, after a long, sleepless night, she dies. A few hours later she gasps and shudders her way back to life again. Then she goes to tell her bees that their old master has died, and she is the new master, because bees require respect and must be informed of deaths, or they will abandon the hive and leave. And having a little honey to scrape over her black bread is one of the few pleasures left to the girl.



“Telling the Bees” is a quiet, extremely short story. It’s also a little enigmatic, and it took me a few reads through it to tease out the details and fully understand the context.

Sleep like death and death like sleep are common curses. It is inevitable that they become tangled. Fair folk and wicked queens are not always precise in their diction.

There are consequences for imprecision, and it is always someone else who has to pay.

This subtly horrifying portrait of a life where sleep has been replaced by a temporary death gained heft for me when I realized that it is based in part on an old traditional custom that one must inform one’s bees of key events in the household, particularly deaths, or the bees may stop producing honey or leave the hive. I would have liked to have known more of the girl’s backstory (could she be Sleeping Beauty?), but that may well have marred the overall impact of the tale. There’s a little bit of heartbreak in each of the details in this fine story. "Telling the Bees" is available to read online for free at Strange Horizons.

4 stars for "Razorback" and "Wooden Feathers": Comments pending. Links to the stories online: https://www.apex-magazine.com/razorback/ and https://uncannymagazine.com/article/w...

[Nataliya · Rating 5 out of 5]

And just like that, Ursula Vernon/ T.Kingfisher became one of my favorite short story writers, joining the company of Ted Chiang and Ray Bradbury.

This collection is simply wonderful. Steeped in mythology and fairy tales, and yet somehow rooted and grounded in realness of the world, on the *very* magical side of magical realism.

“The core of being a witch is that you don’t fall down while there’s work to be done. Sometimes that means you invent work to keep yourself standing upright.”

The stories are simply excellent. They are quiet and gentle at the first glance, but with a bit of the bite right under the surface. They are easily atmospheric, with me by the end fully immersed in the desert with cactuses and coyotes and jackrabbits and possum gods and train tracks that bend around reality when the world is forcibly folded, and sensible orphans who’d rather garden than marry some prince, and forgetful fairy godmothers, and wise and cranky old witches that feel like kindred souls to Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax, and wooden carvings coming to life among profound sadness. And the best story of a deep friendship between a hog and a witch, with murder and vengeance and desire for rebirth in a bird’s egg. And militarized birds taking on a homicidal idiot. And a re-virginized moron summoning a narwhal instead of a unicorn. Plus a few sharp brief interludes on editing and writing and entitlement. And an astute observation that “[…] nobody gets mad like a do-gooder if you won’t hold still and let ‘em do good on you.”

“Bob,” I say, “a man who is no longer interested in the genetics of inbred hillbilly water unicorns is a man who is no longer interested in life. I am afraid for your priorities, son.”

The whole book just flows and feels cohesive, although only two stories in it are related — both award-winning pieces, Jackalope Wives and The Tomato Thief (Nebula for one, Hugo for the other) that I had to single out because of the sheer brilliance.

But the entire collection - without a single miss, without a single dud - is simply perfect.

“All girls of marriageable age in the village are required to present their left foot to try on a shoe!”
There was dead silence in the market.
Silas leaned over and murmured, “I always thought there was something a little peculiar about the Duke’s son…”

5 stars.
——————
——————
Jackalope Wives, a Nebula Award winner for Best Short Story (2014):

"It’s different when you got a choice."

This story is perfect. I have no other words for it - it's simply perfect. It takes only a few minutes to read, and yet in those few pages it easily achieves everything that it possibly can. It's incredibly atmospheric, lyrical, full of vivid imagery and told in a fairy-tale cadence and yet concise and complete and saying so much while saying little.

The legend is old and familiar. Find a magically beautiful changeling, trick her to stay with you, forcibly separate her from everything that was hers and make her yours, turn love into possession to fulfill your heart's desire. Because the point of the stories, quests and legends is getting what you want, isn't it?

"So the young man with the touch of magic watched the jackalope wife dancing and you know as well as I do what young men dream about. We will be charitable. She danced a little apart from her fellows, as he walked a little apart from his.

Perhaps he thought she might understand him. Perhaps he found her as interesting as the girls found him.

Perhaps we shouldn’t always get what we think we want."

In a North American desert at half-moon young men watch jackalope wives dance - the part-jackrabbit part-antelope creatures that shed their skins for the night of dancing in the moonlight when they appear as the beautiful, alluring, breathtaking women. And as it always happens, one of the young men - the broody one with a touch of magic - wants, needs, to make one of them his own, to own and possess his heart's desire.

"Now, it happened there was a young man in town who had a touch of magic on him. It had come down to him on his mother’s side, as happens now and again, and it was worse than useless.
A little magic is worse than none, for it draws the wrong sort of attention."

"This sort of thing happens often enough, even with boys as mortal as dirt. There’s always one who learned how to brood early and often, and always girls who think they can heal him.
Eventually the girls learn better."

Everyone knows what to do - grab her changeling skin and burn it, tying her to the world of humans, giving her no choice but to stay with you.

“She was beautiful,” he said. As if it were a reason.

As if it mattered.

As if it had ever mattered.

But what do you do if it's not that easy? If something goes terribly wrong?

“Of course it hurts her!” yelled Grandma. “You think you can have your skin and your freedom burned away in front of you and not scream? Sweet mother Mary, boy, think about what you’re doing! Be cruel or be kind, but don’t be both, because now you’ve made a mess you can’t clean up in a hurry.

But forget the careless selfish young man. Forget the jackalope wife whose desires do not matter to him. They are in the story but it's not their story. It is the story of Grandma Harken, the one who picks up the pieces, the one who does not let love cloud her judgment, the one who has no illusions about the way the world works. The one who to me is a spiritual cousin of Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax.

The one who knows the price and knows that it must be paid.

"You get over what you can’t have faster that you get over what you could. And we shouldn’t always get what we think we want.”

It's a wonderful, wonderful story, fully deserving its Nebula win.
——————————
——————————
The Tomato Thief - Hugo Award winner for Best Novelette (2017):

“You did not steal an old lady’s tomatoes. It was rude, and also, she would destroy you.“

Grandma Harken, who in her youth was someone - something? - else, needs to set some things right. There’s no other way. And she would t take the other way even if there was.

This is a story that transports you to this strange world so entirely that you might as well get a few souvenirs as you see and smell and breathe the desert.

It’s a North American desert setting in the world where not only do the Jackalope wives dance and Coyote god walks, but where the desert and the trains have a gruff understanding, and train gods might not reliably deliver your coffee and sugar but will make a reliable exception for delivery of letters that they view as prayers, where the reality can be folded but the train tracks can still go through — “The trains run in three worlds. We will not speak of the fourth.”

But it’s not the world where a shapeshifter stealing Grandma Harken’s tomatoes can go uninvestigated and the culprit can go unpunished.

“The same people in town who muttered about black magic swore that she was using unholy powers on her tomatoes. This was a little more plausible than general black magic, because obviously if you had unholy powers, you’d want to use them on your tomatoes.”



“She leaned her shotgun up against the porch railing in easy reach. Probably she wouldn’t need it, but there was no telling how low a body would sink once they’d started down the road of tomato theft. Murder was not out of the question.” 

Grandma Harken, whose bones still remember dancing many decades ago, will do what must be done, right what was wronged. Neither desert nor dragons nor a deathless evil from cold faraway place can stand in her way. She is old and tough and knows well the main rule of the desert — you always give water to those who ask for it. You just need to remember that “sometimes the desert gives you an answer, and it is your job to find the question.”

It’s beautiful, measured, a bit melancholic and startlingly atmospheric. I really hope that there will be a few more stories of Grandma Harken in the future. Or the trains and the train gods. Or girls with cactus bones.

“The world was hard and fierce, but it also contained tomato sandwiches, and if that didn’t make it a world worth living in, your standards were unreasonably high.”

And yes, in the middle of this story I got up and made me a tomato sandwich. It was the only logical and sensible thing to do.

[carol.]

I was motivated to buy this collection to both support Vernon/Kingfisher and because I adore the story "The Tomato Thief" (winner of the 2017 Hugo for novellette). I was motivated to review what I've read because of the total lack of individual entries for 'Tomato,' despite you being able to read it for free, on line, right this very minute. What are you waiting for?

The Tomato Thief
A perfect story for the end of the year.

http://www.apex-magazine.com/the-toma...

Mixing Native mythology with classic fairytales and the rise of the railroad can have lovely results. For a few moments, on New Years' Eve, in the cold and dark north, I was in the hot, dry desert, baking in the sun.

“'I need your old mule,' Grandma Harken told him. 'The one I like to ride.'

Tomas looked at her, gazed briefly heavenward, and said, 'That mule died five years ago, Abuela Harken.'

Grandma blinked. 'What’d he die of?'

'Old age,' said Tomas, who was always extremely respectful but had a sense of humor anyway."

Truly, an engrossing little story full of all my favorite elements: determination, magic, women tough as sinew, humor and a feeling of a tale as old as people. I read through a number of other reviews and suspect that what some reviewers are missing is a familiarity with both Native myths and with a particular classic fairy tale. If you are familiar with the latter, Vernon's transformation of it in the New World is clever and enjoyable. It's been a while since I read various Native mythology, but world origin myths are particularly... different, and I suspect don't necessarily translate well conceptually. There's a section in this that reminds me of those. At any rate, a fabulous, multi-layered little read.

She put it in her pocket, because something the desert gives you an answer, and it is your job to find the question.

Still, I disagree with Grandma on the value of a fresh tomato sandwich.




Razorback
http://www.apex-magazine.com/razorback/

Vernon just keeps nailing it with the updated version of familiar bloody folk-tale and fairy tale themes in the story of a rural witch who found a kind of solid companionship in a friendly hog. Not quite as lyrical as her other stories, it has a familiar lead from Vernon short stories; a strong, stubborn, isolated woman of power. I appreciate the tale's acknowledgement that there are social risks in that position, and that certain men will always see outliers as prey. A moving sort of romance and a nice twist to a traditional sort of cost-situation. There's some interesting self-reference in this as the narrator elaborates on several local accounts of 'what really happened.'

Three and a half, rounding up for the bloody sweetness.

[Lois Bujold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd saved this up for airplane reading, for which it served admirably well. The collection includes a couple of award contenders, some truly creepy horror shorts ("Razorback", I'm looking at you, with one eye shut), and a sly take on Tam Lin, but my favorite was the mild-plotted "That Time with Bob and the Unicorn", for the utterly charming voice of the first-person narrator, Dr. Williams, a retired Southern physician tussling with modernity (as are we all) from some unnamed, quirky smallish town. I hope he appears again.

Ta, L.

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

bear with me as i restore all the reviews deleted by overzealous GR librarians who arbitrarily and with no notice decided which short stories could stay and which needed to be removed from the site before just as arbitrarily adding them back, without restoring any of the reviews. since so many of y’all do december short story advent calendar challenges and need stories to fill those requirements, imma try to help by plopping mine back on here, praying they don’t get deleted again, because it’s a lot of work—fixing five years’ worth of broken links and missing reviews and i don’t want this to be a lot of wasted effort, y’know? deep breath. here goes nothing: 2016.

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

last year, amy(other amy) tipped me off to this cool thing she was doing: the short story advent calendar, where you sign up to this thingie here and you get a free story each day.

i dropped the ball and by the time i came to my senses, it had already sold out, so for december project, i'm going rogue and just reading a free online story a day of my choosing. this foolhardy endeavor is going to screw up my already-deep-in-the-weeds review backlog, so i don't think i will be reviewing each individual story "properly." i might just do a picture review or - if i am feeling wicked motivated, i will draw something, but i can't be treating each short story like a real book and spending half my day examining and dissecting it, so we'll just see what shape this project takes as we go.

and if you know of any particularly good short stories available free online, let me know! i'm no good at finding them myself unless they're on the tor.com site, and i only have enough at this stage of the game to fill half my calendar. <--- that part is no longer true, but i am still interested in getting suggestions!

DECEMBER 12

She wrapped herself up in a quilt that night and sat in the rocking chair on the back porch. “We’ll see what kind of rat bastard steals an old lady’s tomatoes,” she grumbled.

(Grandma Harken thought of herself as an old lady, because she was one. That she was tougher than tree roots and barbed wire did not matter. You did not steal an old lady’s tomatoes. It was rude, and also, she would destroy you.)

this one is more of a novelette than a short story, so if you're planning to read it yourself during a similar story-a-day challenge, make sure you set extra time aside for it. this is the second grandma harken story, after Jackalope Wives, and they are both wonderful, totally worth the length and in fact, you will probably wish they were longer. or that there were more of them. i certainly want more. but not tonight - tonight i am sleepy.

read it for yourself here:

http://www.apex-magazine.com/the-toma...

and you should read jackalope wives, too:

http://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalop...

DECEMBER 1: FABLE - CHARLES YU
DECEMBER 2: THE REAL DEAL - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 3: THE WAYS OF WALLS AND WORDS - SABRINA VOURVOULIAS
DECEMBER 4: GHOSTS AND EMPTIES - LAUREN GROFF
DECEMBER 5: THE RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE - NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 6: WHEN THE YOGURT TOOK OVER - JOHN SCALZI
DECEMBER 7: A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 8: DEEP - PHILIP PLAIT
DECEMBER 9: COOKIE JAR - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 10: THE STORY OF KAO YU - PETER S. BEAGLE
DECEMBER 11: THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES - ALAN BEARD
DECEMBER 13: THE JAWS THAT BITE, THE CLAWS THAT CATCH - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 14: ROLLING IN THE DEEP - JULIO ALEXI GENAO
DECEMBER 15: ANTIHYPOXIANT - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 16: THE AMBUSH - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 17: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRAITOR AND A HALF-SAVAGE - ALIX HARROW
DECEMBER 18: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW - PAT CADIGAN
DECEMBER 19: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS - PAUL CORNELL
DECEMBER 20: THE TRAINS THAT CLIMB THE WINTER TREE - MICHAEL SWANWICK
DECEMBER 21: BLUE IS A DARKNESS WEAKENED BY LIGHT - SARAH MCCARRY
DECEMBER 22: WATERS OF VERSAILLES - KELLY ROBSON
DECEMBER 23: RAZORBACK - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 24: DIARY OF AN ASSCAN - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 25: CHANGING MEANINGS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 27: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SUDDEN DEATH - CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
DECEMBER 28: FRIEDRICH THE SNOW MAN - LEWIS SHINER
DECEMBER 29: DRESS YOUR MARINES IN WHITE - EMMY LAYBOURNE
DECEMBER 30: AM I FREE TO GO? - KATHRYN CRAMER
DECEMBER 31: OLD DEAD FUTURES - TINA CONNOLLY

come to my blog!

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” she said, when she’d run out of swear words and turned back to religion. “This ain’t funny anymore!”

She stomped down and found a nearly ripe tomato, which she yanked off the vine and took inside. It sat on the counter. A day or two and it would be almost as good as the others.

Almost.

She was angry now at herself as well as the thief. Falling asleep when she was supposed to be standing guard—what was that? Was she really that doddering an old woman?

“Not tonight,” she said grimly. “Not tonight.”

She watered the garden by hand and did the laundry, just to keep herself moving. She napped all afternoon, which Spook-cat quite enjoyed. Then, as evening fell, she brewed herself up a pot of cowboy coffee, with the grounds still in the pot.

It cost more than blood these days, but that was life. Salt, flour, coffee, and sugar were the only things Grandma Harken bought at the store, and the store could only get them in because Father Gutierrez was on good terms with the train-priests.

It didn’t matter how good the terms you were on, though, they were expensive as the devil. Most of the time she got by with tea and honey and cornmeal, same as everybody else.

Still, didn’t matter how strong you brewed it, tea was no substitute for coffee.

“I’ll be up half the night drinking and the other half peeing,” she said. “Not a chance I’ll fall asleep this time.”

She sat down in the rocking chair with the coffee mug in one hand and prepared to wait.

In the small hours of the night, Grandma Harken woke up because her bladder was killing her.

Her first thought was that she’d fallen asleep again, and damnit, she wasn’t that old.

Her second was that the thief was less than ten feet away.

It was a mockingbird.

Grandma Harken stared.

It glowed like silver under the moon—really glowed, every feather edged in white fire. When it shifted, it threw light across the prickly tomato leaves and left sharp-edged shadows across the ground.

The bird perched on top of the tomato cage for nearly a minute. Occasionally it would flick its tail and set the shadows dancing.

It might have sat there all night, except that Grandma Harken’s bladder was making its displeasure known. She squirmed in her chair and the rockers creaked on the porch.

The white patches on the mockingbird’s wings blazed up and it flew.

She shot out of her chair, bladder be damned, and charged down the steps. She could see the mockingbird flying, the sagebrush casting fantastic shadows, the saguaros briefly silver instead of black—and then it was a distant spark dwindling into the desert.

Grandma Harken watched it vanish against the sky.

“Mockingbirds,” she said aloud, stomping toward the outhouse. “Mockingbirds stealing my damn tomatoes.”

She knew mockingbirds eat fruit if they can get it, but she had to admit, she would not have expected one to make off with a full-sized tomato. Cherry or grape tomatoes, sure, but one of my big ones?

She was up and down three more times that night, as the cowboy coffee made itself felt, but she was hardly sleeping anyway.

Mockingbirds also don’t leave human footprints. And generally they do not glow like foxfire.

“Shapechanger,” she said to Spook-cat, who slept in a small orange puddle atop the pillow. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Again.”


4 1/2 stars

[jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

note: this review concerns the stories jackalope wives and the tomato thief only, which have no separate listings on goodreads despite being available to be read individually online (read jackalope wives here and the tomato thief here).

“the desert was full of strange things, but the trains were some of the strangest.

when white men came to lay iron rails across the land, the land didn’t take kindly to it. the train tracks looked too much like chains. the land brought heat and death and disease, and work on the rails slowed to a crawl.”

question: is old-world mythology mixing with new gods in present day already a genre?

because if it is, i’d like to declare ursula vernon the master of it, thanks.

the specific vibe of fairy tales and myths is often difficult to capture. they usually require a moral of some sort, as well as a certain root in reality alongside the magical and the fantastical that’ll pull the common folk right into them. and yet, it’s more than ‘just’ magical realism -- more than one foot out the door of your wardrobe and into another world.

for starters, the divide is often subtler than that. much like how the train tracks in these stories sometimes fold up and go somewhere they’re not supposed to go.

fairy tales also have their own rules and archetypes, and to truly capture a new myth that retains that sense of being part of a society’s collective subconscious -- that’s an amazing skill in and of itself, and one that vernon has in spades.

jackalope wives and the tomato thief both involve the character of grandma harken, a cantankerous elderly lady living on the edge of the desert. in the first story, her grandson makes a grand misstep that she sets out to fix, and in the other -- well, as made obvious by the title, someone’s been stealing her tomatoes and she is NOT amused.

both tales start small and personal, only to grow larger in scope and scale as they introduce their themes: freedom, greed, responsibility, and being half of one thing, half of the other. there are also some of the more classic fairy tale tropes such as trickery, bargains, and sacrifice.

native american myth and folklore takes center stage, as well as some of the bloody history of the americas and local plant and animal life. you’ll meet shapeshifters, coyotes, stubborn old mules, and tomato thieves. i could feel the heat of the desert as if i were there, could imagine walking amongst the characters in the story -- it was a vivid, visual experience.

and just when you think that, y’know, all of that is already cool in and of itself -- you also get witty dialogue, humor, and commentary on current society layered on top.

it’s like one of grandma harken’s excellent tomato sandwiches, in that way.

grandma’s lips twisted. “father of rabbits,” she said sourly. “wasn’t trying to call you up.”

“oh, I know.” the father of rabbits grinned. “but you know i’ve always had a soft spot for you, maggie harken.”

he sat down beside her on his heels. he looked like an old mexican man, wearing a button–down shirt without any buttons. his hair was silver gray as a rabbit’s fur. grandma wasn’t fooled for a minute.

look at that quote. simple yet descriptive; a seemingly real, every-day thing hinting at the power simmering underneath. i’m the kind of person who wants to believe fairy tales are real and could exist in our world, and these stories made me feel like it could.

anyway, i could wax poetic about these tales all day, but i don’t want to give away too much of the plot. that’s way too much fun to figure out on your own. also, rather than reading a long and tedious review by my hand, you could instead head on over to the links at the top and read the stories yourself in a short amount of time.

and then dream, like i did, about coyotes and dragons and deserts in faraway lands.

✎ 5.0 stars.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

T. Kingfisher sure can write. I would read just about anything of hers, fiction or not. Even a Kingfisher gardening manual or bird field guide would be full of piquant observations and keen detail. As much as I enjoy her longer works, I think she may be at her best in the short story in which all the details matter, characterization has to happen quickly, and plots take a backseat to ideas.

Jackalope Wives is a marvelous collection of short stories, diverse in subject yet united by Kingfisher's folksy settings and otherworldly events, her rhythmic and remarkably non-purple prose, and a sense of horror lurking just under the surface. I read them one after another, never knowing what to expect in the next one.

I think what I admire most about T. Kingfisher is her uncanny ability to see straight through her subjects, whether she is writing about cranky old women or birds, witches, artists, deserts, or gods. Her observations are so apt that they frequently had me seeing familiar things in a different and more interesting light.

Rather than go into the particulars of each of the stories (they're short and their plots are probably best left un-summarized), I'm just going to leave this review with some quotes that spoke to me.

"He was tall and slim and had dark hair and young women found him fascinating. This sort of thing happens often enough, even with boys as mortal as dirt. There's always one who learned how to brood early and often, and always girls who think they can heal him. Eventually the girls learn better. Either the hurts are petty little things and they get tired of whining or the hurt's so deep and wide that they drown in it. The smart ones heave themselves back to shore and the slower ones wake up married with a husband who lies around and suffers in their direction. It's part of a dance as old as the jackalopes themselves." - from Jackalope Wives

On birds:

"She liked birds, but Canada geese didn't really fall into that category, did they? They were more like airborne sheep. She could already see messy green droppings in the flowerbeds, and one of them had quite crushed a clump of spiderwort." - from Bird Bones

And I identify 100% with this cantankerous-old-person chain of thought:

"I respect everybody's right to post stupid-ass screeds on their Facebook, but I don't want to try and read it before breakfast. You start the day looking at that and you spend all day itching for a fight. I like to start with some pictures of tiny kittens who've made friends with big dogs and then maybe some science articles. [...]

"'Bob," I said, "we have been over this ground before. There is an acceptable ratio of cat pictures to screeds about men's rights and you have reversed the numbers on that particular ratio, and that is why I don't plan to friend you again.'" - from That Time with Bob and the Unicorn

Maybe the most surprising Tam Lin retelling I've ever read:

"She'd dressed in clothes she was willing to die in. It seemed like there was a good chance of that happening. But then she had stepped out the door and it was already getting cold so she'd grabbed the first warm thing she found on top of the clean laundry and now she was going to her death in a sweatshirt that read: OREGON - TEN MILLION BANANA SLUGS CAN'T BE WRONG." - from Let Pass the Horses Black

And finally:

"Around the pond, the fat trumpets of the pitcher plants began to glow from inside, as if they had swallowed a thousand fireflies. The light cast green shadows across the surface of the water and turned the sundews into strings of cut glass beads. It cut itself along the leaves of the staggerbush and threaded between the fly-traps' teeth. whatever was left of the possum god glowed like foxfire. Hand in hand, they came ashore by pitcher plant light."- from Pocosin

Weird, earthy, imaginative, and creepy. Everything in here is good stuff, and I want more of it.

[Mitticus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juraria que habia leido antes esta historia corta, pero parece que no ^^;
Bueno, no se la pierdan :D

Jackalope Wives - 5 ★★★★★

Grandma Harken lives in the edge of desert, where between saguaro cactus the jackalope wives dance.

They had faces like no mortal woman and they moved like quicksilver and they played music that got down into your bones and thrummed like a sickness.

Bittersweet story with all the elements of a fairy/myth/legend tale, with roots that maybe be celtic or indigenous , but what a beautiful images bring to us.

Well, the broody grandson appear to be more interested in the dancers, as a matter of fact.

“She was beautiful,” he said. As if it were a reason.
As if it mattered.
As if it had ever mattered.
-

Perhaps we shouldn’t always get what we think we want.

And the jackalope wife danced, out past the circle of the music and the firelight, in the light of the fierce desert stars.

Magical indeed.

{with tons of awards: Nebula Award Best Short Story Winner / WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction / Cóyotl Awards Best Short Story Winner / World Fantasy Award Best Short Story Nominee.}



Resulta interesante esta mezcla de fábula y mitologia, donde esta imagen del conejo/liebre me apela al trickster en algunas culturas asi como a su conexion con el inframundo y lo sobrenatural por sus madrigueras bajo suelo. Hay un sincretismo aqui interesante, algo parecido a Gaiman y sus dioses americanos.

Esta version desértica de los selkies apela de todas maneras :)

La continuación de la historia es :

Tomato Thief - 4,5 ★★★★

Grandma Harken coveted her tomatoes, as every else it seems, though no one is foolish enough to attemp to stolen it.

The same people in town who muttered about black magic swore that she was using unholy powers on her tomatoes. This was a little more plausible than general black magic, because obviously if you had unholy powers, you’d want to use them on your tomatoes.

But when tomatoes dissapear from her garden, Granma is not amused.

The tale then become a little disjointed , perhaps I think trying to contain a number of different actors in this dessert myth opera where snakes, turtles, rabbits, cacti, birds, foxes and trains interweave magically. Oh, don't forget the concept of god-trains , the first I heard, bring to life over the blood and sacrifice of workers. Temperamental and bending physics.

That was the truth of history. Hundreds came and thousands died and hundreds more came to replace them. The blood of Anna’s people had bathed every inch of the rails.
When the train-gods woke, it was no wonder who they chose to be their priests. Chinese, black, Irish—even a Cornish woman way up north, where the snow piled up everywhere but on the tracks. People who had, with toil and tears, earned the gods’ regard.
It had made a lot of big money men back east furious.

Culture, history, folclore... all the same at the end.

Lot of good things ain’t natural. Most of ‘em just don’t rub your face in it.

Grandma stand with the thief it reminds of another tales -changing forms- ; so glad that tomatoes are worth it ;)

{2017 Hugo Award Winner — Best Novelette
WSFA Small Press Award-winner}

Pocosin - 3★★★

El nombre de un pantano de las Carolinas es el entorno de un corto cuento acerca de una bruja, un dios-zarigueña moribundo, y los viejos temas de diablo y divinidad y muerte. No es tan evocativo como los anteriores.

“Loose end? The possum gods and the deer and Old Lady Cottonmouth were here before anybody thought to worship you. Either of you.”

The Devil smiled. “Can’t imagine there’s many worshippers left for an old possum god, either. ’Cept the possums, and they don’t go to church much.”

And is the inmersion a sort of rebirth?

---->be updated with the next short-story.

{*Note: T. Kingfisher is the pen-name of Ursula Vernon.}

[Ricarda · Rating 4 out of 5]

T. Kingfisher saying in 2014 that she wants to use the bone dog again, maybe in a full-length novel, and she really did so a few years later in "Nettle & Bone", I love to see it <3. Also, I would definitely read a book about Grandma Harken, who just wants to spend her days alone in her garden but is always bothered by idiot grandsons or tomato thieves. And a book about the fairy who works in a slaughterhouse and stitches new life together too.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful. A richly imagined weird west fantasy with some wonderful dialogue...

“I need your old mule,” Grandma Harken told him. “The one I like to ride.”

Tomas looked at her, gazed briefly heavenward, and said, “That mule died five years ago, Abuela Harken.”

Grandma blinked. “What’d he die of?”

“Old age,” said Tomas, who was always extremely respectful but had a sense of humor anyway.

“Huh!”

After a minute she said, “What’s the next oldest mule you got?”

“I’ve got a young mule,” said Tomas, “who’s as polite a girl as you’ll ever meet. And you are welcome to ride her, Abuela.”

“I like the old ones,” said Grandma, disgruntled.

“She’ll get old in due time.”

PS: While reading I kept picturing a Studio Ghibli rendition similar to Spirited Away, in particular a variation of the Granny Zeniba character as Grandma Harken. Has the bones of a great anime.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really magical. Set in a desert place with jackalopes and coyotes and trains that are gods. Fantastic.

[Kathrin Passig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ja, es geht die ganze Zeit um Hexen und Feen und so weiter. Ich wäre auch lieber eine seriöse Person, die fünf Sterne für irgendwas Erwachsenes vergibt. Aber ich habe mich bei jeder Geschichte gefragt "Wie geht das, wie macht man das?", und das heißt fünf Sterne. Them's the rules.

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. A novelette set in a fantasy magical american desert with shapeshifters and god trains. Main character is an old, very old, lady who will set some shenanigans right. And it was all fantastically to my taste and I just added Jackalope Wives and Other Stories to my want-to-read list (I will pace it though).

Incidentally, reading this in FEBRUARY, in Europe, where there are NO ripe tomatoes at all (not even Moroccan imports making a relatively short trip) was stupid. This is like an ode to the glory that a really good tomato is. Trust me and read this in August instead (if that is tomato season where you live).

This won the Hugo award some years back and is part of my current "thing" where I am picking up short fiction from recent-ish lists (though I am not sticking to just that).

I loved this universe a lot better than her fantasy "gnole" universe from her T. Kingfisher books, felt more real, deeper, more interesting.

Merged review:

This was a delight - I did not respond the same way to all stories, obviously (and I did not finish the abbatoir one.. Nope, not going there) but I loved so many different stories here.

I am more critical of her full length fantasy novels (perhaps because I binged on them..) but this was so enjoyable. Very personal, the same voices, the same themes -women PoV characters, often old women, sometimes witches, usually independent and I guess "cantankerous" (or from another point of view, no putting up with bullshit “I’m so damn tired of stupid.”). Lots of gardening from a gardener´s PoV (but if you read Briony and Roses you kind of know what to expect though one learns a lot about growing tomatoes here..). Clearly she loves small birds also. She does her own takes on a few fairy tales (something new done with Cinderella! And Tam Lin also. And ohh an Hitchcok movie). Loved it, I am putting Toad Words And Other Stories TBR soon-ish and hunting for non collected shorts of her around.

I really hope she writes more about Grandma Harken or set in that universe, both short stories are perfect and vivid, and such a fantastic universe.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's keep it simple. This is the best set of fantasy short stories I have ever read, and I have read a lot of them. Simple, beautifully crafted, often amusing, twists on stories that are familiar or feel as though they should have been. And they're ALL good.

This is my first Kingfisher and I have a lot of catching up to do.

[Kristin B. Bodreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

And just like that I am done with another Kingfisher book! All of the stories are excellent. My two favorites are "That Time With Bob and the Unicorn" and "The Dryad's Shoe." I could tell you all the reasons why, but it will be so much more fun if you find out for yourself. Just know, Narwhals don't have the same cultural notions about virginity and Orangeries are much more interesting than fancy Balls and pretty dresses.

[Gehayi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gem of a book. It deserves ten stars, not five. Favorite stories: "Jackalope Wives" and "The Tomato Thief" (Grandma Harken is amazing, and I want to hear more of her adventures in/with the desert, not to mention the train gods and the girl with cholla ribs for bones); "The Dryad's Shoe" (featuring a wonderfully stubborn Cinderella who just wants to grow her garden, not marry a Duke); "Let Pass the Horses Black" (a retelling of the Tam Lin legend with a sting at the end that I did not see coming); and "Razorback" (a retelling of the legend of Rawhide and Bloody Bones that broke my heart a little).

As for the poems..."Editing" rings true as few works about writing do. "This Vote Is Legally Binding" is a beautifully sardonic Take That to those who insist on talking to others who are reading or wearing headphones. And"It Was A Day" talks about the frustration of knowing you cannot reach the fictional worlds you love, the glory of being able to create worlds of your own...and how infuriating it is when others tell you that your stories are not welcome.

By the way, as soon as I finished this book, I started reading it all over again. I never do that.

[K.J. Charles]

Another magnificent collection of stories from this superb author. I can't recommend these enough. Every one a gem. I'm keeping this short only because I have like 4 books of hers to review, having gone on a massive binge. Loved them all.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this is about the 5th thing I've read from T.Kingfisher and I'm starting to wonder if it's possible for her to write something I won't love.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been meaning to read this since I first stumbled across Jackalope Wives and The Tomato Thief; having just finished Snake-Eater, I wasn't quite ready to leave the world, and this sounded just the trick.

Those two stories both appear here, and are just as good as I remembered; no wonder this author has gone on to write book after book (side note: she mentions in the foreword to this one the feeling of inconveniencing by submitting too often, and I so hope that's starting to fade as more and more people appear to devour everything she ever releases).

There's also some other absolutely brilliant work; they're all good, but I paused halfway through "That time with Bob and the unicorn" to read the whole thing out loud to my husband at 2am because it was just that funny ("Bob," I say, "a man who is no longer interested in the genetics of inbred hillbilly water unicorns is a man who is no longer interested in life. I am afraid for your priorities, son."). It was a Day is short but incredibly heartfelt, and yes, made me a little teary.

All in all just a brilliant collection, with nary a dud among them. So glad I finally read the whole thing.

[Iona Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding collection of gorgeous, vicious stories, steeped in the landscape of the American Southwest, hands-down the best book I've read this year. Worth mentioning that Kingfisher's hallmark is literary, affecting prose, but she can do comedy: "That Time with Bob and the Unicorn" made me cackle with laughter.

[aarya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not think I was a person who enjoyed short stories and apparently I was wrong.

[Maija · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like all short story collections, I liked some stories more and some less. But I don't think there was a dud in there, Vernon is really good! It just comes down to taste.

The two Grandma Harken stories, Jackalope Wives and The Tomato Thief, are the shining stars of the collection, instantly raising it to five stars. I had read both of them before, and gladly reread them now. I love Grandma Harken! I also really enjoyed Editing, The Dryad's Shoe, and found myself really liking both Razorback and Pocosin a lot more than the first time I'd read them online! Maybe I hadn't been in the right mood back then.

The ones that weren't for me were Wooden Feathers (I just don't seem to get along with Pinocchio tales), and That Time with Bob and the Unicorn.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a Godmother’s magic is all in how you spin it. In a very interesting story to start off a collection with a folk tales feel in contrast to Toad Words ’s fairy tale content, a young girl shows up at a Fairy Godmother’s door demanding to know why her story was grimmer and edgier than other girls’. Despite the funny possibilities for their conversation, the answer and the reality behind it are thought provoking and unsettling. The darker emphasis on the young girl’s trials and the strange guides she arrives with gives one the feeling that her story strayed into a different genre than the Godmother’s girls usually end up in, effectively passing the torch from Toad Words to Jackalope Wives .

Speaking of Jackalope Wives, the titular story tells of the disaster that occurs when a boy looking to catch one of the Jackalope dancers chickens out partway through burning her skin. A pained, bedraggled creature is caught between forms and the boy’s grandmother sets out to make things right. I’ve not heard much Jackalope mythology, not being from the Southwestern states, but Kingfisher makes them the American desert version of selkies, whom men could catch and marry when the girls removed their seal skin, provided the men can prevent them from finding it again. The grandmother is one of my favorite character types: the elderly woman with no patience for excuses or false charm, and who does what needs doing whether her hands get dirty or not. Loved this story, loved the setting, loved the ending, and loved the character.

In a creepy cross between Pinocchio and Pygmalion, a woodcutter is a loyal customer of an amateur decoy carver, and one day the young woman gets the chance to see what exactly he's doing with all the wooden ducks. Wooden Feathers has an unsettling way about it, especially when the Pinocchio character is introduced. But the magic is charming once you sweep off the wood shavings, sharpen it, and pass it on to someone willing to treat it well.

Editing is a free form poem about the magic inherent in editing (in creating things that don't exist but that are accepted as existing by the reader). There're a few references to woodworking, and it fits nicely with the previous story. It's short and I haven't got a lot to say about it, but, especially slipped in behind Wooden Feathers, it's possibly my favorite piece in the collection.

Maybe my second favorite in the book, Bird Bones tells of what would happen if birds began to develop higher reasoning skills, and who would most benefit from this. An elderly woman is a patient protector of her backyard bird population, and they come to her aid when a dangerous neighbor decides she'd be the ideal target for his violence.

In an amusing story set in rural modern day, a storyteller relates That Time With Bob and the Unicorn, where said man tries to summon the mythical beast and accidently brings up something not quite different, and the storyteller's rescue of the poor creature. This was a great story told like someone talking to a friend over a cup of coffee - with cutaways and clarifications (So I was at the coffee shop the other day and I ran into Bob - not the Reverend, but Marlene's boy - and he was talking about unicorns. [p.85 (ebook)])

A local witch has a problem with unwelcome attentions, and after one rebuke too many an ornery suitor takes his anger out on her familiar, a mellow-tempered Razorback hog. Remember how I said earlier than one of my favorite types of characters is the elderly take-no-shit do-what-needs-doing type? Well, the witch, Sal, is another wonderful example, with a sour disposition and a head full of magic to go along with it. A bittersweet ending, but I'll take it for how satisfying the rest of the story is. Plus, the ending is softened a little with another Sal story coming up later in the book taking place before she meets her porcine friend.

I read The Dryad's Shoe a long while back; long before knowing about these books and back when I was only able to find Kingfisher's short stories on her DeviantArt account. It's a wonderful Cinderella retelling, where the Cinderella character is a gardener and too sensible to put much stock in talking birds promising happily ever afters. Instead, she's far more interested in the royal orangery. The character and story were adorable, and I loved the dose of comedy added with the increasingly frustrated talking bird. I've been following Kingfisher/Vernon long enough to be aware of her love of gardening and birding, and you can see a lot of both loves in this story.

A Tam Lin story dedicated to a friend and collector of such tales who'd passed away, Let Pass the Horses Black tells the usual story with one hell of a brilliant twist. Five stars! Great work! I never cared much for the Tam Lin plot, but Holy Christie what an ending!

This Vote is Legally Binding is another free form poem, and it's Kingfisher's tongue-in-cheek response to the creeps who were throwing online tantrums for a while back in 2016 about not being allowed to talk to women wearing headphones. This kind of thing always annoys the hell out of me, as it does to any woman (and anyone; if we're doing something that excludes you, it's not an open invitation to try and drag us kicking and screaming into conversation with your self-entitled ass). Kingfisher's response is akin to a very polite third-degree burn.

There's a real life superstition among beekeepers that bees should always be told when their keeper has died (no, I mean in real real life). In story, one young woman's heart routinely stops in her sleep, and must inform the bees of her passing every morning. Telling the Bees becomes another item on her morning to-do list, and will stay as such until she finds what she's looking for during her post-mortem out-of-body jaunts. The story was fine, but I wonder if it messes up the bees to be told their keeper is dead by the dead keeper. There had to have come a point where they just stopped believing her.

The grandmother who rescued the Jackalope girl from her idiot grandson is back and battling The Tomato Thief who keeps stealing the first ripe fruits of the season. A simple desire for the perfect tomato sandwich drives her across the desert, through the territory of the train gods, and into the den of an evil creature with no patience for an interfering old woman. It wasn't as good as Jackalope Wives , and I think a lot of my problem with it is that is takes a while to get to the meat of the story, and when it does it goes from being a Southwest folktale setting to some kind of mish-mashed fantasy setting to fight an overpowered miniboss. Thankfully, Kingfisher remembers her character even if the setting gets a little ridiculous, and she doesn't give this old, haggard, exhausted woman some kind sudden superhuman stamina or ability. So while I didn't care for the climax, everything outside the showdown was entertaining and visually interesting, and I loved the idea of the old woman being able to pass down her knowledge and skills so the stories can continue.

Another free form poem, In Questionable Taste makes the observation that it doesn't make sense to be able to plant a seed and get a something valuable out of it. Cute, but it doesn't have the same directness the other poems have and reads more like a train of thought.

Next is the Origin Story for monstrous, gruesome things in the world. They all have to come from somewhere, and sometimes they come from a curious fairy stitching life out of slaughterhouse scraps. A good, unsettling story, but too dark for me personally.

In Pocosin, the witch woman is back as she double-talks sinners and saints away from her house long enough for a minor folk god to die properly. Damn, I loved this one. There's always something appealing about folk tales with a woman talking the Devil off her property all polite-like. And seeing her interact with her visitors makes the ending of Razorback a little sweeter.

It Was a Day is one last poem and probably a bit of self-refection on what it means to turn your expectations into words once you finally realize they'll never be reality, then those words to become someone else's expectations (i.e. you'll never get your Hogwarts letter or be swept off to the Lonely Mountain by an obstinate wizard, but you can help send someone else on an adventure of your own making).


EDITING:
No problems, and the placement was such that some stories emphasized those that came after them.

ENJOYABILITY:
There were a couple that didn't do much for me - Telling the Bees, Origin Story, most of the poems, etc. - but I loved too many to let the score drop too much.

THEME:
I was impressed with the way the first story 'passed the torch' in theme from the fairytale-like Toad Words to the folktale-like Jackalope .

OTHER ASPECTS:
There was a nice halfway-bookended effect created by starting the book with the story of the fairy godmother and the disillusioned quester, and finishing with a poem about a 'disillusioned quester' becoming a writer and creating future disillusioned questers. I'd give it a full star if I thought it was intentional, but I'm pretty sure I'm just reaching. Actually, no, boiling down the stories like that just made it more perfect; it must have been intentional. I'm raising it to a full star.

THE VERDICT?
Another rousing success from the mind of Ursula Vernon T. Kingfisher.

[Susan Scribner · Rating 4 out of 5]

On my way to becoming a T. Kingfisher completist, I picked up this 2017 collection, and was tickled to see many of the same motifs that are present in her more recent novels: older, plain, no-nonsense MCs who get shit done; the importance of a good garden; and of course creepy things like demented puppets, dying possum gods, and bone dogs (whose brief appearance in one story inspired the unforgettable canine in Nettle & Bone). I'd read T. Kingfisher's grocery shopping lists if necessary, but fortunately there is still Toad Words and Other Stories, and maybe even her children's books written as Ursula Vernon to explore.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I finish a book by Vernon I think to myself that I couldn't possibly love her writing any more than I already do. And then I pick up another of her books, and I see my heart grow two sizes by the end of it, just to accommodate the extra joy and delight.

These short stories are flawless. They're often gruesome and full of suffering and sacrifice, and in that sacrifice there's immense love for life, nature and personhood. Vernon's witches are similar to Pratchett's witches; perhaps a touch less implacable. The setting was a delightful shock. Desert fantasy! Not a forest in sight! And it's somehow just as magical and ominous!

Vernon's world is always full of consistent fantasy rules. Her characters are people I wish I could be friends with. And there's a prevalent love for plants, gardening and apiculture. I don't know the first thing about Native American storytelling, but I can surmise a lot of the folklore referenced by Vernon has to do with Native American legends and tales. A lot of trickster animals, as well as gods in animal bodies, feature in these tales. And sometimes the witch is Catholic, and these beliefs are not just surprisingly compatible, but beautifully complementary.

Fae and their completely different standards of morality are also painstakingly spun into existence from the thread of one million fairytales, with fairy tale tropes incorporated throughout in unexpected ways, and an honest-to-God Cinderella retelling that wasn't just a superficial stab at a feminist reinterpretation. I am in awe of Vernon's prowess.

[Chi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Godmother: 2 stars

Not quite long enough, I feel like it was the precursor to Nettle & Bone.

Jackalope Wives: 5 stars

Umm, I'm slightly taken aback. The story was beautiful, and had the right tone of mystery to it. I love stories where I have to think through the story and its twist soon after finishing it.

If you're interested, the short story is available for free https://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalope-wives/

Wooden Feathers: 5 stars

Pardon my language, but fucking Jep. That was amazing - and more than I hoped or expected!

Editting: 5 stars

Short as it was, I rather enjoyed this short story. It said all it needed to say, about the art of writing.

Bird Bones: 5 stars

What would you do if you were an old lady, who suddenly spotted a wide variety of birds, flying about in formation, as if following instructions? And what if it seemed like they were communicating with you? Because you'd end up with this!And, as gruesome as things went, I was left with a massive smile on my face. What an utterly delightful, fun story that was!

:

[Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title caught my eye because I live just past the eastern edge of the territory of the Greater South Dakota Jackalope. Still, see them quite often when traveling west, especially near the Bad Lands.

So not knowing what to expect I was little surprised/chagrined to find out this can best be described as "Gothic Western". Several of the stories are set in the "West". Though not necessarily our "West". There is little true horror, well one. But that jerk so deserved what he had coming to him.

The author has a flair for words. There were several phrases that lingered with me long after the stories.

I recommend this to anyone who likes Gothic, though not necessarily Gothic horror. Also those who like magic/paranormal where it is not people summoning demons. But rather ordinary people, usually older women, who are blessed/cursed with the ability to tap into a world just outside our own.

I think if you liked the original Twilight Zone you will love this book.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful collection of short stories with folkloric touches and a quirky sensibility. I enjoyed every story, but of course I had favorites.

Jackalope Wives: I first became aware of T. Kingfisher (aka, Ursula Vernon) when she took home this years Novellette Hugo for The Tomato Thief (also in this collection!) and fell in love. So of course I was delighted to read the first Grandma Harken story!

The Dryad's Shoes: This is now my favorite take on Cinderella, a version in which the protagonist is happier in the garden than the palace.

Wooden Feathers: A story about art, grief, and connection.

Bird Bones: It became clear early in this collection that the author really loves gardening and nature, and has a penchant for cranky old ladies. This story combines both with a marvelous twist.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

The moon came up and the sun went down. The moonbeams went shattering down to the ground and the jackalope wives took off their skins and danced.

I listened to this story today on my phone, a first for me this year in the tale end of days of 2020. I was thrilled with both the authenticity of the narrator, as well as the story itself. It was only when I was adding the story in to GR that I learned that Ursula Vernon is also T Kingfisher. Pleasant surprise!

I've heard this story before somewhere, somewhere on the edges of my memory. I loved Father Rabbit and the Patterned People.