Mythspring review at Asimov’s site

The web site for Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine has a review posted on Mythspring.

Quite deliberately, editors Julie E. Czerneda and Gen-evieve Kierans have summoned over a dozen Canadian writers to supply stories inspired by “the lyrics and legends of Canada.” What results is a stimulating journey through northern realms of the imagination.

The majority of the stories are pure fantasy. Ghosts figure quite often, as in Charles de Lint’s “The Universal Soldier,” Karina Summer-Smith’s “Safe Passage,” and Daniel Archambault’s “The Ghost of Watson’s Mill is Online.” Vivid Canadian settings—the subway tunnels of Toronto in Lorne Kates’s “Over Lunar White” and the logging town of Bean Creek in Lynda Williams’s “The Harpy”—play an important part as well. Old legends in historical eras, such as that of the loup-garou in colonial Canada, arise (“Walking with Wolves,” by Alison Baird). And new legends, such as Fiona Patton’s Kuttnerish families with special talents (“Family Trees”), are created.

My two favorite stories stand out from the rest, however. James Alan Gardner’s “All the Cool Monsters at Once” is a great comedic romp involving literally every legendary beast of the north, reminiscent of a Godzilla film. And Claude Lalumière’s “This Is the Ice Age” is arguably the only true SF story in the book, postulating a sudden shift in cosmic paradigms that brings a barely survivable apocalypse to our planet.

Latest in a welcome resurgence of Canadian fantastical literature, this volume is one to keep close by on cold nights when the Wendigo stalks.

The original is here, but you have to scroll a fair ways to find it.

1 thought on “Mythspring review at Asimov’s site”

  1. Google alerts fetched me here because my name appears in the review you cite. Nifty program. And greetings Mark. Nice to make the acquaintance of a fellow Canadian SF author and MYTHSPRING contributor.

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