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The Underwater Ballroom Society (2018)

von Tiffany Trent (Herausgeber), Stephanie Burgis (Herausgeber)

Weitere Autoren: Laura Anne Gilman (Mitwirkender), Cassandra Khaw (Mitwirkender), YS Lee (Mitwirkender), Jenny Moss (Mitwirkender), Patrick Samphire (Mitwirkender)4 mehr, Iona Datt Sharma (Mitwirkender), Shveta Thakrar (Mitwirkender), Tiffany Trent (Mitwirkender), Ysabeau S. Wilce (Mitwirkender)

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405618,445 (3.95)1
Would you rather dance beneath the waves or hide your smuggled magic there? Welcome to a world of sparkling adult fantasy and science fiction stories edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent and featuring underwater ballrooms of one sort or another, from a 1930s ballroom to a Martian hotel to a grand rock 'n roll ball held in the heart of Faery itself."From the first page, I knew I was in good hands. This is my kind of fantasy -- magic, adventure, and gorgeous writing. The Underwater Ballroom Society is the kind of fantasy that got me into reading fantasy." - Patrice Sarath, Author of The Sisters MederosStories in this anthology:Ysabeau S. Wilce, "The Queen of Life"Y.S. Lee, "Twelve Sisters"Iona Datt Sharma, "Penhallow Amid Passing Things"Tiffany Trent, "Mermaids, Singing"Jenny Moss, "A Brand New Thing"Cassandra Khaw, "Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball"Stephanie Burgis, "Spellswept"Laura Anne Gilman, "The River Always Wins"Shveta Thakrar, "The Amethyst Deceiver"Patrick Samphire, "A Spy in the Deep""This anthology is an excellent collection of stories and all of them are well worth your time." - Michelle at The Monday Review… (mehr)
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A strong collection of short stories, all of which include an underwater ballroom. Other than that connection, each is pretty unique and they all feel different too. Some are obviously weaker than others, but I finished them all and never felt like that I was rushing through one just to get it done with.

My favorites of the lot were:
- "Twelve Sisters" by Y.S. Lee - a story based on the Twelve Dancing Princesses, only what happens after the story ends.
- "Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis - it helped that I had read the rest of the Harwood Spellbook series, so I came into it already invested in the characters and the world here. It's Amy being terrifyingly competent and beginning to eke out the new paths that she and the rest of the Harwoods blaze onto.
- "Mermaids, Singing" by Tiffany Trent - I want this to be expanded into a full novel, stat. There's so much world building that we didn't see and is only implied, and I am greedy and want more.
- "A Spy in the Deep" by Patrick Samphire - This is the second in a series of Harriet George, spy on Mars during the Napoleonic Wars. There's apparently dinosaurs on Mars? But her simple assignment turns out to be anything but. It's utterly delightful. This reminds me a lot of Carrie Vaughn's Marlowe and Harry short stories. I'll definitely be checking out the first story. ( )
  wisemetis | Dec 6, 2020 |
When Stephanie Burgis contacted me to propose I read and review this collection of short stories from various authors, I was quite intrigued: I had enjoyed both her two historical fantasy novels (Masks and Shadows and Congress of Secrets) and her novella Snowspelled, with its alternate version of Regency England where magic is as common as teapots, so that I was fairly certain I would appreciate these short works centered on the shared theme of an underwater ballroom.

The location itself would have been enticement enough as a narrative lynchpin, but once I learned from the preface that an underwater ballroom does indeed exist as the remnant of a once-lavish estate, my curiosity did skyrocket: I have by now learned that Ms. Burgis loves to employ true historical details as her writing’s cornerstones, and the fact that she proposed the same core theme to other writers, to do as they pleased within their stories, made for a potentially fascinating journey. And that’s what this collection was, indeed.

Each story is wildly different, ranging from steampunk fantasy to what I labelled as “fairy stories for grown-ups”, but each of them features the famous underwater ballroom in one way or another, and the overall effect is a delightful one. Now, if it were only remotely possible to experience at least one of these amazing ballrooms, that would be nothing short of perfect…

In "The Queen of Life" by Ysabeau S. Wilce, we see the unusual juxtaposition of the fae world with our own reality, exploring the concepts of music and immortality, and of the meaninglessness of a long life devoid of the rich pleasures we can only find in the mortal sphere.

"Twelve Sisters" by Y. S. Lee is what made me think of the definition of 'fairy stories for adults': in fairy tales, once the hero does the deed and wins the princess’ hand, the focus fades into the usual ‘happy ever after’, while here we see how that same ever after could be anything but happy, and the hero… well, anything but heroic. It’s one of the more poignant offerings of the anthology, and the one that was able to better blend fantasy with some modern harsh reality.

"Penhallow Amidst Passing Things" by Iona Datt Sharma is a story about smugglers and law enforcers in a very peculiar 18th century setting, one where both roles are given to quite fascinating female characters. Seriously, I would not mind a full novel describing this kind of world in deeper detail…

"Mermaids, Singing" by Tiffany Trent is the story from Ms. Burgis’ co-editor, a dark fairy tale in which a mistreated hound, forced to perform in a cruel circus, discovers the truth about its true nature and that of its fellow prisoners, while at the same time offering a look into 19th century London and an aspect of its life that comes from history: clearly Ms. Trent shares her co-editor’s penchant for inserting real-life details into stories, which affords some more depth to the tale.

"A Brand New Thing" by Jenny Moss will no doubt appeal to all book lovers, since it focuses on a young woman from the early years of the 20th century, who prefers to lose herself in the stories she reads rather than facing a somewhat dreary reality. Still, fiction can be satisfying only to a certain extent…

"Four Revelations from the Rusalka's Ball", by Cassandra Khaw is probably the weirdest, darkest offering of the whole collection, one I’m somewhat still trying to recover from, and wrap my mind around. Which means it was quite effective.

"Spellswept" by Stephanie Burgis takes us back to the author’s alternate England – or rather Angland – a country where men wield magic and women dictate politics, a wonderful topsy-turvy look into a staid society where gender roles are reversed in so many delightful ways. If you wondered, while reading Snowspelled, about the tantalizing hints given about Jonathan Harwood and his wife Amy, here you will find all the answers you wanted, besides getting a glimpse into main character Cassandra and her beginnings as a magic-wielding female, the true scandal of the times.

Laura Ann Gilman is an author that’s been long on my radar, so I welcomed the opportunity to sample her writing in this anthology: her "The River Always Wins" is a bizarre, intriguing story about the strange friendship between a Siren and an Erinyes, or Fury, and of a night spent in their old haunt of a peculiar nightclub, where old, buried memories will surface again with dramatic intensity.

"The Amethyst Deceiver" by Shveta Thakrar is probably one of the strangest stories I remember reading, and I’m still trying to come to terms with her concept of… well… mushroom people. Weirdness can indeed take so many shapes where creativity is involved!

And last but not least, "A Spy in the Deep" by Patrick Samphire takes us to a steampunk version of Mars, colonized by the British Empire and rife with dastardly plots and untold secrets. The flavor of this story reminded me somehow of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate, but with a more serious bent to it and a charming heroine I would like to encounter again in other stories – or a full-fledged novel.

Short stories can be tricky creatures, and I know several of my fellow bloggers are quite wary of them because they don't always offer the same involvement as a book, but the fact that these particular stories strive to cater to our sense of wonder, to our desire for the magical, the uncanny, the bizarre, makes them perfect even for the most contrary of book lovers. Try them out and take a spin in the underwater ballroom, you never know what might be waiting for you there…

Originally posted HERE and HERE

( )
  SpaceandSorcery | Dec 25, 2018 |
I don’t find underwater ballrooms particularly appealing, but I got this for “Spellswept”, the prequel to Stephanie Burgis’ utterly delightful Snowspelled.

“Spellswept” is about Cassandra’s sister-in-law Amy and it's a lovely story about having the courage to stand up for what you want. For Amy, that's choosing the man she loves rather than making the politically-advantageous match expected of her; for Cassandra, only 13 years old at this point, that’s her ambition of studying magic. I liked seeing more of the relationships between Amy, Jonathan and Cassandra, especially more of Jonathan being supportive of his little sister, and gaining further insight into the society they live in.

Y.S. Lee’s “Twelve Sisters” is about the fairytale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, twelve years later -- I am here for stories which subvert and challenge fairytales. I liked the (neurodivergent?) heroine in Jenny Moss’s “A Brand New Thing”. And Iona Datt Sharma's “Penhallow Amid Passing Things” was memorable and beautifully-written, and had probably my favourite of the underwater ballrooms.

Anyway, those were my favourites, but I liked how varied the collection as a whole is -- while some of the stories appealed to me less than others, all of them were interesting and compelling. And I didn’t regret reading any of them, which, come to think about it, isn’t something I can say about every anthology I’ve read. ( )
  Herenya | Jun 11, 2018 |
The Underwater Ballroom Society edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent is a themed novella anthology in which every story features some sort of underwater ballroom. It might sound like an oddly specific idea to pin an anthology on, but it works well, with the wide variety of underwater ballrooms dreamt up by the authors.

This is a long book and it took me a while to get through it (with a few minor breaks). For all that it contains only ten stories, most of them are quite long (hence novella anthology) and the book is quite weighty overall. The stories take us from fairyland, to steampunk Mars with a variety of secondary and primary world fantasies in between.

Of course, I enjoyed some stories more than others, for all that the anthology as a whole was of high quality. I started listing my favourite stories, just now, and stopped when I realised that list would be more than half the book. You can certainly get the gist from my reviews of individual stories below. By the way, if you've been following my blog, you'll have seen some of those reviews before, but the last few have not appeared before, so don't accidentally skip over them.

This was a fun read and I enjoyed being introduced to several new authors whose other work I am now interested in tracking down. If the idea of underwater ballrooms intrigues you, this is absolutely the book you should be reading. If you are ambivalent about underwater ballrooms (as I admit I was) then this is still an excellent anthology of fantastical tales.

~

The Queen of Life by Ysabeau S Wilce
A novella about rockstars and fairyland, death and fame. I found the opening a little too slow, as it took a while to set the scene and establish sufficient backstory so that what felt like the “real” story could start. When that came, it was an interesting journey into fairyland filled with deception, glamour and a corgi steed (sort of). I enjoyed the second half of it more than the first.

Twelve Sisters by Y S Lee
I like subverted fairytales and sequels to fairytales, as this one is. After the events in The Twelve Dancing Princesses (which I haven’t read and that made no difference to my enjoyment of this story), the youngest princess endeavours to save her oldest sister from an abusive relationship and also, as their father lies on his deathbed, to save the country from a malicious king. A great read.

Penhallow Amid Passing Things by Iona Datt Sharma
This story took a little bit to get into its stride, but I enjoyed it once it did. Smuggling, a brief lesbian romance, and fading magic are the elements that make up this story. The world was well constructed, for all that we only saw a small part of it. I find myself wondering whether there are other stories set there.

Mermaids, Singing by Tiffany Trent
I really enjoyed this novella. It’s set in Victorian London and follows a weredog from another world and a half-Chinese British girl from this one. The depth of world building is excellent and the story balances the weird fantasy elements with the more mundane well.

A Brand New Thing by Jenny Moss
A story set in the late 1920s about a neuroatypical girl, her disapproving family, books and something magical. I really enjoyed it and was delighted by the book references and metaphors. I was also pleased with the happy ending.

Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball by Cassandra Khaw
Not a novella; actually a fairly short story. Much shorter than I expected. But on the other hand, about the level of surreal that I’ve come to expect from Cassandra Khaw. The title pretty much says it all.

Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis
This novella is one of the longer stories included in The Underwater Ballroom Society and is a prequel to Snowspelled, which I read as an individual volume last year. It’s set in a world where politics are run by women and men — as the more emotional sex — are left to deal with learning and using magic. My first impression of this world was that it wasn’t sufficiently gender-flipped enough, particularly with women still wearing dresses. However, in Spellswept we see more clearly that the balance in society is quite delicate and men have more power that it might seem on the surface (and certainly more than most women in the real-world Regency period did). Anyway, I enjoyed this novella a lot and found the story and continued exploration of the characters delightful. Spellswept and Snowspelled both stand alone and can be read in either order. I enjoyed knowing what would happen to some of the characters in the future (and hence some of what had to happen in Spellswept) but that certainly wasn’t a requirement for enjoyment.

The River Always Wins by Laura Anne Gilman
An underwater club dance floor more than a ballroom per se. Humanoid supernatural creatures going to the club of their youth one last time on its final opening night. It didn’t really work for me from the start and certainly the revelation at the climax didn’t pack enough punch, for all that the lead up was done well.

The Amethyst Deceiver by Shveta Thakrar
A secondary world, Victorian-flavoured story, featuring racism, magic fungus and something like a heist. I liked it, particularly the protagonist and the concept.

A Spy in the Deep by Patrick Samphire
This novella was clearly a sequel to something, but, aside from a few reminders of a past adventure (which tipped me off), stood alone quite well. The setting was a steampunk Mars during distant Napoleonic wars. If you think that sounds like something I’d hate because it’s so implausible, fear not the setting was sufficiently divorced from reality to amuse me rather than annoy. (There’s really no other way to put an underwater ballroom on Mars.)
The protagonist, Harriet, is a member of British Mars Intelligence and in this story has been set her final practical exam. She is to retrieve a package under cover of a distant and socially significant ball. Her mission is complicated by the presence of her policeman brother in law and a murder. It was an enjoyable read and has made me curious about the other books/stories with the same setting. There is a prequel about Harriet and apparently a few other stories about other characters with the same steampunk Martian setting.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog. ( )
  Tsana | May 12, 2018 |
Would you rather dance beneath the waves or hide your smuggled magic there? Welcome to a world of sparkling adult fantasy and science fiction stories edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent and featuring underwater ballrooms of one sort or another, from a 1930s ballroom to a Martian hotel to a grand rock 'n roll ball held in the heart of Faery itself. **"From the first page, I knew I was in good hands. This is my kind of fantasy -- magic, adventure, and gorgeous writing. The Underwater Ballroom Society is the kind of fantasy that got me into reading fantasy." - Patrice Sarath, Author of *The Sisters Mederos*** Stories in this anthology: Ysabeau S. Wilce, "The Queen of Life" Y.S. Lee, "Twelve Sisters" Iona Datt Sharma, "Penhallow Amid Passing Things" Tiffany Trent, "Mermaids, Singing" Jenny Moss, "A Brand New Thing" Cassandra Khaw, "Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball" Stephanie Burgis, "Spellswept" Laura Anne Gilman, "The River Always Wins" Shveta Thakrar, "The Amethyst Deceiver" Patrick Samphire, "A Spy in the Deep" **"This anthology is an excellent collection of stories and all of them are well worth your time." - Michelle at *The Monday Review***
** ( )
  buffygurl | Mar 8, 2019 |
keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen

» Andere Autoren hinzufügen

AutorennameRolleArt des AutorsWerk?Status
Trent, TiffanyHerausgeberHauptautoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Burgis, StephanieHerausgeberHauptautoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Gilman, Laura AnneMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Khaw, CassandraMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Lee, YSMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Moss, JennyMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Samphire, PatrickMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Sharma, Iona DattMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Thakrar, ShvetaMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Trent, TiffanyMitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
Wilce, Ysabeau S.MitwirkenderCo-Autoralle Ausgabenbestätigt

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Would you rather dance beneath the waves or hide your smuggled magic there? Welcome to a world of sparkling adult fantasy and science fiction stories edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent and featuring underwater ballrooms of one sort or another, from a 1930s ballroom to a Martian hotel to a grand rock 'n roll ball held in the heart of Faery itself."From the first page, I knew I was in good hands. This is my kind of fantasy -- magic, adventure, and gorgeous writing. The Underwater Ballroom Society is the kind of fantasy that got me into reading fantasy." - Patrice Sarath, Author of The Sisters MederosStories in this anthology:Ysabeau S. Wilce, "The Queen of Life"Y.S. Lee, "Twelve Sisters"Iona Datt Sharma, "Penhallow Amid Passing Things"Tiffany Trent, "Mermaids, Singing"Jenny Moss, "A Brand New Thing"Cassandra Khaw, "Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball"Stephanie Burgis, "Spellswept"Laura Anne Gilman, "The River Always Wins"Shveta Thakrar, "The Amethyst Deceiver"Patrick Samphire, "A Spy in the Deep""This anthology is an excellent collection of stories and all of them are well worth your time." - Michelle at The Monday Review

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