If you never read these when they were published by DAW in 1979 and 1982, try to lay hands on copies now. They were seminal women’s anthologies then, now they are still unbeatable. Sadly, a number of the authors within have passed on, but here were some of the best stories they ever did. Janrae Frank (late and lamented) had Wolves of Nakesht in the anthology. I wrote to her at the time and we remained writing, then emailing casually from then on. I wrote the foreword to her own story collection, feeling then and even now, that her work never received the credit it should have. There were Andre’s Falcon’s Blood, C.J. Cherryh’s The Dreamstone, Janet Fox had Morrien’s Bitch, and there was the clever, savage “The Rape Patrol,’ by Michele Belling. (Who seems never to have written another story that I can find – although if that was it, that single story is a heck of a legacy.) Elizabeth Lynn, Megan Lindholm, Charles Saunders, Joanna Russ and T.J. Morgan, (an elderly academic who wrote in Welsh, and who died some 7 years after this story’s publication.) all writers who produced great stories.
Three years later the editor, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, did the second, Amazons II, and it was at least as good. Again she enticed superb authors to write her a story, and again the stories too were superb. F.M. Busby’s For A Daughter, (the gone and lamented writer) Jo Clayton’s Nightwork, George R.R. Martin’s In The Lost Lands, Gael Baudino’s Lady of the Forest End, and stories by Gilliam Fitzgerald, Phyllis Ann Karr, Elanear Arneson, Tanith Lee and Ardath Mayhar. My deep regret was that DAW never asked Jessica Amanda Salmonson to do more of these anthologies, they had the highest incidence of terrific stories I ever encountered in anthologies, selected by an editor who knew what she was doing, and knew too that you don’t just toss a bunch of stories together and hope they blend. (JAS did other excellent work beside editing, if you like solid s & s, look at her Tomoe Gozen books.) Those of us who still have our Amazon’s copies regularly re-read them, in fact it was doing just that (for about the twentieth time) this month that produced this review. And note that after almost forty years I can STILL re-read them and enjoy that each time… So if you’ve never run into these anthologies, see if you can lay hands on copies, because believe me, they were – and always will be I believe – worth more than the time and money you’ll spend. (I understand that Amazons – the company – have PDF’s for download. Run, do not walk…)

I watched this because I dearly love an end-of-the-world oe disaster movie. Then too it had Emma Watson whom I also like. Sadly I was disappointed. The work reminded me of the elderly Edwardian lady’s advice to the young man.
“Funny is good, funny and vulgar is permissable. But be one or the other and never merely vulgar.”
It isn’t that I don’t like crass humour, I enjoyed the Porky’s moves and others of their ilk, but they managed to be vulgar AND funny. This one failed. It was confusing, humourlessly crass and a self-indulgent mess. A pity, as I’d hoped it would be otherwise. But, sic biscuit disintergraf.

Published 2015 Abacus paperback.
Another gentle pleasant book in the series. I thought that perhaps this was a trifle more lightweight than previous books, but the sheer charm of the characters always carries me into finishing and adding the book to my shelves. And in this story there are genuine problems to solve. At Speedy Motors there has been a slow townturn in business and they can no longer afford to have two assistants there, so Charlie as the one who has still not gained his mechanic qualifications must be fired. Precious Ramotswe promptly hires him to work in the detective agency, but how will she pay him and can she find enough work to keep herself and Mma Makutsi going? And even if she can manage those things, how much use will Charlie really be? And while she is resolving those questions she is also coping with her assistant who has opened The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Cafe with dubious staff, and with the return of Violet Septhotho who has become a restaurant cric and is delighted to have the opportunity to criticize anything at all in which Mma Makutsi is involved. The story takes the scenic route through all these events and after I closed the book I decided that all in all it had been interesting. I’d enjoyed the tale, the characters and the events, and the book has joined the rest of the series on my shelf. Lightweight? Yes, a little, but it is still a ‘keeper’ to be re-read and re-read in future, and really, you can’t say better than that.