A Girl's Guide To Guns And Monsters [Mass Market Paperback]

"Girl's Guide" attempts to marry the urban fantasy and the butt-kicking women genres. Well, at least, that's the statement that the totally cheesy cover is trying to say. In truth, there are some of both types of stories here. And as usual, this anthology has a mix of regular DAW authors and free-lancers, and seems to be a quasi-sequel to Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies by the same editors, and which contained some of the same authors.

This anthology encompasses a wide rainbow of creatures, plus having a number of stories containing continuing series characters.

------There is a rare short story by Jeanne Stein. 'Elizabeth & Anna's Big Adventure' is a chapter in Stein's long running (seven novels so far) Anna Strong vampire series. While a good story for the fans, it probably won't have a lot of appeal to those unfamiliar with the series. Anna reluctantly babysits Elizabeth who opens the front door to her house, and accidently lets in a couple of home-invaders that are there to kill her famous lawyer father. He's not home, but Anna is, poor them. This is basically just a minor Anna adventure that would only have rated as filler in one of her novels.

------ 'Jiang Shi' is another adventure in Elizabeth A. Vaughan`s new non-novel series involving the middle-aged and overweight Kate. 'Jiang Shi' is a direct sequel to 'Ninja Rats On Harleys' that is in "Zombie Raccoons", and it suffers because of this. There really isn't much more than some absurdist action involving ninja rats, wise mice, and evil possums, and if you haven't read the first story in the series, then you won't quite get what is going on, and Vaughan doesn't give us a lot of explanatory material. This story also doesn't have much of an ending as it ends with what looks to be a lead-in to the next story in the series. But this all could have been forgiven if Kate were a more interesting character, and while there is a good couple of pages where she describes the death of her dreams, in the end, she's a whiner and when the action starts she faints.

------ 'No Matter Where You Go' is another story in Tanya Huff's long running, six books since 1991, Victoria "Vikki" Nelson series. Here ex-cop, and full-time vampire, Vikki stumbles onto a magic ritual being performed by four malcontented teen-agers who end up opening up a portal to another world. The world is hostile and Vikki has to dive in to help them survive, unfortunately in doing so she's stuck in this world, and it will be up to Mike Celluci and Tony Foster to save her and return her to her reality. A great story in the Vikkiverse but, again, fans will probably like this story more that non-fans.

------ 'Signed In Blood' may or may not be a sequel to 'Super Squirrel To The Rescue' in "Zombie Raccoons" as both stories involve writers, but only in 'Signed In Blood' is she named. Here Tess Noncoiré, the star of three novels so far, is in the process of writing her new novel when her gal pal, a filk singer, realizes that her audiences are showing an inordinate of enthusiasm at the beginning of her shows but the ending is always the same; people are ending up being dangerously debilitated. Why, and what is casting this magic spell over Holly's audience? A good story, with a musical background.

------The rest of the stories are stand alones that rise or fall all on their ownsome. And the best of the rest would be 'The Drifter' by Jane Lindskold and it is one of a far too few weird western horror stories to be found. Prudence Bledsloe is single woman in a harsh wild west. She's looking for her out-of-control werewolf brother. In the unnamed town that she rides into there is tension between the whites and the nearby Indians as something is killing livestock and kidnapping small white children. Prudence feels that her brother may be at the bottom of these incidents. This is a tough weird western in which Prudence has to do some cruel things to righten the wrongs of her brother. Prudence Bledsloe isn't a series character, but she should be.

------In 'Our Lady Of The Vampires' by Nancy Holder, a young girl's father has committed suicide, and she and her mother are now homeless. So with no alternative she is abandoned at Our Lady Of The Angels Home For Young Girls by her mother on December 23, 1929. Sister Mary Patrick reluctantly takes her in as Annabelle, another young girl in the orphanage, has recently died. She is quickly persecuted by another abandoned girl, and at night she finds that the priest and nun who run the orphanage have made a deal, and the deal is that they sacrifice a child or two to a vampire in exchange for food for the rest of the girls. And now these vampires have their eye on her. This is a good, moody little story about the desperation of wanting to belong, and wanting to survive, even if it means dying first.

------This is followed by what is perhaps the best story in the anthology. In Lilith Saintcrow's 'Best Friends' vampirism is a metaphor for several things, firstly, abuse, spousal and child. Kate is confiding to her lover Becca that her step-father is coming into her room at night and feeding on her. Becca is at first skeptical, but in a confrontation with Kate's step-dad, she is convinced. Vampirism also becomes a metaphor for the changes people go through when they begin to grow up, as the girls must deal with the changes that are happening to their bodies by the story's end.

------ 'Heart Of Ash' by Jim C. Hines deals with a dryad that is all things to whatever lover she bonds with. Here Lena Greenwood bonds with Janice after saving her from a vampire. Hines explores how a marriage, of any kind, will change people, as Lena becomes more and more what Janice wants in a spouse, and what Janice once wanted is not what she wants now. And nothing will illustrate this more than when Lena takes on a bunch of supernatural drug dealers, a confrontation that will not end well for anybody.

------ 'Broch De Shlang' by Mickey Zucker Reichert is a touching story about a family curse, and whether or not a mother is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her family. While she is, what she isn't prepared for is just what it is she would end up sacrificing.

------ 'Invasive Species' by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is an old-fashioned pulp tale in which Random Delaney is hired to rid a spaceship of metal mites only to find that she has inadvertently signed up, with her child now in jeopardy, to save the ship from something that is invading people and changing them into something alien. Others would have written Delaney as an action hero and/or would have turned this into a horror novel. Hoffman does neither, Delaney is just an ordinary Jane, and discovers the threat by accident. Not particularly deep, but this story would not have been out-of-place in a forties or fifties "Planet Stories".

------Of the rest 'Luercalia' by Anton Strout is a story in that mixes humor and action in an amusing mix. Unbelievable, but cute and enjoyable as Leis Colchis walks into a restaurant and decimates the place while hunting down Eros.

------Kristine Kathryn Rusch does her typically professional job in 'Murder She Workshopped' in which a female assassin specializing in hunting supernatural creatures has to kill a chaos dragon at a writer's workshop. Lots of snarky humor here, although the demon is minor, and the plot is threadbare. Good story, and well written, but it's still a five finger exercise that is saddled with a too cute title.

------ 'The Wooly Mountains' by Alexander B. Potter is this books sole dud. Independent sheep farmer Reesa is discovering, along with other farmers in the area, dead stock. Here is an alternate America where supernatural beings exist, and due to a treaty, these beings mutually exist without killing each other. The trouble is that it seems somebody may not be honoring their side of this treaty. One of the problems with this story is that's it's like the comic book that HAS to have ALL of superheroes/villains in the same issue. We get a tiresome run down and a run through of all of the supernatural creatures that occupy this universe. Cluttered is what it is.

The second problem is the characterization. Reesa is a blah character, she a tough, independent woman who keeps reminding us of her lesbianism. Then there is her roomie, a clichéd gay man, and comic relief, who is a nervous Nellie who keeps "quailing" every time something happens.

On the average though, with the exception of the Saintcrow, the Hines, the Holder, and the Reichert, which are written in a serious vein, this is a good anthology filled with lightweight, undemanding entertainment.

We all know the complaint about some anthologies--some of the stories are great, some are drek, and many in the middle are just average. So I was quite pleased when I read A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters that, even though I wasn't its target demographic, the quality of the stories held up at an above average level throughout the book even with a mix of monsters, mayhem, mood, and market profile of the various authors. Other reviews have listed the stories and authors, so I won't repeat all of that. One minor detraction from the anthology is that a number of the stories are set in the worlds of the individual author's other writing, which leaves those not familiar with those worlds/characters at a slight disadvantage. For those interested in seeing earlier installments of Elizabeth Vaughan's amusing tale of Wan Sui Ye, grab a copy of Furry Fantastic (DAW 2006) and Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies (DAW 2009) or, better yet, contact DAW and insist that they get Vaughan to write up the entire tale for a stand-alone novel. (By the way, much better cover art for Girl's Guide than the art for Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies in my humble opinion.)

Women, monsters, and butt-kicking--what more could I ask for? A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, is a collection of thirteen stories about strong women taking on monsters in a variety of settings and genres. The stories proceed in chronological order from the old West to space-faring SF, so you won't even get mental whiplash along the way. As always with anthologies, the main issue is that not every story will please you equally: with so many different authors and approaches, something's bound to leave you flat. For me, I found Anton Strout's story wasn't well-served by the short story length; the characters felt flat, as though they needed more depth and exploration.

The overall quality of the anthology, however, is stellar, and I have some true favorite stories in here. Among them are a Jim C. Hines story featuring a highly unusual and compelling dryad; a hilarious Kristine Kathryn Rusch story that takes place at a writer's workshop, with an assassin as a main character; and a sci-fi story about a mother who makes a living as a most unusual pest control worker---and the peculiar pests she takes on.

All in all, one of my favorite recent anthologies!

[note: review book provided by publisher]

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