Using both voices Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm present some short stories. More Lindholm than Hobb, still interesting.
The collection starts with the Lindholm Stories.
A Touch of Lavender is a story of contact with an alien race whose bodily secretions are addictive to humans and what happens through the eyes of one boy as humanity finds out more about this race.
Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man is a story of magic and normality and finding a life that satisfies against a life that will do. It spoke to me and made me think about my life.
Cut is a story that made me shudder, where do the rights to bodily integrity and right to choose what you do with your body start and finish and what is the right and wrong of bodily changes. This features Female Genital Mutilation and is an interesting start for discussion on the topic.
The Fifth Squashed Cat is an intersting story about magic and being chosen and I'm still not sure who had the better thing happen to them at the end.
Strays is a story about a child who befriends a friendless child and discovers her beliefs about cats and marking their passing. I found it both heartbreaking and touching.
Finis is a vampire story with a difference and I liked it.
Drum machine looks at reproductive rights and originality and the implications made me shudder.
Then we have the Robin Hobb Stories
I'd read Homecoming before in the Legends II anthology and I found this story of growth and coming into independent personhood interesting both times. It's a long short-story, almost a novella.
The Inheritance was also interesting, a girl grows into herself by embracing her grandmother's past and gets her revenge on the man who ruined her life. The Revenge is subtle and typical of Hobb.
In Cat's Meat Hobb explores what a woman is willing to do to stay alive and keep her child alive. How far she's willing to go and what happens when a cat decides she needs a helping hand.
Well worth reading, excellent fare, the characters and the situations really did speak to me and made me think. While there was some situations that made me squirm it was an interesting squirm and all for the right reasons.
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