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Warrior Wisewoman edited by Roby James
02/08/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Norilana Books. 271 page enlarged paperback. $10.95 (US). ISBN: 9-781934169-89-6. Buy Warrior Wisewoman in the USA - or Buy Warrior Wisewoman in the UK  check out website: www.norilana.com
'Warrior Wisewoman' is the start of an annual Science Fiction anthology focusing on strong female characters. Editor Roby James will be looking for new material this November but would strongly recommend buying a copy to see the standard she is looking for.
As with all anthologies, not everything is likely to appeal to you. If anything, it can also indicate your personal tastes and my preference for good storytelling tended to surface the most with my favourites. With a dozen stories, I'll pick out my best moments.
Take the opening story, 'Ungraceful Cliff Dwellers' by Douglas A. Van Belle, a colony world with a new tribe of human-like beings and one governing human who are aching to do explore the next planetary system themselves. The style of this story reminded me a lot of the SF stories from the 60s but it's a clean technique and can understand its appeal to be at the start.
'Faith' by Fran LaPlaca has a military unit arriving at a village to collect recruits for their forces and discovers them being invaded by 'angels' and have to unravel what they are.
'Keepers Of The Corn' by Anna Sykora tells of an isolated land on Earth where the last sample of corn is still grown. With the rest of the world falling apart, the military are sent in to negotiate for samples, their leader an original inhabitant of the land.
'Ice Queen' by Colleen Anderson is the only cyberspace story where Janie Blue discovers an AI that has a real need to escape into the real world.
My selection doesn't denigrate the other stories, just an indication of how strong these particular stories are. If anything, what makes all these stories stand out is the cleanness of the stories in the way. I came away with a better idea of what Roby James likes than the individual stories which isn't a bad idea if you're thinking of offering a submission. The fact there is a mixture of stories from plot to character means there's opportunities for everyone. Whether or not these stories would work with male instead of female leads depends a lot on plot solutions. As I tend to see characters not the sex they represent, you could say I have an odd outlook anyway. Certainly, it does no harm and I suspect will get this series of books off to a great start.
GF Willmetts
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