Chelsea @ Spotlight on Stories posted: " Proving that size doesn't always matter, here are my thoughts on four excellent novellas I read recently. All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie As both a former Horse Girl and a lover of historical fantasy, it will shock no one to learn th" Spotlight on Stories
Proving that size doesn't always matter, here are my thoughts on four excellent novellas I read recently.
All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie
As both a former Horse Girl and a lover of historical fantasy, it will shock no one to learn that I really enjoyed this imagined origin story of Iceland's unusual horses. Eyvind, a pagan trader in ninth-century Iceland, refuses to convert to Christianity as his captain commands. Instead, he chooses to join Jewish merchant David and his crew on a journey to Mongolia, where they will trade and barter for horses. Along the way he meets an otherworldly white mare with no name, who ensures that Eyvind's hard-won herd arrive safely in Iceland.
Tolmie writes with a lyrical and dreamlike style, grounded by historical detail and keen sense of place. One of my pet peeves in historical fiction/fantasy is dialogue and writing that feels too modern, but Sarah Tolmie avoids that trap nicely. In fact this might be the first novella I've read that had me wishing for a map! Besides my minor gripes about not being able to track Eyvind's travels visually and my initial confusion about how ninth-century place names corresponded with geography today, I loved this book. The magical elements (including ghosts and the gift of prophecy) are woven in seamlessly, while the mare with no name deserves to be spoken of alongside Katherine Arden's Solovey, and Tolkein's Shadowfax as one of the great fictional horses of fantasy.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Set in a small Irish town in 1985 in the days leading up to Christmas, Small Things Like These will bring to mind other holiday classics like A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life in the way that it shows how one man's choices make a difference. Bill Furlong has risen from humble beginnings to become a busy coal merchant, husband, and father. While delivering an order to the local convent he stumbles across a scene that forces him to confront his past and decide whether to speak out against the powerful Catholic Church or be complicit in their wrongs.
Keegan displays great sensitivity in the way she writes about the difficult subject matter that is the Magdalene Laundries. Her descriptions are never unnecessarily graphic, but she deftly conveys the abuses suffered there. I especially loved the subtlety with which Keegan develops her setting. Though her prose is spare, she builds a real sense of time and place through her dialogue and imagery. The characters are clearly developed and empathetic and there is resilience and kindness to be found here. Especially for such a slim novella, it's remarkably affecting and I can certainly see myself rereading in holiday seasons to come.
Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters by Aimee Ogden
Aimee Ogden's Nebula Award nominated novella is a gorgeously told, queer, sci-fi reimagining of what happens after the little mermaid has settled down with her Prince. Set in the distant future, where scattered human clans have edited their genes to adapt to harsh environments like the desert and the sea, it focuses on Atuale, the daughter of a seaclan lord. Falling in love with a land-dwelling man, Atuale fled her tyrannical father, who viewed her only as a means to seal alliances through marriage and procreation, and edited her genes to survive on land. Now, with her husband and her adopted people dying of a plague, she seeks out her former lover, the World-Witch, for aid.
Odgen's worldbuilding is impressive. In just over 100 pages she gives us multiple completely different settings that range from the World-Witch's lair to the desert-dwelling lands of Atuale's husband, to off-world, and the variety of technology showcased indicates civilizations with differing priorities. At the center of the book though is the relationship between the little mermaid and her childhood friend and first love Yanja, who is now the resourceful World-Witch. There's a wonderful nod to Disney's queer-coded villains in Yanja, who was in a relationship with Atuale before he transitioned, and his voice has a deliciously embittered snark to it. I loved the race against time aspect, I was invested in the relationship between Yanja and Atuale, and I adored Ogden's lyrical prose. The ending isn't going to work for everyone, and I understand why some readers took issue with it, but it did work for me. I look forward to seeing what Aimee Ogden does next!
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
While this novella isn't quite the homerun that was The Empress of Salt and Fortune (one of my favourite books of 2020), I loved this continuation of The Singing Hills Cycle. Cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of three fearsome tigers. In order to stay alive until help arrives, Chih tells the tale of the infamous tiger Ho Thi Thao and her scholar lover.
Like The Empress of Salt and Fortune, this is a book about storytelling and how the tale changes depending on the audience, the teller, and the cultural context around actions and words. There are few things I love more than storytelling as a theme (as witnessed by the fact that I won't shut up about Black Sails!), so of course I loved this. The tigers' corrections to the tale as Chih tells it unfold in a fascinating way that challenges us to rethink our preconceptions. I may have missed Chih's avian scribe, Almost Brilliant (busy sitting on a clutch), in this installment, but the woolly mammoths made up for it! I will pretty much read anything Nghi Vo writes at this point.
and a lover of historical fantasy, it will shock no one to learn th" 
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