Cartomancy

Mary Gentle

Gollancz, trade paperback, 313 pages, £6.99

Published March 2004

ISBN 0575075325

Review by Mike Don (2004)

Representative collection of 15 stories (one original) from one of SF’s more individual talents; each with an afterword by the author. There are echoes here from her other universes; Ash (‘Logistics of Carthage’), Grunts! (‘Orc’s Drift’ – the oldest shaggy dog story in the world); The Weerde (‘What God Abandoned’); with another Midnight Rose anthology bookending the whole collection. Other tales run a gamut from Ash style alternate history ‘Road to Jerusalem’) through straight SF (‘The Pits Beneath the World’) to overt horror ‘Cast a Long Shadow’, original here, and the revoltingly brilliant ‘Human Waste’). The default style is typical Gentle, but hardly gentle; somewhere between hard-edged Renaissance fantasy and SF.

Recurring characteristics include strong female characters – often sword-fighters, often gay – and an unflinchingly direct view of warfare’s blood and shit reality, whether medieval – Ms Gentle’s field of expertise – or, as in ‘Jerusalem’, contemporary hi-tech combat. With a seasoning of black gallows humour it’s a tasty collection; although it would have been nice to have seen more than one original tale, and it’s a pity there’s nothing from the Rats and Gargoyles/Casaubon universe.

Cartomancy: An Introduction

The Logistics of Carthage

Kitsune

The Road to Jerusalem

Orc’s Drift (written with Dean Wayland)

The Tarot Dice

The Harvest of Wolves

Anukazi’s Daughter

What God Abandoned

The Pits Beneath the World

Cast a Long Shadow

A Sun in the Attic

A Shadow Under the Sea

Human Waste

Cartomancy: Conclusion