Sandra
McDonald
Completed 9/23/2018,
Reviewed 9/23/2018
4 stars
This is a
very interesting and entertaining collection of stories that run the gamut of
the LGBTQ experience. The stories are
literary, yet have fantastical elements to them. And there’s an obsession with
firefighters. What really struck me
about these stories was that I was able to get into most of them very
easily. Sometimes with short fiction, it
takes the whole story to get into it, but I found that the stories grabbed me
right from the start and most of the characters instantly likeable or relatable. Some of the stories are standalone and some
of them are related. They all take place
in the same universe, mostly around a city called Massasoit. They take place in different times, but in
the end story, all the stories more or less come together. My favorite of the stories were the Diana
Comet stories, of which there were three where she was a main character. But almost all them were fun and inventive. This book won the Lambda Literary Award for
Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror in 2011.
I think my
favorite story was “Diana Comet and the Lovesick Cowboy”. Diana Comet is a transgender woman. She runs a home for wayward children in
Massasoit where she educates them and inspires them to be curious and expressive
of themselves. She follows up on all the
children that have been placed in homes.
There’s one child living in cowboy country from whose adoptive parents
she hasn’t heard anything for a time. She
hires an alcoholic, closeted gay cowboy to take her to the ranch where the boy
is living. Diana has a knack for putting
herself in the lives of people who need her wisdom and insight, and this cowboy
is no exception. On the way, with Diana’s
help, the cowboy has epiphanies that makes him question his own internalized
homophobia and negative self-esteem.
Another
favorite was “The Fireman’s Fairy”. The
firefighters of Massasoit have magical creatures as mascots. Steven Goodwin has just graduated from firefighters
training and is assigned to Engine Company 13.
Steven wanted to be assigned to the company that had a fierce dragon as mascot. Instead Company 13 has a bisexual fairy as a
mascot. Bob the fairy is pretty
annoyingly overzealous and has a thing for firefighters, male and female. Needless to say, he gets under Steven’s
skin. But even worse is Steven’s own
PTSD stemming from his time in the military.
Can Steven learn to appreciate Bob the way the other firefighters have?
This
universe of Diana Comet’s has a goddess and/or goddesses who manifests themselves
in various ways. One story that was
particularly interesting was “Fay and the Goddesses”. It’s about a little girl who has a gift for
singing. In the religion of her father
and uncle, the Stern Loving Mother demands that gifts such as her beautiful
voice be offered back to the Mother.
However, in the religion of her mother’s mother, the Water Momma only
demands that you forego luxury. Fay must
choose between her voice and luxury, the love of her father and uncle or her
grandmother, and the choice is not an easy one.
These are
only three of the stories, but I liked most of them a lot. There were only two that I didn’t quite
relate to, but they were still good stories.
There are fourteen stories in all with common threads through some of
them. And as I said, they all sort of
tie in together in the last story. The
book should be read from beginning to end, rather than just the individual
stories, for the full effect. I give the
book four stars out of five. It’s funny,
insightful, and thought-provoking.
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