Girls and Aliens

Girls and Aliens is a short story collection by Anne Michaud, edited by Amanda Rutter and published by Fox Spirit Books.  Can we also take a moment to appreciate the stunning cover artwork by Daniele Serra 

This was quite the collection, five contrasting stories that featured girls and aliens in often very dark and disturbing ways.

The short stories all feature women and girls who are strong and resilient in many different ways.  The stories worked for me with various degrees of success FIX SIX was cinematic in scope and very memorable. I found it really vivid and could picture it all very clearly.

Stardust Motel is quite funny and is written from both an alien point of view and the human girl who is looking after the motel while her aunt is away.

Battlefield Lost the revenge-bent Suze is looking for a way to deal with her brother’s memory when she is paired up with Rish, a rather inept cadet.  She has a plan though and she wants to hurt the aliens that hurt her family.

Snakes and Ladders. I really didn’t get on with this one.  The subject matter was bleak and I found it upsetting.  Not least the way the women characters are treated, but also because it is a caustic inditement on how victims of assault are treated more often than not.

Mercy’s Morgue, on the other hand, has a really strong narrative voice and it was so strong I could hear it being narrated in my head. Again this is filled with strong images and characters that it felt cinematic.

Overall the Girls and Aliens is a strong collection.  These are quite long short stories, good for an hours commute. I think in future I will be looking at reading more short story collections especially when I feel like my attention span is shrinking.

Fox Spirit books provided me with a free review copy in exchange for an honest review.