Monday, May 15, 2023

"The Red Mother" by Elizabeth Bear is a wonderfully pleasant short story about a viking sorcerer

It's basically a remix of tropes that any fantasy fan will have seen many times, but combined so expertly that it makes writing seem so easy.

I read it in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, but it's also posted for free at Tor. (Alas, the version posted at Tor features an illustration that ruins the mystery that's a big part of what I enjoyed about the first half of the story.)