Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens - Softcover

Arnason, Eleanor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1619760959 ISBN 13: 9781619760950

Publisher: Aqueduct Press, 2016

Synopsis

Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens collects a dozen Hwarhath tales with commentary by their translator. As the translator notes, ''Humanity has encountered only one other species able to travel among the stars. This species, who call themselves the hwarhath, or 'people,' are also the only intelligent species so far encountered. Of course, we interest and puzzle and disturb each other... The stories in this collection were written after the hwarhath learned enough about humanity to realize how similar (and different) we are. Our existence has called into question many ideas about life and morality that most hwarhath would have called certain a century ago...'' ''One of the strongest collections of science fiction stories you're ever likely to find. It's hard to think of anybody other than Ursula K. Le Guin who was written better anthropological science fiction than Eleanor Arnason, and this very strong collection gather some of the best stories published by anybody during the last two decades.''--Gardner Dozois, author of When Great Days Come, editor of Year's Best Science Fiction series

About this title

About the Author

Eleanor Arnason's fourth novel, A Woman of the Iron People, won the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the Mythopoeic Society Award for adult fantasy. Her fifth novel, Ring of Swords, won a Minnesota Book Award. Since 1994 she has concentrated on short fiction. Aqueduct Press has published her short novel Tomb of the Fathers and a collection, Big Mama Stories. Her story ''Dapple'' won a Spectrum Award for GLBT science fiction; and she has been a finalist for the Sturgeon, Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives in Minnesota.

Review

Arnason (A Woman of the Iron People) rewards her loyal readers with this long-awaited collection of her celebrated stories about the alien hwarhath, written from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist. Each story explores a slightly different aspect of the fictional race and its distant world. Arnason perfectly captures the dry, patient scholarly tone used in folklore translations as she tells the hwarhath's creation stories and their version of the Adam and Eve myth. She explores in far more detail the hwarhath's peculiar (yet recognizable) attitudes toward sex, love, and procreation across several stories featuring related characters, which craft a fascinating historical story arc. Arnason's aliens are almost uniformly bisexual, and forbidden from engaging in heterosexual love beyond what's needed for procreation. This behavior allows Arnason to adapt timeless folkloric tropes to her own modern, progressive, and wholly original reality, which comes alive in her precise, classically beautiful prose. Most of the stories were published separately in the 1990s, and they stand up impressively well today. Those seeking a scholarly approach to speculative fiction will devour this idiosyncratic collection. --Publishers Weekly Feb 2016

These are magnificent stories, wise, witty, science-fictionally fascinating, moving. This may well end up being the story collection of the year. --Rich Horton Locus April 2016

Edition details

• Publisher: Aqueduct Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1619760959
• ISBN 13: 9781619760950
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392