I was thrilled to read and review Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn.

This is a beautiful and rare collection of speculative fiction tales from women of southeast Asian descent writing about the culture where women are supposed to be quiet, unheard and remain in the shadows. Black Cranes brings these voices, cultures, folklores and legends into the open and shines a light on the powerful women of Southeast Asia.

Final Thoughts

There are so many different and wonderful tales in Black Cranes that I found it difficult to choose my stand-out favourites.

Some of my favourite stories were “The Genetic Alchemist’s;s Daughter” by Elaine Cuyegkeng, , “Kapre: a love Story”, by Ron Cupeco, “Vanilla Rice”, and “Little Worm” by Geneve Flynn.

Conclusion

An absolutely stunning, beautiful and powerful collection of tales about women emerging from the shadows of their cultures. A simply stunning collection!

Thank you so much to RDS Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC; it is greatly appreciated. What an amazing showcase of women authors. The perspectives and stories here were all so interesting. I love short story collections in particular as they help me to discover authors that I perhaps may have never read from otherwise.

I love the theme and roster of this anthology, and there is some excellent writing in it. The Southeastern Asia-specific settings and writers was a refreshing focus in a time where so much media sticks to east Asia alone.

That said, I thought this anthology would be horror, and while there were horror elements, many of these stories tended to be higher on the sci-fi and speculative fiction end of the spectrum, not really my favorite. But there is nice variety if you like this sort of thing, some even a little dystopian.

My favorite was Rin Chupeco's <i>Kapre: A Love Story.</i> It was a monster romance that played out beautifully, featuring a lot of the Filipino monsters and lore that are present in <i>Trese</i>, one of my favorite horror graphic novel series! It was awesome to hear about tikbalang and aswang in other media.

The fore- and afterwords in this anthology are also powerful pieces of writing, feminist essays on gender roles and fighting back against societal structure. There's something for everyone interested in darker feminist fiction in this anthology.

Wow! What an amazing anthology of short stories by so many award winning female authors. There are horror stories full of ghosts and monsters, including mythical beings from Asian lore. There are science fiction and speculative fiction stories. Each story was very well written, entertaining, and full of social commentary. I highly recommend this collection to everyone!

My biggest problem with short story anthologies is that I end up wanting the short stories to be full novels and this was no exception. I loved this anthology! It was interesting and unique and a little creepy at times, which was excellent. The foreword at the beginning was really helpful in noticing the different themes throughout the stories like beauty standards, family traditions against finding your own identity, societal expectations and the micro aggressions that Asian women face. However, these are not stories of sadness, these are stories that celebrate Asian women’s hunger and passion and desire for more. I also loved the nods and different takes towards the different mythologies in Asian culture like the huli jing (nine tailed fox) and the legend of Kapre. There was even a zombie story with a female military officer as the MC which was so cool! Each story felt unique and I loved all the different genres that were used. My favorites were The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter, Phoenix Claws, Kapre, Skin Dowdy, The Ninth Tale, Vanilla Rice and Fury. I highly recommend this anthology for anyone looking for unique and sometimes unsettling stories.

A collection of stories by award winning authors with powerful social commentary on the struggles of not only being a woman, but of those experienced in Asian cultures. Each story transports you into another world placing you in the shoes of women who dare to fight, speak up, kill and step out of line. There is something in here for everyone. From folklore to a zombie apocalypse, the dark and disturbing imagery will surely give you nightmares.

This was my first anthology so I don't know how I feel about this. I'm not much of a short story type of girl but this really intrigued me and I love how these authors wrote very different stories but it fit them well I think all about Asian women and fitting in also about their difference amongst everyone else. I didn't vibe with some stories but others I really liked. I would give other anthologies a chance. 3 stars for me but it was good.

"We're told our whole lives that we must be somebody else, someone we don't recognize. Or maybe that's not true: we're often asked to be our mothers, women who sacrificed themselves for their children. As grateful as we are to them, we don't want the same for ourselves. We want better. Does that make us ungrateful? A bad daughter?"

What can I say but I love this book from cover to cover. The foreword by Alma Katsu is endlessly quotable (first quote I chose in fact). Each story is like a gut punch of emotions, some cheering for women in the stories, some lamenting their choices. As I said, I loved this book but there were particular stories that stuck with me after finishing them.

Kapre: A Love Story by Rin Chupeco broke my heart. The ending, the friendship and loss of it, the closure. All of it was so beautifully written in such a short piece.

Phoenix Claws by Lee Murray and Rites of Passage by Gabriela Lee were unsettling but in a way that made me mad for these women who are still bound by the preferences and choices of those before them. As a woman, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality, age etc etc, how often are we blamed for someone else's actions and left to pick up the pieces? Usually not zombie chicken legs but history is long so who can say that hasn't happened.

I had a little moment of let down in A Pet is For Life by Geneve Flynn but it was really momentary and was the 'The bus broken into instant applause'. I had a brief thought of "Things that didn't happen." Likely cause I've been on the internet too long. The rest of the story was hair-raising and excellently written. Also the twist in it I did not expect. The line "A sister. Animals. Loneliness. A good sign." had me very worried for Tully.

I could gush about nearly every story for ages, how women who were made by the choices of others (The Genetic Alchemist's Daughter and Vanilla Rice) took back their autonomy either making their own bodily choices (Katsue) or creating something to bring a sense of justice for themselves and those they've shared moments with (Leto and the daughters).

None of this even touches on the wealth of folklore legends that appear. Some were familiar, the nine tailed fox and Kuchisake Onna and others were new, like Nyai Roro Kidul. The new ones just meant diving down a rabbit hole of learning more about these legends and their origins and retellings over time.

"...this book is not a compendium of victimization and suffering. It is a book of women's voices, of passions, appetites, hungers, angers, shenanigans...and decisions. Volition, movement, change."

I've described this to my friends as "It's a whole thing about being on the outside of a family system that wants boys while being expected to wait on men as is culturally expected despite being a second class citizen. It uses different folklore, monsters and dieties." And ended every message with "You HAVE to read this". If you're reading this review and we've never met, you still HAVE to read this because for all the reasons I love it, I can promise you that you will find your own too.

A haunting collection of short stories.... Some left me quite emotional, others left me creeped out, but you can really feel the raw emotion in each of the vignettes. I also found that this had more of an Australian tilt to the story-telling which i found quite fascinating. Growing up in the states, most of the media I consume is so US-centric it's easy to forget about the other parts of the diaspora....I found this really enlightening and a great read overall.

Black Cranes is a short story horror collection with tie ins to Asian cultures and views on female roles. Definitely read the foreword if you want a better summary than mine, Alma Katsu wrote about it beautifully.

Now there are over a dozen stories in this so let me share just some quick feelings about a few of them.

The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter by Elaine Cuyegkeng

A daughter of an alchemist who makes genetically “perfect” copies of people’s loved ones. I would absolutely love a full length version of this story. I never wanted the story to end, though the ending was superb!

Kapre: A Love Story by Rin Chupeco

Based on the myth of Kapre, a Filipino monster described as a tree demon who tricks people into getting lost in forests. I adore this story. It made me happy and broke my heart, all at the same time.

Phoenix Claws by Lee Murray

Katsu references this story in her foward so I was excited to get to it, I wasn’t disappointed. Woman brings her boyfriend to a family dinner where they have a tradition of only accepting those who will eat chicken feet.

Skin Dowdy by Angela Yuriko Smith

Something every woman on this earth can relate to, the feeling of nothing ever being good enough.

Rites of Passage by Gabriela Lee

Based of the myths of Tiyanaks, vampiric creatures that take the form of babies or toddlers, from the Philippines. Out of all the stories, this one horrified me the most.

The Ninth Tale by Rena Mason

How a Nine Tale Fox gets her ninth tale. Awesome story. Felt like I was reading an old fairytale.

Frangipani Wishes by Lee Murray

I absolutely love how descriptive Murray writes. The imagery was so vivid and it plays out in your head like a movie.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who has ever been relegated to lives that we wish to change. For people who are slotted in roles that we no longer want to fill.

*4.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads scoring system*
Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for my copy in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

"Black Cranes" is a short story collection that is filled with stories written by Southeast Asian writers from all over. These are stories upending the gendered traditions and strict role keeping in Asian families and in Asian cultures. Like most short story collections, there are some duds, but man are the duds in this collection still better than most things I've read.

As a Southeast Asian American, I feel like SO OFTEN, we get left out of stories (and at a larger scale, discussions about racism, sexism, etc. but that's for another time). It was so validating and empowering reading stories written by Southeast Asian women starring Southeast Asian women. I read this collection over a LONG period because unfortunately for me, grad school started back up so I cannot remember everything I wanted to say about this collection but there's everything from retellings of folk tales to zombies. I HATE zombie stories (mainly because I have a legit fear of zombies) because so often, I feel that zombie stories are just not that interesting or exciting. As a Filipina, I did enjoy that there were multiple Filipino-based stories. I have never felt so seen. They got at the weird Catholicism, elder honoring, and strictness down so perfectly.

Although I do list these standouts please, PLEASE check this book out, purchase it, preorder it. Please. It was so fun and I definitely plan on preordering a copy.

Some standout stories were "The Genetic Alchemist...", "Kapre: A Love Story", "Truth is Order and Order is Truth", "Rites of Passage", and "Vanilla Rice".

Many thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this ARC!!!

Okay, I received an electronic advanced reader copy of this upcoming hardcover release of this book and wow, was this a great one! I'm an avid reader of Eastern Asian mythology and horror, as their brand of storytelling, especially in the way of horror, seems to be a particular treat to me. As someone who loves the unsettling and the outright weird, this book was right up my alley, as it discusses some ways in which Asian women are thought of as always being meek, submissive, unobtrusive, gentle, and the epitome of what it means to be feminine. However, many of these ideals are unrealistic and have stolen the agency from Asian women. Well, the authors of these stories intend to give that agency back and with a bite. While I won't delve too deeply into all of the stories, I will give a couple that really made the book for me.

Starting off the anthology is The Genetic Alchemist's Daughter by Elaine Cuyegkeng. As an anthology compiler myself, I have always believed that the first and last stories in a book are what generally set the tone for the anthology and best represent what the editor was looking for in their call. Well, Cuyegkeng did not disappoint. They craft a world in which not just body modification is possible, but personality and traits are malleable through genetic manipulation as well. Through these modifications, even the wiliest and headstrong daughters can be brought to heel and made the epitome of gentile and meek, just as their mothers want them to be.

Kapre: A Love Story is next and also one of my favorites by novelist Rin Chupeco. I'm not sure if the characters that they use are out of Filipino folklore and mythology, but even if they are, Chupeco weaves a fantastic tale about the enduring nature of love and friendship, even if it ends on a bittersweet note...and I'm all about the bittersweet notes.

This third story that stood out to me was Truth is Order and Order is Truth by Nadia Bulkin. Wow, just wow. This story was one that was unexpected to me but sent me on an adventure. The MC is a princess of a slain Queen and a dead King, but despite the machinations of a scheming courtier, she fights to reclaim the throne that was hers by birth as given to her by the Old Gods. This would probably be the story that I recommended the most to my fans as I love it. It oozes a certain otherworldly charm that speaks to me in my quieter moments and won't stop its relentless whispering, even when I wish it would. :)

Black Crances: Tales of Unquiet Women is a read for everyone, but especially Asian women who defy familial and societal expectations in order to live their own lives and carve out their own existences.

Black Cranes is a unique collection of stories featuring truly terrifying women. Each author had individuality in their writing but they all fit in well together. This a great collection of short horror novellas but I was left wanting more from some.
Thank you to RDS Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review of content.

Thank you to Netgalley and the RDS Publishing for providing me with an e-arc of this book!!

"In Black Cranes: Tales of unquiet Women, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of 'otherness,' be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world."

This collection of short stories was very enticing and intriguing. Some of the stories I loved and some I think, would benefit better as a novella or even a novel.
The foreword by Alma Katsu was my favorite part of this anthology. It was passionate, so unflinchingly real, and so unapologetic. It was a statement that "Asian women can be many things. The only thing we can't be is defeated." Here are more quotes from it:
"We are expected to attend to the psychical needs: lifting, carrying, feeding, bathing. We change their diapers and wipe up their diarrhea, the insult stinging twice as bad for knowing we were always the less-favored child, being women."
"These stories demonstrate the diversity of Asian life as reflected in its storytelling. Just as there is no one type of woman, there is no single, all-encompassing notion of Asia. It is too multifaceted to be contained in one identity."
My favorite stories were:
1. The Genetic Alchemist's Daughter by Elaine Cuyegkeng. The storytelling was flawless. I want a whole book dedicated to this story.
2. A Pet is For Life by Ganeve Flynn. A horrifyingly delicious story.
3. Fury by Christina Sng. I'm a sucker for anything dystopian, and this delivered on so many levels; especially the characters. They were so well rounded and felt like we even got a backstory for them. I would follow them to every apocalypse.
4.Little worm by Geneve Flynn. Haunting and memorable.
An honorable mention is Mark by Grace Chan. I liked the atmosphere of this story and how unrevealing it was but I believe it was way too short for it to actually stay with you.
The only criticism I have, as with most horror books, is the use of some ableist phrases and/or words, but on that we all have to check further with disabled reviewers, readers,writers.
I had a splendid time reading each and every last one of these stories, and I can't wait for more people to experience them and love them.

The style of these stories reminded me of Zhiguai (Chinese true tales of the paranormal) which I absolutely love but with such a fascinating subject matter. All of these stories were so interesting taking aspects of what women (specifically Asian women) have been told they should be and ripping it apart. Every story in the collection is fantastic and I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in tales of unquiet women!

I was so excited about this anthology and I'm so glad it didn't disappoint! Although some short stories didn't work as well as short stories as I would have hoped so, overall it was a great dark, horror short story collection featuring Asian authors, characters and folklore. I'm gonna try to talk about my top three favourite stories in no paticular order:

1) A Pet is for Life was really mindblowing. I loved the use of the Kuchisake Onna and the story's twist and exploration.

2) Fury despite being a story and a world I would have originally thought would work better as a whole length book, it worked very well as a short story that had a beginning, middle and an end.

3) Little Worm was something that when I started reading it I didn't think I'd enjoy it but it proved me wrong.

A collection of short, feminist horror stories written by Southeast Asian authors. There are fourteen stories, and my favorite was the first, The Genetic Alchemist's daughter. The sci-fi setting involving cloning and genetic alteration stands out from the other stories, and the twist at the end hits hard. Unfortunately, this was really the only story that stood out to me. Overall, the writing was good and evocative, but the stories could have used more variety.

4.5 stars

An excellent collection of short stories ranging from horror to sci-fi written by Asian women who have a story they need to tell, and they all do it so uniquely. Each of these stories has a message and they're told from a variety of lenses. Different POVs, different writing styles, different cultural takes, and while I wasn't fond of every single one, they all left me thinking and appreciating the writing.

It's hard to pick a favorite, so I won't. "Skin Dowdy" by Angela Yuriko Smith stuck out to me differently than anything else I've ever read. Its concepts are so real in how people try and change for others rather than themselves, and it often leads to negative consequences.
"The Ninth Tale" by Rena Mason was dark and fun, everything that it should have been.
"Frangipani Wishes" by Lee Murray tells a story about ghosts and how they haunt us, and the writing was so beautiful and unique. I absolutely love it.

An amazing read and one I will not hesitate to recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for giving me access to this!

Una raccolta notevole; non solo il tema è affascinante e disturbante insieme, ma ho trovato molto ben scritti tutti i pezzi, con l'eccezione di Fury, che mi ha annoiato. Per il resto, l'angoscia di una femminilità mummificata in ruoli tradizionali (buona figlia, buona madre, buona moglie) che neanche l'emigrazione, il lavoro in un altro continente, lo studio universitario di generazioni riescono a lasciare indietro viene resa con efficacia.
Una vera sorpresa la maggior parte delle autrici, e francamente inquietanti le creature tradizionali (soprattutto filippine e malesi) che sono le guest star di molti racconti.

Great anthology. It introduces new and established authors and their stories to readers. There's no such thing as a perfect anthology because carious styles and stories will appeal to different readers. This one succeeds at offering a huge variety of tones and voices. I'm sure everyone will find an interesting story here.