I'd say 80% of these stories were 3* or higher. Well done! There were literal mermaids, reincarnations, creepy-ass spiders, stories about grief, racism, kinship, oppression, and even superheroes! All either set in an Asian country (including West Asia... not always represented) or had an Asian main character. Truly loved it.

A great anthology for any sci-fi or fantasy fan looking to discover new voices. All are written by Asian authors and I found the themes and styles to be exceptional.. I felt the stories were predominantly in the fantasy realm. My favorite stories were Old Souls and The Orphans of Nilaveli. Orphans was my top pick but there wasn't a single story I disliked. I am glad I had the chance to read such unique and well told stories with a different spin.

I very much enjoyed this short story collection. The stories are a mix of sci-fi and fantasy and there are some absolute gems in it. I have loads of authors now I want to read more of!

My favourite stories include Back to Myan by Regina Kanyu Wang, Weaving Silk by Amanda Sun, A Star is Born by Miki Dare, The Bridge of Dangerous Longings by Rati Mehrotra and Old Souls by Fonda Lee.

Back to Myan is pure sci-fi. A mermaid on an alien planet whose home world overheats. She is evacuated and her tail replaced with legs so that she can live on other planets.

Weaving Silk is a beautifully written story about two sisters trying to survive in a city after an earthquake killed their parents and cut the city off from the outside world.

In A Star is Born an old lady in a home has found a way to time travel back to earlier points of her life.

The Bridge of Dangerous Longings is an unusual story about a bridge that will kill you if you try to cross it.

Old Souls is a tale about reincarnation, and a young woman who can not only remember her own previous lifes, but also see the past lifes of everyone she comes into contact with.

There are a couple of stories that I didn't get on with, one that I just couldn't follow and one that I didn't get the point of, but overall the quality is very high.

I highly recommend this, it's an interesting and high quality collection and it's probably going to be one of my favourite books of this year. I hope they make volume two soon!

I enjoyed this, for the most part. As with most short stories I've read, this was hit and miss. My favourite was Memoriam by Priya Sridhar. Overall however, they were pretty decent and varied and I love that the anthology itself is so diverse in Asian fantasy characters. Would recommend.

I received an e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of the few times a publisher on NetGalley granted my wish! And this anthology was an adventure, though space and regions where every part of the human psyche was covered. From lovers and drug dealers to revenge and politics this book has a gorgeous cast, amazing authors who I am going to check too (since I know only Amanda Sun!) and a glorious representation of the Asian culture, even through the spectrum of the sci-fi genre!

Truly recommended!

I tried to read this but the writing didn't work for me...

I can be fairly clueless.

I love anthologies and picked this one solely on the basis of its cover. I was not aware until I started reading the introduction (yes, I read the introduction and you should also) that it was a collection of Asian SF & fantasy.

Second background tidbit: I have been involved in fandom in one form or another for over 40 years until I mostly passed the baton on to my three minions (two females and a male).

This means, as a female heavily involved in fandom in the late 60's through the 00's, I've been marginalized, patted on the head, straight up disdained, called names, and worse. Some of the nastiness came from my 'peers' in non-fandom of course, but a discouragingly large amount came from other fans. Generally caucasian, nearly universally male. You grow a tough skin, you move on (or quit).

Fast forward to the time period between 2000 and the present day. Non-white-non-male fans and authors seemed more welcome to the dialogue and to bring N-W-N-M voices to the chorus. Things seemed to be going ticketty-boo. Then the backlash. There always seems to be a backlash. Puppygate, calling out Social Justice Warriors, etc etc.

For people who will read the description and think 'Where the Stars Rise is not for me'. Or 'these authors' voices are not speaking to things which concern me', this is a collection of well written (in some cases transcendent) stories which speak to our common existence. They're not all perfect of course, but all of them are worthwhile.

As stated on the cover, this is a collection of 23 short works written by Asian authors. As with all anthologies, it's a mixed lot. They're all in the 3-5 star range, well weighted to the upper 4 star range. There are some truly standout pieces; Memoriam by Priya Sridhar, Back to Myan by Regina Kanyu Wang, and The dataSultan of Streets and Stars, by Jeremy Szal were amazing for me. There are many more well written stories included, but just these three alone are worth the price of the anthology.

Why is it important to read and expose oneself to other voices and other ideas? It's precisely because our strength is in our diversity. Unity and understanding can only come from growth. What other people have to say is vitally important and if we're going to live together on this planet and not die together, we desperately need to stop marginalizing one another.

Four stars

A wonderful, diverse collection of stories. A perfect anthology that dives into the world of myths and history with a good balance of past and present.

Unable to finish book. Lost interest around the half-way mark. I found the earlier stories very interesting. However, the ones in the middle were not enough to keep me interested or motivate me to continue reading.

As I have not finished this book, I will hesitate to recommend and will not post a review online.

3.5 stars. I love the breadth of stories and settings in this Asian SFF collection. While overall, I found the collection a little uneven (there were a number of stories that did not grab me at all), I'm very pleased to have read it, and expect that many readers will find some stories of interest. Most of the authors were new-to-me, and it was great to delve into some of the up-and-coming Asian writers in this genre!

The Good
There was a good deal of variety in these stories, jumping between time periods and cultures, which made it fun to read because every story was new and different. It’s hard to review an anthology as a whole, because there will always be weaker and stronger stories and stories that each individual reader connects to more than others. Nevertheless, overall I found this to be a strong collection presenting a fresh perspective on science fiction and fantasy.

There’s also a great afterward on the state of Asian science fiction and fantasy, providing a lot of suggestions for further reading.

The Bad
As I said, I liked some stories more than others. Some had a particularly obvious moral (“The world must know that there are Asian superheroes!!”, but for each of those there was another story that was more nuanced and intersting.

The Verdict
This was a solid little anthology. Definitely check it out!

I think pretty much all short story anthologies are uneven -- it's a grab bag, you're not going to like everything you grab -- but I was a little disappointed by how few of the stories really captured my attention, given how many of them there were. (Fonda Lee and Minsoo Kang's stories were the the only real standouts for me, and I'll be keeping an eye out for Kang in the future as he's a new name to me.) It felt like the intended audience wavered between YA and adult from story to story, and that made it hard to adjust my expectations; almost none of the stories were *speculative* enough for me, and most of them were too short to pack the kind of punch they wanted to deliver. I did very much appreciate the afterword discussing the recent explosion of Asian sci-fi/fantasy, but it made the lack of big name anchors in the anthology that much more obvious (where are Zen Cho and Ken Liu and Alyssa Wong?), which may have been the real problem now that I'm thinking about it. All of that said, every story in the collection was competently written and well edited, and mileage on short stories varies widely, so I would encourage any fans of speculative fiction to try the anthology out rather than taking my word for anything!

Such a treat. It is so nice, and quite a revelation, to read Science Fiction/Fantasy authored by members of the Asian community. I loved the diversity of ideas and styles.
A recommended read.

I got to stop requesting short stories and samplers... hate reading them because they just get good and its over!

This amazing anthology of brilliant works transcends past and present, delves into history and mythology, while dabbling in political commentary in these imaginative worlds.