As with all short fiction collections I've read, there are stories within this that I enjoyed more than others. Having said that I thought all of them were good - it's just some I didn't love. This was my first book by this author and it won't be my last. I really enjoyed her writing so I'm interested to read one of her full length books. If you enjoy short story collections then this may be one to check out.

As a kid, I and my sibs had candy so seldom that I could make a pack of M&Ms last for weeks, allowing myself one a day. I’d nibble that single candy with my front teeth so that it took longer to enjoy, until it began to melt in my fingers.

I have the same approach to short pieces of fiction I know I’m going to enjoy, and so it was with Starlings, Jo Walton’s collection of short work.

I say ‘short work’ because it’s not merely short stories. In fact, Walton claims in the introduction that there’s only one true short story in the collection. The rest are attempts, first chapters, experiments, and then there is her wonderful poetry (including a biographical poem that alone is worth the price of admission) and a play that had me cracking up so much I startled the dog. (How I’d love to do that play in a readers’ theater reading!)

Anyway, I portioned these out over weeks, permitting myself to read only one at a time right before bed. (This was only a mistake once, when I encountered a piece so very dark in humor that it was basically extremely effective horror. To get the images out of my head I had to bring out the big guns: listening to Ralph Vaughn Willams’ In Windsor Forest and reread some P.G. Wodehouse before I dared sleep. At least it was a very short piece!)

At the end of each, Walton talks about the inspiration behind it, sometimes evaluating it, and giving the history of publication. These notes are especially interesting to fellow writers, as well as for those who enjoy looking behind the stage curtain.

What to say about the pieces themselves? It’s interesting that the ‘true’ short story that Walton picked came way after my own selection for which one it had to be. This raises the question of what exactly constitutes a short story. Each of these could spark debate on that question alone, before we get to the ideas. None of these pieces is predictable, pretty much every one of them could be called a chapter one to a wonderful novel, or else a fine example of flash fiction, or a fictional riff. Many of them could be broken up into poetry format as they are really prose poems.

One of my favorites was the short story “Turnaround,” which takes place in a restaurant over lunch on an enormous spaceship that is destined for a new planet. The sfnal elements are there, but so are the arts, as well as the impractical and sometimes delightfully absurd joys that make human life so great, such as musical fanfares announcing the newest dishes. One of the things I love about Walton’s work is the celebration of human possibility, choice, and a reveling in profligate beauty. This story evokes that, the best in the human spirit.

The voice, or tone, or mode of these pieces varies so widely. Walton is so flexible when it comes to narrative voice. The opening story, “Three Twilight Tales,” reads as if told by a storyteller over the firelight on a wintry night. The dream-world of fairy tales is evoked through prose that slips into poetry just often enough to be enchanting.

Very different is the tight, wry voice of the next piece, a very short one called “Jane Austen to Cassandra.” And different from both is the eerie tone of “On the Wall,” which is in essence a novel contained in a short piece, because once the reader figures out who this is, they know exactly where it’s going, and it stops at exactly the right moment for maximum effect.

They’re all like this, wildly different in tone and effect, and yet there are flashes of themes from her novels here and there, and glimpses of characters, for instance I thought I saw Krokus from the Thessaly novels in “What a Piece of Work.”

The collection finishes up with the play mentioned above, “Three Shouts on a Hill,” and more of her wonderful poetry.

I wish this were coming out before the end of the year, as I can think of three people I’d buy it for as a holiday gift, but OTOH there are always birthdays, ha ha!

Story, story fragment and poetry collection. I think Walton is correct that most of these aren’t really stories; they have elements of the fantastic but nothing really stood out for me. If you’re a Walton completist or you like sff poetry, then this might be for you.

[I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.]
This is the first I’ve read by Jo Walton, although I had the pleasure to see her speak on a Tor panel at the ALA conference some time ago. She was entertaining and insightful, something I see reflected in this collection. It’s been a pleasure to finally get the chance to delve into one of her works. And what a work to begin with! It’s not in any fashion your typical collection of an author’s short stories, but it’s important to note that Walton is direct and upfront with the reader that that’s not what this is. What it is, is refreshingly honest and charmingly varied. There’s a little something here for everyone, which of course means there are also some pieces in the collection that will feel like more of a miss than a hit for some. This is ok. We’ve come to expect a certain pattern, polish and perfection from our reading materials, often without giving much thought to the growth and struggle that comes along with the process of producing those consummate works of wonder. Here we do not find a set of short stories neatly tied together by a particular rhyme or reason. Instead we’re greeted by a delectable, motley assortment of short fiction forms and themes. The true upshot to this chaos is that it’s never boring, it keeps you on your toes, keeps you wondering from one piece to the next what could possibly be coming next? Every story may not be your new favorite, but there are several new favorites I’ve found nestled not so neatly within this collection. There are enchanting tales of moonlight men and gray women who are more than they seem, a sentient search engine’s struggle with ethics, an unexpected correspondence between Jane Austen and the wrong Cassandra, a frank and meandering parable, a noir detective tale with a decidedly unique twist, a magnificent play (which was probably my favorite part of the whole book and something I would LOVE to see performed, it was hilarious) and even a bit poetry. There’s a great deal besides all of that. In a manner of speaking the contents of the collection perfectly mirror the titular birds; a bit funny looking with their short tail feathers, and intriguingly and unexpectedly colorful and vibrant. Also prone to flying off when startled. It’s great. If you’re willing to embrace some flighty tales and speculative poetry, it’s a fun read well worth your time.

I always find short stories to be an eclectic mix of good and bad, and this was no exception, with some poetry and plays thrown in for good measure.

Starlings covers the more folk and myths aspect of stories with a wide variety of settings, from a travelling coin who exchanges hands from thieves to lovers, to a retelling of Snow White (which I think was my favourite). There's even a story about artificial intelligence and the concept of biographies, which was interesting, and the afterthoughts from the author provided a little bit more understand as to the concepts she's using.

At times I did think this was more a collection of the authors thoughts, concepts and ideas rather than a coherent set of stories. The author even points this out in her introduction, as she states it's not really a short story collection. Which kind of begs the question- what's the point of this? I think I would have preferred just waited until the author developed their concepts into some 'proper' short fiction. Also, the collection itself is rather short, and without much depth to it.

Unfortunately my quest to find the perfect collection of short stories continues.

This set of stories was very diverse. Some are fantasy-ish, and some are a little more sci-fi. There’s poetry too, which I don’t normally go in for, but liked nonetheless.

There’s even a letter in the style of Jane Austen writing to her older sister Cassandra, only in this case, the mail gets rerouted accidentally and sent to Cassandra, the daughter of Priam of Troy in the Iliad, and she writes back. Really fascinating idea there.

There was a pretty cool experimental story, which is a little like the beginning of Snow White as told from the POV of the mirror, which I thought was great. There’s a play based on the Irish myth of the Sons of Tuireann, there’s a story about a zero gravity ballet dancer, there’s a really interesting sort of Noir detective story that takes place in a world where we’ve cloned Jesus, and now being Jesus is like an ethnicity in itself. Jesus as a private eye was really unique.

My favorite story overall though was The Panda Coin, which was a really interesting sci-fi story that takes place on a space station. The station is divided into twelve sections, each named after a month of the year, with weather to match. It’s a really interesting world, and we see bits of it as this coin changes hands. As it does, the POV changes with it, so we meet the people of the station, whether they be simple human miners, androids or AIs. I liked the idea quite a lot!

I liked that each of these stories have an afterword, sort of explaining where they came from or where they were published. A lot of author’s collections have forewords before stories, and I find that having the explanation after the story made more sense.

All told, I really liked this collection. It’s one of the most diverse group of stories and poems in different styles and forms that I’ve ever read. Really fun!

I’d like to thank the author, and Tachyon Publications via NetGalley for the review copy of this book!

Venti racconti (o frammenti, o giochi, o esercizi, come li chiama l'autrice) brevi o brevissimi, un testo teatrale e una manciata di brevi poesie.
Gli ingredienti per un piccolo capolavoro, bocconcini di meraviglia da gustare uno per uno, con calma, all'occasione: e in poche pagine di scrittura limpida e magnifica si dischiudono mondi alternativi perfettamente resi, che siano fantasy o fantascienza; declinazioni inaspettate ai luoghi comuni più triti del fantastico; delicate riflessioni sulla malattia, il dolore, la vecchiaia; e due raccontini natalizi di meravigliosa ironia e incredibile tenerezza insieme.
Non avevo mai letto prima Jo Walton, nonostante la sua fama davvero la preceda; ma se questi frammenti, che considera quasi la palestra della sua scrittura, sono una sorta di piccola collezione di scarti, per quanto amati, non tarderò molto ad affrontarla in volumi più corposi, anche solo per ritrovare la magia delle sue parole.

Was it a collection of stories that have never seen the light? Of books that were meant to be but then became just short stories? I didn’t feel like there was any cohesion, these story do not feel like an anthology and they are very detached from one another. Sorry, i didn’t really understand this collection.

Although this is my first experience of Jo Walton's writing , it is almost certainly not my last. Described in the introduction as something of a miscellany rather than a cohesive collection, a mix of short stories, poetry and writing exercises, at first I was not sure how much I would enjoy the book. Within the first couple of pieces, I am happy to say, I was completely sold, and in fact I really enjoyed almost every single story in the collection. As the author admits, it is definitely a diverse blend, largely drawing on the genres of science fiction and fantasy, and largely successful in both fields. While some stories are based on well known fairytales, but seen from a new angle, such as On the Wall, a Snow White based piece, others while feeling fairy tale like are wholly original creations like Three Twilight Tales. While I liked these stories, I really loved some of the more sci fi based ones, particularly The Panda Coin which uses the transfer of a coin from one character to another to give us a glimpse into a futuristic world, and Turnover, a story set on a multi generational starship that questions the right of one generation to determine the future for another. The book also had some very interesting humorous pieces, most notably for me What would Sam Spade do? a fun riff on the noir genre with a sci fi twist. The book also has a short play based on an Irish myth which was fun for me to read, and some interesting poetry, but neither spoke to me in the way that most of the stories did. No matter how short or silly a story was, I almost always found something in it that appealed to me as a reader, and for that reason I loved this book , it was a perfect introduction to a new ( to me ) author and piqued my interest enough to go add several of her other books to my to read list

I’m always curious to read new short fiction collections and anthologies, especially when it’s from one author I haven’t read anything from yet. It can give me a good feel of their voice and imagination without the time commitment of a full length novel.

Overall I liked Startlings, the stories were varied, most of them very short, the longer ones never boring. It is separated into three parts: fiction (takes 67% of the book), one script and poetry. Like the author says many times, some of these stories are not actually stories but more like ideas that she put on paper, without plot, just that idea taking a few pages, sometime less. She also refers to them as “exercises” or even first chapters of books she never published.

I usually love the notes at the end of each piece adding some background or explanation to the story. I did there too, for a time. But then some of them were a bit odd. There is several (!) where the author “rants” about publishers or magazines not paying her (which, okay, isn’t cool!) or paying her very little (this is… not relevant to the story…) and sometimes those afterwards felt a bit too self-congratulatory? It’s awesome that Jo Walton is proud of her work but, I don’t think this was the place to say some of the things said here. Those parts are usually the ones that make me appreciate an author more and… I have to say it hadn’t a positive impact on my view of the author.

Like all collections, there were stories that I liked more than others. Looking at the listing below, I realise that the stories I like best are those leaning more on the science fiction side than the others! The ones referencing Italy and Florence weren’t really my favourites, but I liked how it showed a side of the author I had no idea about.
_______________________

Those poems were really varied. I loved the first one, and liked the idea of the last one: the traditional author bio at the end written as a poem. No strong feelings for the rest, I felt a bit uneducated because I couldn’t always undertand all the references but I’m sure people who do will greatly enjoy them!

Would I recommend this book? I think any fan of Jo Walton will be dying to read this. It didn’t turn me into a fan of her work but I feel like I understand better what I would get myself into when reading her novels, I feel like this short fiction collection is a great way to get a glimpse of the person behind the authors. Still, this leads me to think I will read a novel of hers one of these days, either Tooth&Claw or Among Others!

Some people could feel cheated because a lot of these stories are very short, a lot don’t even have a plot. I’m choosing to see this book as a collection of the author’s work and ideas, like a glimpse on her notebooks, her drafts.
I’ve been told it isn’t the best way to get introduced to Jo Walton, though it worked well enough for me so I’d say go for it if you’re interested and feel intrigued by what you saw above.

This is unmistakeably a Walton collection. Even if it didn't have Walton's name on the cover, I would be able to tell it is her by the style, the voice, the sensibility. In the introduction, Walton claims not to be able to write short stories, but there are some really successful ones here. I particularly enjoyed the brief retelling of Snow White and "Three Twilight Tales", a riff on fairytale-like storytelling. "Jane Austen to Cassandra" is worth mentioning for the humour. But I think that my favourite is "Sleeper", which marries an interesting sf concept (an artificial intelligence construct becoming part of the experience of reading a biography) with the issue of the impossibility of a thorough biography. There are also a few stories which constitute more of an experiment or a joke, but they were fascinating to read nonetheless.

I have to admit I enjoyed the short stories more than the play or the poems (with the possible exception of the eponymous "Starlings"). The play's beginning was promising, but then it went on and on intermineably.

Overall though, I would say that this is a collection worth reading, especially, but not only if you are a Jo Walton fan. Her voice shines through all the texts in this volume, and after reading most of her novels, it was lovely to be able to read more of her output - and with the author's own commentary, too!

I was able to read this collection courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley; my opinion is mine.

<i>Starlings</i> is Jo Walton's first collection of short prose fiction. I have by now read quite a few of her novels and some nonfiction, enjoying some more than others, and so I was very curious to see how the collection compares to her fiction, and how it stands on its own as a short fiction collection. And frankly, the short stories: they are not really great, or at least not all of them. Sure, there is <i>A Burden Shared</i>, which I've read already and which contains a lot of real emotion and a powerful idea; there's terrifying and powerful "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction"; there's delightful "Jane Austen to Cassandra" and some adorable Christmas-themed pieces (there's a surprising lot of Christian/Christmas elements here, though I found them mostly enjoyable). But you can tell that's not where Walton's heart lies, or at least not quite: some of the pieces are semi-forgettable, enjoyable at the moment but not much more than an extended anecdote or joke. The big draw is the personal anecdotes coming at the end of each story, providing context, sometimes publication history, sometimes personal insight. It certainly makes the collection feel personal and imbued with warmth.

However, while the short fiction making up the bulk of this collection didn't impress me too much, the latter two parts did. I loved Walton's play: it was delightfully funny, played with time and form. I think the metafictionality / breaking the fourth wall about breaking the fourth wall at the end becomes a little too gleeful, but overall: a very strong effort, and I'm tempted to agree with Walton's self-assessment: it was the best thing in the collection.

And then there was the poetry. I am not terribly into speculative fiction poetry (I guess I've imprinted on poetry being something you write about the death of loved ones, the second world war or the emotional devastation of love, or all three at the same time, and anything that doesn't tick those doesn't hit that nail in my head on the head, so to speak) but I usually quite enjoy Walton's, whether she's writing about world peace, making predictions about the future or pitting Godzilla against Shakespeare('s multiverse).

I don't think it's a must-read as a collection of short fiction, but there are gems in it for any reader of Walton's.

(Three stars for the collection, extra half star for the play and the last extra half star for the delightful, amazing, funny biographical poem.)

He leído algunas novelas de Jo Walton, como Among Others, El Círculo de Farthing o Garras y Colmillos pero nunca había leído su ficción corta. Y la razón, evidente tras la lectura de Starlings, es que la autora no se prodiga en esta longitud. La propia Jo dice que no sabe escribir ficción corta y me temo que en este caso hay que darle la razón.

El libro es un batiburrillo de relatos, poemas, una obra de teatro y primeros capítulos de novelas que nunca existieron. Ante semejante mezcolanza, es difícil juzgar la obra en su conjunto. Te puede gustar un relato y aborrecer el siguiente, ya que no existe un hilo conductor, una uniformidad en la lectura o en la temática, ni tan siquiera en el estilo.

Muchos relatos son una gracia de la propia autora, una broma extendida que puede gustar o no debido al peculiar estilo humorístico de la autora, como "Remember the Allosaur" o "Jane Austen to Cassandra". Otros son ejercicios estilísticos, de uso de diversos puntos de vista como "The Panda Coin", que me recuerda al principio de la película Lord of War.

Particularmente me gusta la idea de primeros capítulos de posibles novelas, donde sí se ve la mano de la autora para plantear situaciones que puedan dar lugar a historias más completas, como la población de una nave generacional que no sabe si su destino es el adecuado para sus aspiraciones como "Turnover".

También se notan las inquietudes lectoras de la autora en "Escape to other Worlds with Science Fiction" donde volvemos a visitar la ucronía de Farthing, en un flashmash no demasiado conseguido.

No tengo capacidad para juzgar la capacidad poética de Walton, pero en este libro personas más cualificadas que yo podrán tener una amplia muestra.

Starlings es una obra para fans de Jo Walton y puede tener algo de interés como curiosidad para el resto de lectores, pero no deja de ser anecdótico.

It's a curious experience to read a collection of short stories which insists it's nothing of the sort. But in a somewhat apologetic introduction that's just what Walton claims here. And on the one hand it's absurd - of course they're short stories, aren't they? But - with one or two exceptions, excitedly announced as proper short stories - she notes that most of them are something else. The beginning or end (or in one case, maybe either) of unwritten novels; exercises in voice; poems with the line breaks removed. A few poems with the line breaks left in, at that, and one extremely strange little play in which Irish mythic heroes seek out fabulous treasures to aid the defence of the isle against Cromwell, before gradually becoming aware of their own anachronism... But there's something very freeing in that. It's like the increasing realisation of how many forms life can take, of all the things we might not even once have considered alive but which can still wedge themselves determinedly into some tiny niche of the ecosystem and keep on living away. Similarly, all these reviews from worlds without physical bodies, or monologues by the agent of a dinosaur actor, or a prelude to Sleeping Beauty as told by the mirror...they can pass as short stories well enough to thrive there. And in a sense I'm not the best person to talk, having only read one of Walton's novels, but I think I prefer these. <i>Farthing</i> had some very powerful sections, but the structure of it didn't convince me; some of the transitions felt forced. So why not just ditch that connective tissue and, as here, just give us the key scenes, ripe with potential? The story about life in the middle years on a generation ship, the inhabitants knowing their lives were determined by their grandparents, but realising they can themselves change the lives of their descendants - all begun in the cause of not wanting a low-gravity artform to perish...it's amazing! And the novel of which it might have become part...well, it'd probably involve a lot of politics, and that'd be hard to make interesting without becoming implausible, and why not just fuck that slog off and leave us with the one fabulous scene? Forget 'kill your darlings' - instead, kill all the clumsy support infrastructure and let the darling sit there unencumbered. This is a lovely read in its own right, but more than that, it's a book an awful lot of writers could productively read, and reconsider.

(Netgalley ARC)

Fantastical short fiction is right up my alley, so I enjoyed these stories immensely. They're loaded with imagination, well written and quirky, each one a little treat, like picking a chocolate out of a box. The stories are on the brief side of short, followed by a note from the author on the story's origins, which was interesting, though I'd have preferred more length in the fiction and less of the background. For that reason a four-star rather than a five-star read but the collection is a highly enjoyable one which I'd recommend.

I've not read much by Jo Walton, but even to use the word "much" is a bit of an exaggeration. Up until Starlings, the only work I've read from her is her Hugo award winning novel AMONG OTHERS. While I enjoyed the novel, I thought it had a few flaws. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it enough to know that I would be okay with reading more of Walton's work at some point in the future.

Starlings is a collection of short fiction and poetry. Walton is not known as a writer of short fiction; as she states in her introduction, novels came much more naturally to her than short fiction ever did. In fact, Starlings is
her first collection of short stories, and the poetry that is included in the volume is, in her words, her fourth poetry collection. The stories and poetry collected here are as diverse in their subject matter as they are in their style and technique. This was a different kind of book for me to read in more ways that one, not the least of which is the fact that it contains poetry. More on that a bit later on. However, one of the things I enjoyed about the book was that instead of an introduction before each story, Walton gives the reader a background for the story at the end, a sort of "now that you've read it, here's the deal with it". That kind of structure appealed to me and I really enjoyed it.

The book contains a lot of pieces that Walton says aren't stories at all; they might be pieces that play with form, mode, or point of view. A good number of them defy description or summary. For example, "Parable Lost" certainly be read as a parable, but don't get lost in all the jellyfish. Then there's "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction", a piece that's stitched together from newspaper, ads from various science fiction magazines (among other things), and story fragments. It certainly isn't a story, but it's fascinating in any event. There's a snippet of a narrative called "What Joseph Felt", a retelling of a portion of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus from the point of view of Joseph; I enjoyed this one quite a bit. There's a book review, written by an alien, of a novel that has humans as its central characters, entitled "The Need to Stay the Same". At one point the review complains, albeit gently, of the book being the eighth book in the sequence and the "themes are staring to feel familiar"; there's something we see all too much of in this field. "Joyful and Triumphant: St. Zeobius and the Aliens" is a wonderful guide for new residents of heaven who are a bit surprised that there are aliens there. Growing up Catholic, I certainly never thought that there'd be anything other than humans in heaven. I found the piece interesting and delightful. "Turnover" is a piece that I think of as a short story, but Walton says is the first chapter of a novel; if that's true, then this is a novel that I'd like to read. It takes place on a generational starship, and in this particular bit we're joining some of the starship travelers for lunch as they talk about whether they want to go on to the landing or not, as the Turnaround of the story, where the ship turns around and begins deceleration toward the planet upon which it intends to land, is quickly approaching. The idea of residents of a generational starship born during the journey discussing that they didn't choose this life - it was chosen for them - is not a new one in science fiction, but the idea of being a figurative fly on the wall during one of these discussions is intriguing. "What Would Sam Spade Do?" is a piece with a fascinating idea: clones of Jesus are a common ethnic group in the United States. The narrative relates the circumstances under which one clone is investigating the death of another clone at the hands of yet a third clone. The idea that someone would find Jesus' genetic material and create clones of him is interesting in and of itself, and the oddness of the investigation is an intriguing and interesting way of using the concept.

Real honest to goodness stories? How about "Unreliable Witness", about a woman with dementia who meets aliens - and of course, no one believes her. One of my favorite pieces in the book is entitled "Three Shouts on a Hill (A Play). It's a story told in play form based on an Irish legend. My wife may be half Irish (on her father's side), but I've never heard the legend before. This one had me going for awhile as I didn't know where it was headed. It was certainly a lot of fun. "A Burden Shared" is a wonderful piece the central conceit of which is the fact that a person's pain can be shared by other people, but the story is really about familial relationships and how we deal with suffering loved ones.

The remaining prose pieces are generally just as interesting and just as creative and diverse as those I've already talked about. They nicely demonstrate Walton's range as a writer and storyteller. There are many pieces throughout the book, either some that I've mentioned above or those that I haven't, that I would like to see fleshed out into complete stories or novels.

The second section of the book is a collection of poetry. In the interest of full disclosure, I've never been into poetry; maybe it's because I don't know how to read it or appreciate it for the many and varied forms it takes. I
will admit to having a difficult time in reading and appreciating the poetry that appears here. Favorites are "Ten Years Ahead: Oracle Poem", a piece that tries to predict the future; "The Godzilla Sonnets", the title of which I
suspect is fairly self-explanatory; and "Three Bears Norse", the subject of which may be obvious.

Starlings is a collection that demonstrates Jo Walton's ability as a writer. The pieces within show off her range and versatility, her style and technique. This short story collection may not contain a whole lot of traditional
short stories, but what it does contain is a whole bunch of good old fashioned high quality writing, the kind she demonstrated in AMONG OTHERS, and the kind I expect we'll see from her as her career continues.

This is a good collection of short stories and poems. I'll admit that poetry doesn't usually spark my interest much, but the short stories were lovely and the Godzilla sonnets were delightfully funny and unexpected.

Aspiring writers may find this volume informative because it includes a lot of tips that can be taken as writing advice. In the introduction, Walton explains that for a long time, she didn't know how to write short stories. In fact, several of the stories in this collection were originally intended as first chapters of novels, until Walton realized that they worked as stories. (I particularly liked these stories because they sparked my imagination as I considered what would come next.)

All in all, this was lovely. The stories dabble in fascinating concepts and unusual points of view. If you generally enjoy short genre fiction, I encourage you to check this out.

By the author's own admission, several of the "short stories" in this book are not actually stories. They're exercises in mode, or jokes, or the attempts of someone who knows how novels work but not how short stories work to write a short story.

This doesn't sound promising, but Jo Walton is such a good writer that she mostly gets away with it in any case. In fact, some of the stories have been published in prestigious publications like Strange Horizons and Subterranean. Unfairly, I occasionally thought, "I wish I had the kind of standing in the SFF community that meant I could get published in those publications by writing a story that isn't a story," but that's not the only thing that's going on. Walton is a deep thinker, a close observer, and a master of language, and all these things shine through, even when her "story" is only an exploration of a clever idea with no real beginning, middle, or (especially) end.

"Three Twilight Tales," for example, the first piece, explores a small town that has remarkable magic, but the magic is a means to look at the people and their relationships. "Jane Austen to Cassandra" takes the idea that Jane Austen's letters to her friend and correspondent Cassandra go astray and reach Cassandra's original namesake, the prophetess who nobody believed. And are answered. "Unreliable Witness" is from the POV of an elderly woman with dementia who may or may not have encountered aliens. "On the Wall" is, as the author says, the beginning of a novel, a very different version of Snow White, from the perspective of the mirror, but because we know the original story we don't need the rest. This kind of implied narrative is something I'm interested in, taking advantage of the familiar tales to create resonance and tell a minimal story where the reader fills in what's missing.

"The Panda Coin" is SF, following a coin through a number of hands in a somewhat dystopic space station. "Remember the Allosaur" is a joke, but a beautifully written one. "Sleeper" I think I've read before somewhere (probably Tor.com, since it was published there, or in one of their collections); it's about a Russian sleeper agent in late-20th-century Britain whose consciousness is simulated by a researcher in a dystopian future. Like most of the others, it doesn't have an ending so much as imply a continuation.

"Relentlessly Mundane" is a consideration of the question "what do the kids do after they come back from the portal fantasy world and grow up?" It's an idea that's been tackled at greater length since by Seanan McGuire, but this is a good treatment.

"Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" is a series of vignettes and pseudo-documents that build up a picture of an American dystopia (there's a bit of a theme going with the SF in this volume), in the old alternate-history-where-the-Nazis-won-WWII genre. Not as original an idea as some of the others, but well done.

"Joyful and Triumphant" is a meditation on the idea that each planet gets an Incarnation, in the "character explains as if to n00bs" mode. It's not a mode I think much of, and this is, for me, one of the weaker stories, though it's an interesting idea. Later in the volume, "What Would Sam Spade Do?" posits a world with multiple clones of Jesus, who have become a kind of ethnicity, and "What Joseph Felt" explores St Joseph's feelings around the Incarnation. "Out of It" is based on the Faust legend, so Christian mythology (if I can use the term) gets thoroughly inspected.

"Turnover" is a what-if-the-later-generations-in-the-generation-ship-don't-want-to-go-to-the-new-planet story. As it happens, I read a very similar story by Ursula Le Guin almost immediately afterwards ("Paradises Lost"), and comparing anyone else's story to a Le Guin is usually unfair to the other writer, but this one stands up reasonably well. The sense of place is well handled, in particular, and though it's another story with an "ending" that's more of an implication of future events to come, so is Le Guin's.

I won't mention all of the stories, just a couple more. "A Burden Shared" is set in a world where people can (through handwaved technology) shoulder one another's pain, featuring the mother of a woman with a chronic illness as the main character. As someone who lives with a person with a chronic illness, it rang true to me, and the theme of how caregivers (especially mothers) can neglect their own needs is an important one.

The other story, which is actually a play, is "Three Shouts on a Hill," an odd mishmash of Irish legend with bits and pieces from other times and places that's as much a meta-meditation on story as it is anything else.

Overall, then, this collection is proof that, if you're a good enough writer, you can write a successful piece of short fiction in a lot of different ways. Not all of the pieces are excellent or weighty, or even original, but those that are lift the average considerably.

Jo Walton’s Starlings opens with a poem considering baby stars – Star-lings – emerging points of brightness finding their way in the universe. It’s an apt analogy for this collection.

This isn’t really a collection of short fiction or an anthology in the traditional sense. Walton herself discusses her inability to write “proper” short fiction in her introduction. What this is instead is a collection of first chapters of novels that didn’t eventuate, writing exercises experimenting with a particular mood or idea, vignettes, thought pieces, jokes, poetry, a play, and the two aforementioned ‘real’ short stories.

It makes for an odd collection and I found it provoking more of a mixed response than I normally would have with a traditional short story collection. On one hand it’s fascinating to see the different sorts of pieces Walton has played with up to this point. On the other though, I found it was quite uneven with a lot of the stories, by virtue of not really being ‘stories’, failing to capture my interest or coming off as unsatisfying. They often didn’t have a point other than to let Walton explore a feeling or an idea. My favourite pieces were: Three Twilight Tales, Relentlessly Mundane, The Panda Coin and Remember the Allosaur.

Walton’s prose throughout is lovely and the ideas she picks and how she develops them are wonderful. I just found a lot of the pieces either too short – the unrealised novel first chapters such as Relentlessly Mundane – or not long enough to really be anything.

I also found the afterwards to each piece didn’t add much to the pieces themselves. They were often strangely focused on whether Walton had been paid for a piece, where she had sold it to, or how well it had done rather than providing more context or insights into the writing process or the thinking behind the pieces.

Overall this is a collection of ‘Starlings’, emerging bright things in a universe in various states of formation. I found it interesting, but mostly there wasn’t enough for me to grab hold of or fall into to really say I liked it.

I've been a fan of Jo Walton since my first introduction to her, when I read 'My Real Children.' This collection features short stories, poetry and plays. Walton admits she has a hard time writing short stories and shares her thought process behind every piece. I really enjoyed this collection, and the stories contain Walton's always beautiful language. I think I ended up enjoying the short stories better than the poetry or plays, but overall this is a great collection. I'd recommend it to fans of Walton or people who enjoy fantasy short stories.