Absolutely loved this. Introduced me to so many talented new authors, can't wait to read their longer works. So much imagination, intelligence and perspective in one book. I was blown away.

Not So Stories is a delightfully diverse collection of stories based on myths, legends, folktales from around the world. A lot of them involve animal anthropomorphism often to depict human cruelty and deplorable colonialist attitudes. This book is a direct repudiation of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories with its colonialist justifications. This creates a whole new debate of its own where literary 'classics' or mainstream culture such as Dr Suess cartoons or Agatha Christie novels have obvious racist content: do we wholescale reject the work or call it a product of its time?

The anthology starts off very strongly and the first three stories knocked my socks off: How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw, Queen by Joseph E. Cole and Best Beloved by Wayne Santos. Of all the authors featured, I had only read Cassandra Khaw and Jeannette Ng before (Rupert Wong series and Under The Pendulum Sun respectively). There is a common refrain of "Best Beloved" which I gather is from Kipling's original work but evokes in my fantasy reading mind Robin Hobb's Fool addressing Fitz. Unfortunately as with most anthologies, it was uneven and I got mired in some of the stories in the middle which resulted in this book being picked up and put down periodically. I'd also like to mention that each story was accompanied by a black and white illustration which is a great idea but the stick drawings seem to have been done haphazardly and without much care.

So this poor book languished for quite a bit before my guilt in having to finish a review for Netgalley pushed me to finish it and to my surprise, I had actually been quite near the end. The last few stories (There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang and How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off ) were fairly underwhelming but I'll always remember that frisson of excitement and energy I felt reading those first few brilliant stories. There were a few in the middle that were pretty good like Samsara by Georgina Kamsika and How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng. In truth I would need to go back and re-read the whole book again to give it a more thorough review.

Overall, I feel like this is an important book with important voices and tales to be heard. It may make some people squirm because of its unflinching look at the effects of colonialism but too often mainstream literature has celebrated colonialist narratives. The foreword of the book has one of the most articulate treatise I've ever read of why we need diverse representation in literature and media.

[Review will go live on my blog on 19 June. The attached link will not work until that time.]


Not So Stories edited by David Thomas Moore is an anthology in conversation with Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, with stories shining a light on (mostly British) colonialism and its legacies. (I really like how this idea is conveyed through the union jacks on the cover.) If you've been following along my blog and my #ReadShortStories posts you will have seen me slowly making my way through these stories. The individual story reviews are reproduced at the end of this review, but first I will talk about the anthology as a whole.

Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories was one of the first true children's books in the English language, a timeless classic that continues to delight readers to this day. Beautiful, evocative and playful, the stories of "How the Whale Got His Throat" or "The First Letter Written" paint a magical, primal world. It is also deeply rooted in British colonialism. Kipling saw the Empire as a benign, civilizing force, and his writing can be troubling to modern readers. Not So Stories attempts to redress the balance, bringing together new and established writers of color from around the world to take the Just So Stories back; giving voices to cultures that were long deprived them.

This anthology contained an interesting mix of stories and authors of different backgrounds, including a lot of new-to-me authors. Most of the stories tackled colonial themes in one way or another and most of them took cues from Just So Stories (mind you, I haven't read the other book since I was a child and even then I'm not sure I read all of it, so my opinion on that point is unreliable). A lot of the stories engaged with difficult themes and were emotionally challenging to read, which is why I found myself breaking up the anthology with other unrelated short stories and a couple of novels.

My favourite stories, in table of contents order, were: "How the Spider Got Her Legs" by Cassandra Khaw, which did the thing where the starting situation was quite far from what we now think of as the status quo and made the story more interesting for it; "Best Beloved" by Wayne Santos, which was heartbreaking and powerful; "How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic" by Jeannette Ng, which was told on a grander scale than the other stories for all that it focussed on a specific tree; "The Cat Who Walked by Herself" by Achala Upendran, which was also heartbreaking and which ended in a way I didn't foresee from the start. As you can see, I liked a lot of the stories. Some didn't grab me as much, but that's to be expected in an anthology.

By the time I got to the end of the anthology, I did find the arrangement of the stories a little peculiar. Not only was it odd to find the only two cat-centric stories next to each other, but I also found the last few stories engaged with ideas of colonialism a lot less strongly than the earlier stories. That didn't necessarily make them bad stories, but a lot of the last part of the anthology didn't feel like it fit in with what the first part had set the book up to be. I think it would have worked better if the stories had been more intermixed and set up the expectation of varying engagement with colonial ideas earlier. As it was, I felt faintly confused reading three of the last four stories, even though they were perfectly fine stories in their own right.

Overall this anthology was filled with solid stories that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone interested in the themes and ideas it explores. The authors come from a variety of backgrounds so the anthology does not lack in diversity on that front. (It could have stood to be a bit more gender diverse, however.) I very much like the concept of Not So Stories and recommend it to all readers to whom the basic premise appeals.

~

How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw — Probably my favourite Khaw story so far. Told in the style of Kipling/traditional children’s cosmology stories as suggested by the title. It was also a bit longer and more complicated than I might have expected with a few acts to the story rather than just one simple origin explanation of how the spider got her legs. Anyway, I rather liked it.

Queen by Joseph E. Cole — A story about slavery and human cruelty. Not exactly an enjoyable read but not a bad story either. It didn’t particularly grab me but it was still told in an evocative way (and I think I spotted several references to Just So Stories).

Best Beloved by Wayne Santos — A Singaporean guardian of the living against the dead has taken up with a British official while still finding time for her duties. Until those duties become more difficult and she learns more of what the British are up to. A powerful story of love and devastation.

The Man Who Played With the Crab by Adiwijaya Iskandar — A father and daughter come across a westerner killing animals and demanding to be taken to their sacred crab so that he can kill it. A story that’s about as positive as possible, given colonial history.

Saṃsāra by Georgina Kamsika — A story set in the present day about a mixed race teenager reconnecting with her Indian heritage as she and her mother clean out her late grandmother’s home. It feels a bit out of place among the other Not So Stories I’ve read so far, but then so does the protagonist in her life, and maybe that’s the point.

Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger by Zedeck Siew — This is more like a few stories that ended up being tied together in a way I didn’t predict from the start. It tells Malay folktales as well as giving a few different modern perspectives on the tales and on the people having perspectives. It gives an interesting cross-section of views and various cultural influences. I enjoyed it although I found the sections that were academic excerpts a little too dry.

How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng — A story telling the history of a wishing tree in Hong Kong and, by necessity, the history of the people and the place. A sweeping story of gods and history told in the style of a bedtime story. I enjoyed it.

How the Ants Got Their Queen by Stuart Hotston — A clear metaphor for colonialism, it’s ills and aftermath. Although the story was not subtle, I still found myself enjoying it. And the direction of the ending was not overly telegraphed, which was nice. Not a cheerful story (of course), but a good read.

How the Snake Lost its Spine by Tauriq Moosa — As you can guess from the title, this is another creature-origin type story. I liked the ideas in it, but I didn’t find it to be as strong as some of the others. The writing could have been tighter where I found it a little dull in places. Not bad overall, just not one of the best.

The Cat Who Walked by Herself by Achala Upendran — This story is about how common domesticated animals, as well as Man and Woman found their place. I found this story quite upsetting in how it just kept escalating in patriarchal (not sure that’s the right word) terribleness. The ending was satisfying but didn’t erase what went before.

Strays Like Us by Zina Hutton — A story about Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess, who no longer has a place in the world, and a stray kitten. The story was fine, but I’m not sure how well it fits with the other stories in the anthology. It put me more in mind of various forgotten/unworshipped god stories more than colonialism per se.

How the Simurgh Won Her Tail by Ali Nouraei — A lovely story within a story. A grandfather visiting his sick (cancer, I think) granddaughter in hospital and telling her the titular story. It was very heartwarming, despite the depressing hospital setting and the hints of life outside the hospital.

There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang by Raymond Gates — A story about a boy in Australia, his uncle that likes to (mostly) benevolently tease him and the Whizzy-Gang that attacks him. Not a bad read, but I didn’t really spot any direct engagement with colonialism.

How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by Paul Krueger — If not for the title itself, this story would feel quite unresolved, which I have mixed feelings about. I didn’t mind the story overall, but I again didn’t find it to be quite what I expected. It’s about animals fighting (or not) for worker rights.

4 / 5 stars

First published: April 2018, Abaddon Books
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

A charming collection of stories that are definitely a thumbed nose to Kipling's 'Just So' stories - and delightfully done. My particular favourite was Achala Upendran's 'The Cat Who Walked by Herself' - a very powerful story. I also enjoyed Stewart Hotston's 'How the Ants Got Their Queen' and Ali Nouraei's 'How the Simurgh Won Her Tail'.

Not So Stories has been one of my most anticipated reads ever since Zedeck Siew announced that he was part of the lineup. I was about to bite the bullet and buy the book when I managed to score a review copy, so YAY!

Not So Stories was compiled as a response to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, which Nikesh Shukla describes in his foreword as "steeped in colonial nostalgia." I don't recall if I've specifically read Just So Stories (which I've recently found on Project Gutenberg) but if it's in the same vein as other Kipling books I've read, I get what he means. Not So Stories tries to recreate a new collection of animal tales from multicultural, multiethnic lenses, "confronting readers with the real harm colonialism did and taking the Just So Stories back." I cannot meaningfully compare the two right now but I will say that this book both succeeds and fails in its intent.

It succeeds because this wonderful collection of short stories does offer a multitude of unique voices, some of which I can personally identify with as a Southeast Asian, and some of which I can recognise and understand as stories from other cultures, none of which revert to the standard white male Christian point of view that I grew up with as an Anglophilic Chinese-Malaysian. Yet, where it fails is in its target audience--although the anthology is purported to be for children, one story has sexual elements unsuitable for younger readers and at least two others have themes that would probably only appeal to adults. Maybe if it had been targetted for "adults who grew up reading the original as children," it would have succeeded on all counts.

Now on to the stories!

Cassandra Khaw opens this anthology with the brilliant How the Spider Got Her Legs . It has a lovely folklorish feel, beautifully lyrical, but is also very, very brutal--not in physical sense, but how it rips away the veils from your eyes to reveal the evils of colonialism. At first, I wondered at "All of them pale, with hair like someone had spun the noon light into threads, eyes like ruptured sea glass", but Spider soon gets the [White] Man to admit that he took the land from "the Man who once lived here" and that his venom makes his victims "slowly wither of self-loathing." It's subtle, easily missed; yet as you read, you come to realise that this is what has been done to us in Malaysia (where Khaw comes from): we learnt to deify the White Man and loath ourselves, until we grew up and realised the lie--they are no better than we are. (5 stars!)

Queen (Joseph E. Cole) brings us into Africa (I presume?) with an inversion of roles: men here are described as beasts, whereas the anthropomorphic animals are the people. There is anger and pain, sorrow and desperation, a fight for life and freedom. There is also the quiet othering of what is usually a central narrative ("when they worship their cruel man-god who makes them eat his flesh and drink his blood, like savages") and harsh accusation against humanity ("... kill one another for paper and pieces of metal and for any number of pointless reasons. You rape the earth, molest the Earth, taking what you desire without thought or consequence"). Yet there is also reconciliation, the Queen who speaks to the princess who would be queen of her tribe. (5 stars!)

Wayne Santos's Best Beloved is one that I resonated with quite a lot, being set in nearby Singapore, but is also the first of the stories that step out of the children's domain into a rather more mature arena. In fact, Best Beloved also seems rather out of style with the other stories in the book. It's very much more contemporary in feel, with a horror/urban fantasy vibe, besides moving away from animal stories into the paranormal, featuring Chinese ghosts, angry spirits and pontianak. (5 stars!)

The next story hops over the causeway to Malaysia. The Man Who Played With the Crab (Adiwijaya Iskandar) has a Stranger trespassing Beting Beras Basah in a bid to find the great crab that wrecked his ship. There's a deliberate garbling of names--Adiwijaya emphasises the lack of effort made by white men to pronounce names from other cultures--and blatant disregard for lives and beliefs that aren't central to whiteness. There is also a sense of heavy resignation ("my kind shall be written away as myths") amidst a tinge of hope ("But your time shall pass too.") There is an amusing hint of an origin story for British perception of Malays and Malay culture in Malaysia. (5 stars!)

In Samsara, Georgina Kamsika explores what it means to be bicultural. Should Nina learn to embrace her mother's Indian roots, or should she fight to retain the white-passing privileges inherited from her English father? Must she choose one or the other? Can she not be both? I don't personally have experience in being biracial, but I do relate to her never-quite-fitting in, in my case because I am a "banana"--white on the inside, yellow on the outside. This one, like Best Beloved, dips into the spirit world, instead of the animal one. (Four-ish stars?)

And we finally get to Zedeck Siew's Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger! Other reviews complain that this is three (or more) stories in one. In a way it is--I see the thread that goes through the whole thing, but it's hard to digest. Siew weaves a convoluted story that begins with the river-mother, who makes the crocodiles, the youngest of which becomes a Tiger. This shifts into Were-Tigers and Were-Crocodiles, playing hard and fast with myth and religion, magic and faith, acknowledging the temptation to disregard culture, upbringing and heritage for the feeling of belonging and acceptance, before finally ending up back where he started with the river and the Tiger, and maybe a retribution (but maybe not). The ending feels satisfying, in its own way, but also as if I've missed something. This one isn't explicit, but part of the setting (a girl stays the night, they hang out at the club) might need some navigation with younger readers. (I'm confused. And conflicted. Four stars?)

How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng was like a peek into a culture I'm supposed to be of, but I've never really identified with. I spent much of the time wondering whether the Tree of Wishes was located in Hong Kong, or if this was some other harbour, a village that worships dragons of the sea, "the price paid to buy peace" that becomes part of an "empire so vast that the sun never set upon their queen's soil". Ng returns to the beautiful style that Khaw uses effectively at the beginning of this anthology, tangling history with modernism and progress. I really want to know who Old Man Uncle is. (4 stars.)

After all that good stuff, Stewart Hotston's How the Ants Got Their Queen felt just a little too labourious to get through. It's mainly a powerplay between the ants and the pangolins anyway, with a lot of eaten ants. (I probably didn't get much out of this story as you can tell. Two... three stars, maybe?)

Tauriq Moosa returns us to fantastical animal tales in How the Snake Lost its Spine . I was amused by "the White Devils from distant lands" (Northern Mountains) who believed themselves "first and chosen, those who most resembled the Creators though no one knew what the Creators actually looked like" whilst the "Others, Those Below, Those Far Away" were believed "to be a mistake". There's no hiding that this part at least is allegory, plain and simple, except maybe to the White Devils themselves. (Four stars.)

The Cat Who Walked by Herself (Achala Upendran) is a myth of the origins of the homestead, relating how Man got himself Woman, Dog, Horse and Cow through his might and magic. This one veers out of cultural identity into a more feminist lens, focusing on the power play between Man and Woman. It's a little gory, with many severed limbs, so probably okay for older children. Also, more Woman than Cat, though it's Cat who instigates Woman mostly. (Ah, I'd say four stars.)

Zina Hutton's Strays Like Us meanders into Egyptian territory with Bastet drifting through Miami refusing to be forgotten. This one has hints of American Gods (with a nice reference to Neil Gaiman too!) so it doesn't quite blend in with the rest of the stories either. (Three stars.)

How the Simurgh Won Her Tail (Ali Nouraei) reminds me faintly of Haroun and Luka by Salman Rushdie. Against the backdrop of a children's hospital, Amir tells the story of the Simurgh, who sets off on a quest to make herself a tail. The story is charmingly told, juxtaposing the Simurgh's distress at seeing the state of the world with the comfort gained by the children in the Paediatric Oncology Ward. If there is equanimity to be achieved, it is from the words, "This too shall pass." (Five stars!)

Raymond Gates's There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang is another story that doesn't quite fit. It seems to be about a mythical creature from Australia and reads like a Enid Blyton-type pixie/fairy story but it's never quite clear if this Whizzy-Gang actually exists. Oh well, I guess that's the mystery of the story? (Three stars.)

Back to the animals, How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off (Paul Krueger) seems to be mainly harping about overwork, bad HR practices and recognising religious celebrations of minority cultures. It gives off a kind of hard-boiled detective vibe, without the detective, and features a lot of smoking, pizza and beer. This story will really only appeal to adults so I'm not sure what it's doing in here. (Three stars.)

Overall, I'd say that each individual story in Not So Stories is great on its own (except the ants. What was with the ants?) but the problem is that not all of them fit together quite well in the same book. Where I was expecting a fantastic collection of animal tales for children (or at least tales related to animals), some stories veered off into the paranormal and the mythical, and some into very adult mindsets/settings.

What I Thought
I was really excited to read this, having read many of the Just So stories as a child.  The foreword did not disappoint and had me excited for the stories to follow.  However, they were not all as enjoyable as I expected, and I sometimes struggled to pick this book back up.  I think my two favourites were How The Spider Got Her Legs and Best Beloved.  The spider one definitely struck a nerve with me as it told the story of a mother fighting for her children.

I thought this was going to be an alternative bedtime story type book, and at least in part, suitable for me to read to the boys.  That wasn't the case, and I think even my avid reading 9 year old would struggle with this, if that was the intention.

I wouldn't discourage someone from having a read of this if it interests them, but I certainly wouldn't be pushing people to either unfortunately.  I love the idea of changing something like the Just So Stories to be more modern and relevant but for me, most of the stories just did not grab my attention.

"I've talked at length about why it's important that we see ourselves in children's books.  All of us.  Because for  a person from a marginalised background to see themselves in fiction, it shows them that their stories are valid and they are seen"

Nikesh Shukla
"It's a brave choice to take something so much a part of the canon as Kipling and make it more inclusive, and yet that's what has happened in the following pages"

Nikesh Shukla

Not So Stories – Edited David Thomas Moore – various authors

One of the most delightful developments in the world of publishing is the steady rise of the anthology. There was a time when collections of stories where simply an exercise in bulking out the pages in order to fill a paperback novel’s worth of story. This is no longer true, and we’ve seen a steady rise in skilfully curated collections that have a strong theme and message.

Not So stories is a collection of tales inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories. Kipling’s work, though well-loved and charming is hardly timeless. To be blunt, it is a product of the time it was written and Kipling’s own, rather naïve understanding of British colonialism. The Not So Stories take inspiration from Kipling’s work, using a collection of culturally diverse writers to explore similar themes. The collection has been put together by David Thomas Moore, who is one of the most exciting editors in the field today. Moore has nurtured a line-up of interesting and evocative talent, to create a bumpy but extremely entertaining ride. Let’s take a quick look at some of the collections highlights.

It opens with the delightful How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw. It draws the reader in as an almost perfect look at Kipling’s style, but one that tells a much darker and engaging tale. Khaw has a way that simply draws you in and uses the term ‘Best Beloved’ to its maximum effect. Also it’s nice to see spiders getting good press.

Adiwijaya Iskandar’s The Man Who Played With the Crab is both a great little tale of talking animals and their protectors, and kick in the seat of the pants to some of the less savoury tropes of Steampunk. Fun, filled with surprises and has huge crabs in it.

Georgina Kamsika’s Saṃsāra is perhaps the most ‘Not So’ story in the collection, skilfully weaving all of the collection’s themes into one very personal tale.

Jeanette Ng’s How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic is a tour de force of the author’s talents, taking the tale of the Wishing Tree and plugging into a broader narrative. Sharp, quick and very well done, Ng excels at the short form.

Joseph E. Cole’s Queen is, on the surface, a classic tale of man’s inhumanity to beast. Scratch the surface however and the nuance becomes much louder and pointed. This theme is amplified by Wayne Santos’s tale Best Beloved. It’s a story about a clash of cultures in the most insidious way and pulls no punches, collapsing the romanticism surrounding the British Empire’s relationship with China. It’s also a lovingly brutal tale of horror.

Paul Krueger’s How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by is perhaps the most angry tale in the collection, being more a polemic than a story and Ali Nouraei’s How the Simurgh Won Her Tail is perhaps the gentlest and most charming in the collection. The rest of the collection is just as possible, but we don’t want to spoil all of the surprises.

The Not So stories are not aimed at children, but they should be read by any adult who was charmed by Kipling as child. Recommended. - 9/10

Not So Stories – Edited David Thomas Moore – various authors

One of the most delightful developments in the world of publishing is the steady rise of the anthology. There was a time when collections of stories where simply an exercise in bulking out the pages in order to fill a paperback novel’s worth of story. This is no longer true, and we’ve seen a steady rise in skilfully curated collections that have a strong theme and message.

Not So stories is a collection of tales inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories. Kipling’s work, though well-loved and charming is hardly timeless. To be blunt, it is a product of the time it was written and Kipling’s own, rather naïve understanding of British colonialism. The Not So Stories take inspiration from Kipling’s work, using a collection of culturally diverse writers to explore similar themes. The collection has been put together by David Thomas Moore, who is one of the most exciting editors in the field today. Moore has nurtured a line-up of interesting and evocative talent, to create a bumpy but extremely entertaining ride. Let’s take a quick look at some of the collections highlights.

It opens with the delightful How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw. It draws the reader in as an almost perfect look at Kipling’s style, but one that tells a much darker and engaging tale. Khaw has a way that simply draws you in and uses the term ‘Best Beloved’ to its maximum effect. Also it’s nice to see spiders getting good press.

Adiwijaya Iskandar’s The Man Who Played With the Crab is both a great little tale of talking animals and their protectors, and kick in the seat of the pants to some of the less savoury tropes of Steampunk. Fun, filled with surprises and has huge crabs in it.

Georgina Kamsika’s Saṃsāra is perhaps the most ‘Not So’ story in the collection, skilfully weaving all of the collection’s themes into one very personal tale.

Jeanette Ng’s How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic is a tour de force of the author’s talents, taking the tale of the Wishing Tree and plugging into a broader narrative. Sharp, quick and very well done, Ng excels at the short form.

Joseph E. Cole’s Queen is, on the surface, a classic tale of man’s inhumanity to beast. Scratch the surface however and the nuance becomes much louder and pointed. This theme is amplified by Wayne Santos’s tale Best Beloved. It’s a story about a clash of cultures in the most insidious way and pulls no punches, collapsing the romanticism surrounding the British Empire’s relationship with China. It’s also a lovingly brutal tale of horror.

Paul Krueger’s How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by is perhaps the most angry tale in the collection, being more a polemic than a story and Ali Nouraei’s How the Simurgh Won Her Tail is perhaps the gentlest and most charming in the collection. The rest of the collection is just as possible, but we don’t want to spoil all of the surprises.

The Not So stories are not aimed at children, but they should be read by any adult who was charmed by Kipling as child. Recommended. - 9/10

“If you want to make a human being a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”

Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for Children was published in (1902) and remained a staple in children’s fiction with its allegorical tales for over 100 years. The problem with this is that it was steeped in the cultural traditions and racist oppression of colonial ideation. If people of color were depicted they were in inferior positions as either villains or animals. Not So Stories sets out to reclaim the vision of marginalized people. Fourteen authors from diverse backgrounds come together in this anthology to present a different world view, one that is inclusive and celebratory of the diaspora of people.
“Most stories are not just so, she said. Rarely are they pointless. And most lessons need to be lived and can’t be taught, yes?”

As with any collection of works there are those stories that appeal more to different readers. Here is my rating scale:
5 ★
How the Simurgh Won Her Tail by Ali Nouraei
How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw
Queen by Joseph E. Cole
“Never allow anyone who threatens your freedom to live unscarred, girl. Remind them of what they tried to take from you. And that it comes at a price.”

4.5 ★
How the Ants Got Their Queen by Stewart Hotston

4 ★
How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng
Saṃsāra by Georgina Kamsika

3.5 ★
Best Beloved by Wayne Santos
The Man Who Played With the Crab by Adiwijaya Iskandar
How the Snake Lost its Spine by Tauriq Moosa
The Cat Who Walked by Herself by Achala Upendran
This one was downgraded from 4 stars as it didn’t tell the story I wanted to tell. I know how obnoxious of me. But I wanted Woman to find her freedom without cutting off parts of herself. It also didn’t sit right with me that in order to be released from bondage she had to become an entirely different creature. I guess I was hoping that she would find the strength within herself, a gift she already carried, to attain what she wanted.
Strays Like Us by Zina Hutton

3 ★
There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang by Raymond Gates

2.5 ★
Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger by Zedeck Siew
How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by Paul Krueger

I’ll start by saying that this collection of short stories is not a children’s book, it’s not designed to be read as an alternative bedtime story collection. I do think that some of the stories could be read to children, and certainly, the messages they impart are worth sharing, but adults and young adults can read this collection also, and should.

These stories are hugely varied, some taking the source material of the Just So Stories and producing very similar sounding stories (addressing the reader as ‘best beloved’ and so forth) while others have different styles, some taking place in the modern day. It’s a collection inspired by the original matter, but it goes vastly beyond anything you might imagine from the cover and initial blurb.

One description of the book puts it best “bringing together new and established writers of colour from around the world to take the Just So Stories back, to interrogate, challenge, and celebrate their legacy.” This is exactly what this collection does.

There were some stories that stood out for me, I particularly enjoyed the reworking of The Cat Who Walked by Himself (now The Cat who walked by Herself) and also How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off both of which were excellent reworkings of original Kipling Stories that I can just about remember from childhood.

I’ve read two collections of short stories from Rebellion Publishing now, first Infinity Wars and now Not So Stories and I have been thoroughly impressed by both. From the authors selected to write to the way the stories are collated both are exceptional. My problem with collections like this is often that I don’t feel there is enough depth so I get easily bored, not the case with Not So Stories.

One author who stuck out to me as a familiar name was Jeannette Ng who, some readers may recall, wrote Under the Pendulum Sun which was a book I enjoyed (even though parts of it got a little too weird for my tastes). But all the writers in this collection are of interest to me and I’ll have to keep an eye out for future works.

I’m not going to arrogant enough to suggest that I, a white lady, can fully comprehend the nuances of a collection such as this, in many ways this wasn’t written for me. However, I can recognise that this book is an important one, and a vital part of the movement to challenge the normalisation of colonialism.

Should you read this? Absolutely.

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I have never read the Kipling book this was written in reaction of, but I knew about Kipling’s writing and how rooted in British colonialism it was. So the idea of this anthology reclaiming the narrative really appealed to me!

Right from the title of these stories, I could guess at the content of the original book, up to the structure of the originals, since so many used the “How the x got their x” and many were addressed to “Best Beloved”. I feel like the stories which seemed to stick closer to the originals were the ones I liked least, but they still has a lot to offer.

Obviously this was a very diverse bag of stories and I found a lot of favourites. I was looking forward to the very last, How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by Paul Krueger because I had read and loved his novel last year. It was a really cool one to end the anthology, a bit more “fun” because it addressed modern issues that a lot of people will relate to, mainly how corporations are using their employees, but with anthropomorphic characters.

Another one was Strays Like Us by Zina Hutton, about a goddess struggling in the modern world and bonding with a cat. It was really short but I loved it a lot. I also liked how the horror was built in There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang by Raymond Gates.

My favourite of the whole might be Sasara by Georgina Kamsika staring a young woman reconnecting with her mother’s culture as they go to empty their Nana’s house after her passing. It addressed a lot of social issues regarding racism and being mixed-race with a white parent.

I loved the stories that addressed colonialism as well and showed the horror of it and how awful white people have been. They were stories of revenge like in How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw (which also made me scared to even think about killing the spider that’s lurking in my bathroom), stories of the supernatural and slow realisation with Best Beloved by Wayne Santos, of the evil and irrational anger of the white men in The Man Who Played With Crab by Adiwijaya Iskandar…

I cannot think of a single story that I didn’t like, from anger to compassion leading to raw emotions, they all had important things to say, either in small or grand scale.

(I understand Kipling’s book is a children book, but I do not think all the stories in this anthology are suited for children, I would recommend to parents to read it alone first and see which one they want to share with their progeny later. But I guess it’s still better to let any child read this than the Kipling one!)

Finally, we come to "Not So Stories," an anthology commenting in the most obvious of fashions upon Rudyard Kipling's classic (and classically racist) "Just So Stories." I admired the goal of this anthology enough to request an advance copy through NetGalley, and I'm glad I did. Here, Australian author and anthologizer David Thomas Moore gathers together a number of authors, many of them known primarily as short story writers and few of them currently in possession of published novel-length works, and unleashes them upon Kipling with the goal of producing a diverse, spirited update of the original.

It is worth noting at the outset that Moore himself is white, while most of the contributing authors are not. Many of them are based in the United States, but their short biographies indicate that they come from all over. I think there's a lot to learn from this sort of approach, and I'm cautiously optimistic we'll see more work from all of them in future. Going in, the only author with whom I was familiar was Paul Krueger, whose "Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge" is rollicking good fun and an interesting take on the urban fantasy genre. Coming out, I'm hungry to track down the other authors involved in this project.

The tone here varies widely, but a number of threads run through the stories to bind them together. Characters appear, then reappear, and the narratives interlock and inform each other in both obvious and less-immediately-apparent ways. This device holds true in many ways to the original Kipling, and in many ways subverts it, as the animal characters here achieve greater degrees of engagement, and roundness, and agency, than they ever do in the original. This project feels like a unified whole, a legs-planted, face-forward stare into the middle distance of routine collections and mainstream science fiction. Like "Robots vs. Fairies," it's clear that the authors took the premise they were given and ran, hard and long and fast, in directions that may not have been mapped out for them beforehand but which certainly led back to a place which makes for great reading material. Unlike "Robots vs. Fairies" (my current benchmark for collection excellence, you'll note), "Not So Stories" feels as much like a collaboration as it does a collection. These authors worked together, or at the very least drew upon each other for inspiration and plot architecture. They have built something solid, something whole. It's a beautiful idea which has taught me something new, several things new, and raised the bar for what is possible in a science fictional (and fantastical) anthology.

Good but not great selection of stories from around the world. I make it a point to read from as many cultures as I can, so I was excited about this collection. It's a really good idea. I don't think that idea came together very well, unfortunately. Another reviewer on Goodreads mentioned that if they hadn't been told it was a multicultural take on Kipling's Just So Stories, they wouldn't have been able to figure it out from the text. That really resonated with me.

One or two of the stories have that "Just So Stories" folklore feel - you know the one I mean, that "and that's how the X became Y" framework - but most of them don't. They aren't bad stories, they just didn't seem to fit together as a collection very well, much less the specific themed collection intended by the editor. In most cases, I will look up the individual authors and look for more of their work.

The tone and underlying agenda of this book really bother me. It is a genuine shame because the cover and the writing are quite engaging. Then I get into it and find revisionist history at work. Kipling was who he was; he and his work are a product of the times. How do we learn from history if we erase it? I could see writing an annotated version of Just So Stories to make the commentary, since I see little else here.

Even though there is indication that these stories are for children, they most certainly do not read as such in their content or vocabulary. If the purpose is genuinely to produce multicultural, inclusive stories for our children, the writers assembled here certainly seem to have the capability to do that without destroying Kipling in the process.

Extremely disappointing.

I wholly support the idea of this collection of fable-like stories, inspired by Kipling's Just So Stories, but written from multiple cultural points of view in order to rectify a post-Colonialist, imperialist bias. However, if I hadn't read the Foreward I don't think I would have realized that was the objective. I recognized Kipling in the constant direction to "Best Beloved," and judging by how many of these characters soil themselves out of fear, I assumed that must have happened in Just So Stories as well, though I personally don't remember it. I read Kipling to my kids when they were littles, I wouldn't share these Not So Stories until they reach their teens at least; and to be honest I would only recommend it to a Lydia Deetz kind of teenager (a la Beetlejuice). I especially liked the tone of the first story: How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw; and the two stories Strays Like Us by Zina Hutton and How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by Paul Krueger both remind me a bit of David Sedaris's Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.

Not So Stories is a short story collection edited by David Thomas Moore and with a foreword by Nikesh Shukla.

In 1902, Rudyard Kipling wrote Just So Stories, which is now considered a classic of children literature – a classic rooted in colonialism, as Kipling saw the Empire as a civilizing force, the British as superior to the natives.

Bringing together writers of color from around the world, Not So Storiesis a response to Kipling’s work. Here you’ll find talking panthers, hidden Nagas, wishing trees, magical snakes, cat stories and more, with none of the unchallenged racism.

How the Spider Got Her Legs by Cassandra Khaw – ★★★★½
Cassandra Khaw is one of my favorite short fiction authors, and I can say that her dark, delightful tale about grief and revenge did not disappoint. Her writing gives me chills.
This is the story of how the Spider, first of her own kind, got her legs from a tiger, befriended a banyan tree and defeated Man, who wanted to colonize the forest. It was a perfect opening for the collection.

Queen by Joseph E. Cole – ★★★½
The old Queen is telling a child – the future queen – how she was separated from her family when she was young, how she was forced to fight her own in an arena, how she learned to survive and escaped. I didn’t love the writing, but the ending made up for it.
Who is the beast?

Best Beloved by Wayne Santos – ★★★★
This story is set in Singapore in 1856, and it follows Seah Yuan Ching, a Chinese woman who has an important work: she keeps the dead at bay as the seventh lunar month arrives. She is in a relationship with a white man, Adam, but she doesn’t know the truth about him; also, the opium wars are beginning, and the dead may have a message for her. I really liked how the main character realized she didn’t deserve to live with people who compliment her in ways that are both backhanded and racist (“she’s quite articulate for a [racial slur]”), and I loved the ending.

The Man Who Played With the Crab by Adiwijaya Iskandar – ★★★★
A Malay girl and her father keep watch on the shore until a violent stranger, drunk on power, arrives. He is looking for “Pau Amma” (actually Sang Pawana, Protector of the Seas; he can’t even learn to say her name right) to kill her because she sunk his ship. I loved seeing the magical aspect of this one.

Saṃsāra by Georgina Kamsika – ★★★★
This story follows a biracial indian woman who grew up disconnected from her culture because of her white father. Saṃsāra is about reconnecting with your heritage and how immigrants will deal with it differently across generations; it also talked about cultural appropriation. I loved this one, even though it felt somewhat out of place – it did have a supernatural element, but it felt like a contemporary story when all the other stories were either tales or historical fiction.

Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger by Zedeck Siew – ★★
This story had some interesting aspects (the Tiger’s story and the mirror scene, mostly), but when I was halfway through I couldn’t follow what was happening anymore because of the many time and PoV jumps.

How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng – ★★★★★
My favorite story in the collection. I already knew I loved Jeannette Ng’s writing from her novel Under the Pendulum Sun, which was one of the most original stories about fae I had ever read, but this was even better.
Through the story of the wishing tree, the author tells us the turbulent history of war and colonization (British, then Japanese) of this village (which is not one village – it’s Hong Kong). I loved this from the beginning to the end, and the writing was so beautiful and sharp I wanted to highlight and quote every paragraph.

How the Ants Got Their Queen by Stewart Hotston – ★★★
This is a story about colonialism, its consequences, and how easy it is to become a tyrant, told through the wars between ants and the pangolin. Really liked the writing, even though the story could have been shorter.

How the Snake Lost its Spine by Tauriq Moosa – ★
I almost did not finish this one. It was long, and unlike the other stories, which managed to be tales without talking down to the reader, this one was obvious and predictable.

The Cat Who Walked by Herself by Achala Upendran – ★★★
The main character of this story is the cat, a cat who has always walked by herself, but loves to listen to Woman’s music. I really like reading cat stories, and I liked the message of this one, but it definitely needs trigger warnings for self-injury.

Strays Like Us by Zina Hutton – ★★★½
Another cat story! This follows Bastet (yes, the Egyptian cat goddess) as she rescues a kitten. I really liked the way the narration managed to establish the main character as cat and goddess at the same time. Just like Saṃsāra, this story felt a bit out of place, but it was still really interesting.

How the Simurgh Won Her Tail by Ali Nouraei – ★★★★½
An old man is telling his sick niece the story of how the Simurgh won her tail (Persian mythology!), and it was a really sweet tale within a tale. Also, the writing was lovely.

There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang by Raymond Gates – ★★
I… didn’t get this one. It was paranormal? Maybe horror? It’s set in Australia, and the main character is afraid of something called Whizzy-Gang, who lives in the hedge and assaults animals and people for no reason. It was weird, and not in a good way.

How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off by Paul Krueger – ★★½
Paul Krueger wrote Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, which is one of my favorite urban fantasy novels, but this just wasn’t that interesting. This story is about capitalism, and why capitalism damages some people to favor others, a message that was also in Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, but here it overpowered the story, which came off as preachy.

My average rating: 3.32 stars.