October may still be around the corner, but IMHO it’s never too early to start talking about the most Halloween-y (Halloween-ish?) of subjects: WITCHES!!

(Side note: I saw Halloween themed Oreos at Wegmans in like the third week of August. Wth?)

I’m by no means an expert on the subject, but also probably not a complete newbie to it either. On the blog, I reviewed a book featuring witches as recently as May with Payback’s a Witch, and The Once and Future Witches was undoubtably one of my favorite contenders for the Hugo Awards back in 2021.

Of course Shadow and Bone, The Witcher, and Winternight trilogy all make references to the most infamous of witches, the Baba Yaga, and while I don’t think I’ve published anything yet featuring that particular witch as a character, it was impossible not to include her in the Zhenya-verse, my Russian Fairytale inspired universe in which the stories At the Edge of Legend and Farewell to Rusalka take place.

And that slew of links is just the witch related content I have personally written about over the years. Their legacy in history is both prominent and prevalent. From their earliest references as gods of ancient Greek (Hekate), Egyptian (Isis), and Norse (Freya) religion, to their reappropriation as icons of feminism in groups like W.I.T.C.H (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell).

And in fiction, how many famous witches can you name? Who is the first to come to mind? Someone classic such Morgan le Fay from King Arthur’s legend (Le Morte d’Arthur)? Or perhaps more recent like Marvel’s The Scarlet Witch? Maybe someone more nostalgic like Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) or Sabrina (Sabrina the Teenage Witch)?

Are they inherently good like the Wizard of Oz‘s Glinda, or obviously evil like the Wicked Witch of the West (although Schwartz and Holzman’s play Wicked makes these characterizations a little less certain). And what other roles does the witch hold? Mother? Maiden? Crone? It’s not hard to think of an embodiment of each.

No matter which witch (lolz) springs to mind when the subject is broached, it is clear that as a people, we’re seemingly fascinated with “…free, powerful, and unpredictable women” (Hyperallergic: How Witches Have Held Us Under Their Spell for Centuries), on which to project our darkest fears and greatest hopes.

Now this might seem like a bit of a long preamble (cough history lesson cough) for a post that is essentially a book review, and an exceeding amount of context, but I only reference it because it is within this lofty conversation that it seems the anthology’s editor, Jonathan Strahan, would like for us to consider these collected stories.

In the introduction, Strahan even goes so far as to review multiple definitions of the term ‘witch’, before positing his own definition and then giving a similar list of witchy references and allusions for the reader to consider.

All of this, is of course leading up to the acknowledgement that: “Writers from Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere, are making inroads, and more attention is being paid to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices.” and the anthology’s stated goal, that it is a “conscious effort to reflect that, to celebrate all of the many voices from our field, whether they be established, well-known ones or ones at the very start of their career.”

And in this goal, I felt the anthology succeeded wonderfully. There are stories from about as diverse a cast of authors as you could possibly imagine. Many were favorites of mine which I have written about on the blog before including P. Djeli Clark (A Dead Djinn in Cairo universe, and Ring Shout), Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby), and Fonda Lee! (Green Bone Saga).

And of course many others I had never heard of such as Miyuki Jane Pinckard or Saad Z. Hossain.

So in terms of introducing me to a wide array of new authors, from an equally wide array of backgrounds and identities, the anthology was a success.

But there is kind of a second, more implicit goal that this anthology would change (or perhaps expand) our definition of the term “witch”. Here I felt like we were on more tenuous ground. For many stories within the anthology, I was pages in before I could sus out the new definition of “witch” the story was attempting to put forth and sometimes even frustrated that they had tried to connect their story to witchcraft at all.

This failing to live up to its own ambition unfortunately did affect my enjoyment of the anthology overall and felt like a bit of a first strike for me.

The second mark against it, and this is entirely an issue of personal taste, was all the poetry. I’ll be the first to admit that poetry just doesn’t speak to me the same way prose writing does (which would makes sense as it’s a different form), and as a result, I haven’t read much of it, and am completely incompetent at judging its quality.

While I did give the poetry sections an honest try, none effected me with any particular level of feeling good or bad. If they were clever in their form, structure, or in the way they stood up against other poems within the genre, I could not contrive to know that from just reading the text.

All of that to say, I was a bit underwhelmed during the poetry sections, but I’m not much of a poetry person. If you like poetry, there’s some in here, but I can’t really comment more than that.

Despite any frustration, or underwhelm experienced reading the almost 30 stories within The Book of Witches, I did really enjoy and will recommend three stories from the anthology, whether you decide to read the rest I’ll leave up to you, but I definitely think the following worth checking out:

What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata by P. Djeli Clark

I think this author just has my number. It seems like I’ll come out drooling no matter what he’s written. For me, and for this story, I think what I enjoyed most was a kind of sustained mystery through out the whole story, and how he was able to elevate a simple fishing village into such a tense and dramatic stage for revolution. A giant clockwork statue doesn’t hurt either.

Good Spells by Ken Liu

What I enjoyed most about this story was how prescient it felt and also how close. The imagined future in Good Spells feels like it could be just ten years off, or even less. Maybe just a year away. Maybe we are dealing with these issues now and we don’t even know. For this reason alone, I think it’s worth reading, but of course Liu manages to include more than just warnings and pessimism; the story also feels hopeful and even optimistic. Truly a great read.

John Hollowback and the Witch by Amal El-Mohtar

This piece comes at the end of the anthology, and I felt it was the perfect way to end. It just FEELS like a fairytale. In its structure. In its language. But I would not say the themes presented here are at all simple. And neither are its characters (I think there’s a joke here about writing fully fleshed out characters and John having a literal hole in his back where flesh should go).

Is redemption possible? Who deserves it, and who decides that? What are our obligations for forgiveness if someone changes? Just a few of the questions one might ask reading, or a the end of this story. Definitely one worth looking at.

Give this One a read?

Ultimately, a hard question to answer. I suppose in some ways all anthologies will contain hits as well as misses. For me, this anthology had a lot of misses, but the hits are good enough that I can’t in good conscience fully discourage picking it up.

As exposure to a broad crop of diverse authors, I found the book quite successful though. Perhaps this is reason enough to give it a shot. You’ll have a better idea of which authors you enjoy at the end, and who you should follow with and read more of.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this book? Which stories did you like? Which didn’t you? Any favorite witchy tales I should read? Leave the answers in the comments!

See you next time!