SEASONS OF GLASS AND IRON

El-Mohtar is in a category of her own with a compilation of work spanning nearly two decades and including several award-winning pieces.

While the pieces here may not adhere to a central style, genre, or theme, El-Mohtar earmarks the connective tissue—women engaging with each other—in a self-aware author’s note. This collection brings together more than a dozen stories and poems that showcase her fluency in the preternatural, mythological, and immense possibilities of women talking. The title story, “Seasons of Glass and Iron”—which won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards for best short story—is about two women trapped in their own harsh fairy tales and their shared pursuit of freedom. “Madeleine” explores memories: their origins, their realities, and their futures. “The Lonely Sea in the Sky” turns our own culture’s obsession with diamonds into a journal chronicling a 56-year-old woman’s descent into a diseased fixation on extraterrestrial diamonds. “And Their Lips Rang With the Sun” plays with a folktale about the sun, telling the story of the women who call and dance for “her” to rise every day. “Qahr” will remind readers how language can fall short in its efforts to represent the immensity of human emotions. “To Follow the Waves,” set in a medieval SF world, tells the story of a dream crafter with a creative block who becomes obsessed with her muse. El-Mohtar writes beautifully of ancestry, culture, and the natural world—particularly birds and gemstones—and wades thoughtfully through the depths of sorrow, isolation, and otherness. She is a tender wordsmith, able to play with the form of folktales and letters, reference materials and lyrical prose. In a few cases, it would be useful to have an understanding of her literary and mythological references to appreciate some of the nuances, though it’s certainly not a requirement to find meaning in her stories.

A collection that defies categorization, but is alive on every page.