Medley of reviews for Ys (Interzone 222)

• Colin Harvey at Suite101:
  

  One of the delights of reading de Bodard is that sense of otherness, be it a Chinese legend re-worked, or a straight SF-nal alternate history like ‘The Lost Xuyan Bride.’ De Bodard is one of the candidates for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 2008, and rightly so. Recommended.

• Gareth D Jones at SFCrowsnest:
  

  Aliette De Bodard’s title ‘Ys’ refers to a legendary drowned city off the coast of Brittany in this realistically-rendered tale where myth crosses into real life. Francoise finds herself surrogate mother to the heir of Ys and struggles to regain control of her life with the help of her sceptical historian friend. I always enjoy stories set abroad that are written by someone who knows the country and the culture well. Sometimes the country next door can seem as alien as any foreign planet and this adds to the fantastical quality of the story.

• JohnFair at John’s Reading:
  

  I found this a bit confusing but reads all right with a bit of effort.

• Rob McCow over at his blog:
  

  Some beautiful imagery in this story, evocative use of all the senses in writing. Sadly, it’s about a woman who encounters a goddess and kicks her goddam ass. OK, so the Goddess had impregnated her with an imperfect child who could never be born whole, but still! It’s a great build-up, but to end a story like this with fisticuffs is very disappointing

• Lois Tilton at IROSF:
  

  I’m a sucker for legends like Ys, and the setting and the premise of this tale have a numinous attraction. Françoise is a strong character, but the resolution of her conflict with the goddess seems to attribute powers to her that I don’t see how she acquired, and I’m not convinced of the necessity of the confrontation in the first place, or what it could have been expected to solve.

• Matt Bruensteiner at Garbled Signals
  

  The writing is engaging, and de Bodard takes advantage of her French background to develop a setting both exotic and believable.

• Alan Poulter over at Library Thing Library Thing:
  

  Rather too Buffy-like.

• Lawrence Conquest at The Barking Dog
  

  ‘Ys’ by Aliette De Bodard is an enjoyable and effective modern fantasy, in which a woman finds herself carrying the child of an underwater goddess.

• Sam Tomaino at SFRevu:
  

  Aliette de Bodard is one of my favorite new writers and will get my vote for the Campbell Award this year. (…) This was yet another compelling tale from someone we should keep watching.

• Clare Grant at Shelf Suficient:
  

  Aliette de Bodard always comes up with the goods as far as I’m concerned, and I’m always excited to see her stories in Interzone. This is a tense salty tale, stinking of ozone and seaweed, of a woman — or maybe two women — who refuse to walk the set paths. I liked it very much.

I was rather taken aback by the number of people who thought this was exotic–I guess because for me, it’s all natural since I’ve lived in France most of my life, and even drowned cities and goddesses are par for the course 🙂