Sword stone table Old legends, new voices

Review by Booklist Review

This collection revisits the Arthurian mythos through a variety of perspectives that make even the most familiar stories yield new fruit, from Ausma Zehanat Khan's opening "The Once and Future Quadi," in which a Quadi is invited from Cordoba to Arthur's court to judge the queen's fidelity, to Alexander Chee's closing "Little Green Men," a delightful revisiting of the story of the Green Knight, with a Martian twist. There is an appearance from Britomart (Sive Doyle's "Do, by Any Due Means"), several variations of the tale of Nimue and Merlin (including a fantastic spin from Nisi Shawl), and a late-nineteenth-century take on Arthur's unsavory side from Maria Dahvana Headley in "Mayday," and, of course, plenty of appearances from Excalibur in various guises (including a baseball bat). Whether or not the reader is familiar with the intricacies of Arthurian tales, each of these new additions is well worth savoring--these are legends that don't just allow the gender-bending, race-bending, and queering that the editors aimed for, they flourish with the additions.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Krishna and Northington bring together 16 diverse retellings of Arthurian legend to create an anthology of breathtaking breadth, depth, and creativity. Daniel M. Lavery's "How, After Long Fighting, Galehaut Was Overcome by Lancelot Yet Was Not Slain and Made Great Speed to Yield to Friendship; Or, Galehaut, the Knight of the Forfeit" is an utter revelation that casts the concept of chivalry in a new light. Other standouts include Waubgeshig Rice's moving, gorgeous "Heartbeat," about an Anishinaabe preteen named Art who unearths a stone to find long-hidden ancestral drums; Jessica Plummer's hilarious "Flat White," in which the Lady of Shalott acts as Lancelot's barista; Silvia Moreno-Garcia's haunting, understated "A Shadow in Amber," which follows a nameless narrator as she obsesses over Lancelot, whose illegally trafficked memories she pays to experience; and Alexander Chee's "Little Green Men," a Mars-set exploration of reality TV celebrity culture filtered through "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." There isn't a bad story in the bunch, and the anthology offers such a variety of style, theme, and genre that die-hard Arthurian fans and more casual readers will be equally delighted. This is a must-read. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary. (July) Correction: An earlier version of this review misidentified the number of stories contained in the collection.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Arthurian legend is well-trodden subject matter, but the 16 shorts in this collection (divided into sections called "Past," "Present," and "Future") reimagine the legends with new details and diversity (of race, religion, geography, gender, and sexuality). In "The Once and Future Qadi," by Asuma Zehanat Khan, an Islamic judge from the Maghreb travels to Camelot to uncover the truth about the queen's fidelity. A baseball player must decide if he can follow in his famous father's footsteps, using his bat Excalibur, in Alex Segura's "Black Diamond." In Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "A Shadow in Amber," a nameless woman becomes fixated on Lancelot when she purchases his memories. Editors Krishna and Northington have brought together a selection of quietly moving and well-paced stories, spanning the historic past and the distant future. VERDICT A highly creative and enchanting anthology. Will please Arthurian devotees and readers who are new to the legends.--Kristi Chadwick,Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Introduction Swapna Krishna & Jenn Northington It was the summer of 2018, and we were sitting in Swapna's living room. Swapna was pregnant with her first baby, and Jenn was bursting with an idea for an anthology. "Where are the gender-bent Arthur stories?" Jenn asked. "The race-bent retellings, the queered ones?" We couldn't easily find them--and we thought it just might be possible that not only did other people want them but also there were folks out there ready to write them, or who maybe already had. As this collection came together over the past few years (it's hard to believe we've been working on it for so long!), it's been exciting to discover the published stories we missed and to see that we weren't alone--there's been a renaissance of "bent" Arthur retellings that we devoured. Even more elec­trifying for us are the authors who said yes when we asked, then proceeded to write stories that have blown our minds, knocked our socks off, and made our hearts grow too many sizes to count. Each writer puts their own unique spin on a bit of Arthu­rian legend. One of the unexpected joys of editing has been watching the resonances develop among them, especially when none of the writers really knew what anyone else was working on except for barest details (character, general time frame, maybe genre). These stories have cousins and siblings the authors aren't even aware of. ONCE Roshani Chokshi and Sarah MacLean deliver atmospheric stories heavy with longing and bursting with romance, albeit in very different ways, both giving voice to strong women we've fallen in love with. Ausma Zehanat Khan and Nisi Shawl bring the wider world to Camelot in ways that blur its boundaries and elevate the storytelling to something larger and more global. And Daniel Lavery and Sive Doyle make us laugh, make us cry, and give us two queer couples that abso­lutely deserve to be canon. PRESENT Then there's Maria Dahvana Headley, who finds the Arthu­rian overtones of a muckraker in late-nineteenth-century America. Waubgeshig Rice and Alex Segura both incorporate baseball into their reimagined Arthur but in very different ways: in one, a pickup game on a reservation leads to an amaz­ing discovery; in the other, a washed-up minor-league player finds help where he least expects it. Anthony Rapp finds magic in the throes of the AIDS crisis, while S. Zainab Wil­liams explores that intangible search for belonging through a lonely girl in Singapore. Jessica Plummer and Preeti Chhibber both consider how it might look if a legend made itself known in modern life--with very different consequences. FUTURE No Arthurian collection would be complete without a look forward, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia brings us to a near-future Mexico City in a story both eerie and prescient. Ken Liu takes us even farther out, into a universe in which identity shifts from one moment to the next . . . but past mistakes can haunt you forever. A little closer to home is Alexander Chee's story, set on our neighboring planet and contemplating public ver­sus private personas, secrets, and games. This collection has been a privilege and a joy to curate and has shown us just how much room there is to play. We hope that you'll enjoy these stories as much as we do, and that these stories are merely the tip of the iceberg for inclusive Arthu­rian fiction. Everyone deserves to see themselves on the page, and even if you don't find your specific identity within these stories, perhaps you'll see some small part of yourself inside these characters and these old, and yet entirely new, legends. Excerpted from Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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