Battling in All Her Finery: Historical Accounts of Otherworldly Women Leaders edited by Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman

So when a dude with a love of strong female leads (that's me) gets a chance to review a book named Battling in All Her Finery: Historical Accounts of Otherworldly Women Leaders he takes it. I mean, why not right? If it's what I love and someone is going to give it to me, why wouldn't I take it? I'd have to be stupid to turn down a chance like that. I'm glad I took the chance too, because I really enjoyed this anthology.

I'll get into the individual stories in a minute but I just wanted to include a note about how many different types of leaders there are here. I'm the guy with the history degree and an interest in both military and political history, so when I saw the word "Battling" I immediately thought politicians and warriors. They're the people who fight battles right? I mean, I wasn't wrong but I seem to have left some other types of leadership out of my original thought process. My bad. A lot of these are military type stories, but not all.

Oh, and if you haven't read anything from the Mad Scientist Journal and/or Defcon One Publishing you need to check out them out. Pretty much all of their stories are told in the first person perspective and there are two biographical blurbs at the end of each story about the main character and the author that wrote the piece. I really enjoyed that feature.  

Having said all of that, this is an anthology review. And following my usual pattern for anthology reviews, here are my thoughts on each individual story:

"The Dissolution of the Niamh" by Alicia A. Knaff is a story about a group of women trying to escape from a ship. It's a good one. The only problem I find with this is that it reads like a series of excerpts from a novel instead of a true short story. The solution to the problem is obvious: Somebody throw money at Ms. Knaff until she agrees to write the novel that would tell the whole story. The quality of the writing here is better than some novels I've read and we could get a chance to see what's missing. It might never happen, but if it does, I'm in.

"Curiassiere" by Blake Jessop is an alternate history piece. As such, I'm supposed to hate it because I have a history degree and it might fool some people into believing incorrect things about the history of the Napoleonic Wars. In reality, I loved this story. A woman fights for her country and rises through the ranks by earning the respect of those around her. I was impressed by the character and the story. Blake Jessop is an author worth keeping an eye on.

"Self Selection" by Mathew Murakami is the story of a serving girl who rises above her station to become a warrior and serve with a princess. There is a lot here for such a short story. It's the story of both girls maturing into women. The battles themselves are never detailed. They don't need to be.

"Chasing the Wombship Echidna" by L. Chan was kind of a weird experience. I originally found myself bemused by the concept of a "wombship" and not at all convinced that this would be a good story. Oops. This is a story of survival and escape. It is an action packed tale of fighting and winning at all costs. It's the best story in the whole anthology. I should know better than to judge a story by its title. This story isn't really long enough to make a movie out of it and that's too bad because I bet it would be a special effects extravaganza and a lot of fun to watch.

"Swing That Axe" by Nathan Crowder is a story about a band in search of their missing leader. The method they use to find her will surprise you. It's crazy because I can almost hear the music in my head and it hasn't actually even been written. I'm going to call this one an Urban Fantasy out of lack of a better fit, but I love Urban Fantasy. It's a good time.

"The End of the World" by Matt Moran is the story of facing off an army of intelligent undead. It is a tale of a forlorn hope and a battle lost. It's still a strong story. It could stand to be a bit longer, I think, but that's a good thing. A good author always leaves his audience wanting more.

"Iron Out of Vulcan" by G. Scott Huggins is an alien invasion story with a twist. I don't want to give too much away, but just know that the secret to fighting the aliens isn't what you think it is. Our heroes are a highly unlikely lot but they do what they need to. I really enjoyed this.

"The Dishonorable God" by Priya Sridhar is the story of a young girl forced to rule in a male dominated world after the death of her father and brothers. This is another one that needs to be longer. I mean, I really enjoyed the story but there is a novel to be written her, as she fends off challenges and raises her little brother. Regent-Queen Rajani is the kind of woman I'd like my daughters to be someday. She literally faces down a god. That's guts right there.

"Cassiopeia, Queen of Ethiopia" by Aimee Kuzenski is a stunner. About all I can say without spoiling the story is that it takes place in the ancient world and involves an invasion. It didn't go the way I thought it would, that's for sure. I enjoyed it though.

"The Weeping Bolo" by D. A. Xiaolin Spires is not set in the Bolo Universe created by Keith Laumer. It doesn't need to be. Not only is this story action packed but the main character has a unique method of solving problems that is absolutely unexpected and awesome. Although really, how can you go wrong with a sword that weeps blood? Does it get any cooler?

"Caro Cho and the Empire of Light" by Lin Darrow is a story of technology and subterfuge. This is one of the stories I talked about in my introduction. Our female leader here is a corporate mogul and not a kick ass military type. Her weapons are illusion and deceit. It's not a spy story per se, but it kind of works like one. This was a fun one.

"Why are we standing on the broken wall, clutching swords too rusty to take an edge" [sic] by Tais Teng is a war story but not. It tells of building an army and conquering territory but never gives the specifics of the battles. It held my attention though and I really did enjoy it.

"Dropping Rocks" by Jennifer R. Povey is a story about a war between humans as told by an alien. Something I always enjoyed about Star Trek is the way that Gene Roddenberry and his writers liked to include an alien point of view to make commentary on the human condition. Povey does that here and does it well. Her bio notes that she's working on an urban fantasy series. I'll be looking for it.

"Paladin" by Shirley Vogel is a story about uhh... well, I don't want to spoil it. Let's just say that it satisfies my sense of justice and I'll let it go there. I liked it.

"Unbroken" by Elisa Bonnin is the story of growth from an injured youth into a leader of explorers. It is also the story of a girl and a boy and some complications. It deals with both responsibility and the mental consequences of combat, but in a fantasy setting. There is a lot here in a little space. Oh, and our heroine Eshai is a bit of a badass. That's a good thing.

"Aquarius Ascendant" by Christine Lucas is the story of the search for humanity. We have left the planet and abandoned all of the mythological creatures there. When the rules are broken...

Yeah, read it. It was good.

"There is Only the War" by AJ Fitzwater is a story of reunion, ambition and disappointment, with more than just a bit of disillusionment. I like this one.

"Adelita" by Frances Sharp is a story about a war. It is also a story about responsibility and the cost of power. It is a story about refusing to fail. This is a really good story.

"Pop Magic" by Patrick Hurley is an Urban Fantasy about a messenger and is flat out full of awesome. I love the way magic works in this world. I love the fights there.  I love the ending.

"Breath and Roses" by Leora Spitzer is a SF story with a socialist bent. I can't really evaluate this one because of political differences. Let's just say that I don't doubt that corporations could act the way they do in the story. I just find her belief that a socialist government wouldn't act the same way for different reasons to be a bit naive.

"The Leximancer's Rebellion" by Jennifer Lee Rossman is awesome and needs to be a series instead of a short. The main character is a badass. The fight is important. I find myself trying to decide if this is an Epic Fantasy in an urban setting or an Urban Fantasy with epic overtones. Either way it kicks ass and the magic system here needs a bigger exploration.

All in all, this was a really good anthology. I had fun with twenty out of twenty-one stories (assuming that I counted that right) and the one I didn't like wasn't really poorly written, it was just too far out of alignment with my politics to work for me personally. Seriously. This one is worth both your time and your money.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Battling in All Her Finery: Historical Accounts of Otherworldly Women Leaders
Edited by Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman
Defcon One Publishing, 2018

Battling in All Her Finery: Historical Accounts of Otherworldly Women Leaders is available at the following link:

Selecting our Stories - A Guest Post by Dawn Vogel

(Many thanks to Dawn Vogel for the following piece. The anthology mentioned, Battling in All Her Finery, is quite enjoyable and will be reviewed here in the next day or two. This is kind of cool because I received my first ever rejection letter from the Mad Scientist Journal. It was richly deserved.)

We're putting out our anthology of stories, Battling in All Her Finery, and wanted to offer a look behind the scenes. Choosing the stories for an anthology is a big chunk of the work, but not everyone knows how that process happens.

For this anthology, we were looking for stories about women leaders. We opted for a broad definition of "leader," which included not only generals and royalty, but also CEOs, musicians, and more. The end result is an anthology of 21 fantasy, science fiction, alternate history, and other speculative fiction stories of women leaders.

We held an open call for submissions for this anthology and received more than a hundred stories to choose amongst. Submitting authors were from all over the world, including some from non-English speaking countries, and representing diverse races, gender presentations, and sexualities. We received a wide range of story lengths, from very short pieces to longer stories. We had a budgeted word count based on the success of the Kickstarter that funded this anthology, so we looked at story themes, types of leaders, and word count when making our decisions.

For the themes of the stories, we wanted a nice mix of stories with happy endings, bittersweet endings, and even some with more melancholy endings. While we probably tended toward more of the first two of those, that wasn't always the case. Some of our personal favorite stories to emerge from the slush pile were the more bittersweet endings—those that ended on a positive note, but with some sacrifice made by the woman leader in order to reach that ending.

Because we wanted to have a broad range of leaders, this sometimes meant comparing two stories with similar types of leaders to see which one overlapped less with a story that we'd already decided on. It also meant focusing on those stories that didn't have a traditional leader—we received plenty of queens/princesses and generals/other military leaders, so the stories that featured non-military and non-nobility/royalty often provided us with a unique type of leader that couldn't be replicated by another story.

For the word count, we accepted stories between 500 and 8,000 words, which gave authors a wide range to play around with. In past anthologies, we've sometimes selected flash fiction pieces, but for this anthology, our shortest story selected wound up clocking in at 2,000 words, while our longest was right at 8,000 words.

In addition to the other factors in our selection process, we also wanted to create an all-ages anthology, which we wouldn't feel weird about handing to our young nieces, nephews, and other children and teenagers in our lives. While some of the stories still touch on darker themes and subjects, we tried to keep the general "rating," as it were, to a PG-13 at worst. Most of the stories would be easily classified as PG.

It can be a very delicate balancing act to get the right mix of stories for an anthology, but by looking at these factors, we think we managed to put together a collection of stories that readers will enjoy, while still embodying the themes of our anthology, the focus on women leaders, and within the budget we had.