Book Review: Word Puppets, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Short story collections don’t get as much attention as they used to. Most writers these days make their names for their novels as few venues for short fiction survive the post-magazine era. Having just read Mary Robinette Kowal’s anthology “Word Puppets”, I realize we may be losing something meaningful in the process.

I first became aware of Mary (It’s hard to call her by her full name, partly because it’s so long, and partly because she’s been a long-time member of the Writing Excuses podcast team, where they always refer to her as Mary. Plus I’ve met her and conversed with her on several occasions) as a guest on, and later host of, Writing Excuses and found her take on things fascinating. I read her debut novel “Shades of Milk and Honey” and became an alpha reader on “Valor and Vanity”, a later book in the same series.

Last year she was one of the Guests of Honor at LTUE and I had the opportunity to meet her in person and introduce my daughter and her friends. She was quite gracious. So when I saw her anthology of short stories a few months back I had to pick it up and see how she does with short fiction.

I love her short fiction.

I also liked how her stories were presented chronologically. For an aspiring writer like myself it’s fun to see that even the pros weren’t always as good as they are now. Some of her earliest stories, while not by any measure “bad”, were simply not as strong as her later ones. Some were simply entertaining. But many of her stories resonated with me in various ways that were like brief bursts of flavor, like a piece of rich chocolate or a bite of juicy orange. They weren’t the full meals that novels are, certainly, but they were delicious snacks–and many rose above “mere snackitude” to achieve “experience” status.

I also feel like I learned a few things along the way, such as wine-making from “Waiting for Rain” or epicureanism from “The White Phoenix Feather”, and even some puppetry in “Body Language”. She explores themes of aging and of relationships. She plays with alternate histories. She reimagines fairy tales and Sherlock Holmes. She plays with your mind while exploring the problems of cloning. She explores the whimsy of playroom toys conspiring against one another. Some stories are suspenseful and action-packed. Others are slow and poignant. Some are brief and whimsical. She covers a lot of ground and a wide range.

It was much more fun than I expected. I read another anthology late last year, but found this a much more enjoyable experience. This was something akin to reading Ray Bradbury’s short story collections. She’s no Ray Bradbury, but only Bradbury wrote like Bradbury. I enjoy her style, her perspective, and the variety of subject matter she addresses. I even enjoy reliving the joy of punch cards, and if she continues to write more stories in that universe (I count three so far) we may have to coin the term “keypunch-punk” for it. (I hope she does write more, mind you, and not just for the morbidly satisfying idea of someone crashing an asteroid into Washington DC early in the Cold War.)

Mary makes a strong case for the continued life of the short story genre. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but I’m glad I took the trip.