This was an interesting collection. It made me want to find more of Walton's writing, but it made me want to seek out novels or short stories. The essays and poetry were interesting, but it more an odd rhythm. This was not a book that I read through, but put down and picked up later.

I would normally write a review of a story collection by touching briefly each of the stories, marking out my favorites and least favorites, and then speaking to how the collection as a whole coheres. I find I can't quite do that with Jo Walton's Starlings because I don't have much to say about a number of the many pieces in this collection, and by and large it DOESN'T cohere. But that's actually part of its charm, oddly enough... if you go for that sort of thing.

The title comes from one of Walton's poems, which is printed at the beginning of the book. It employs the double imagery of starlings as birds, but also as newborn stars. Little stars, baby stars... starlings taking flight across space and time. In the introduction, Walton admits to not having been a natural in the short fiction format. She spent years experimenting with the form before feeling like she'd started to get it right, and some of that experimentation is what's on display here. This is a book full of starlings, each with an idea and a cosmic spark, but few of them bright enough to really stand on their own as true stars.

You can see a number of Walton's academic fascinations threading their way through this book, such as theology, myth, and the arts. More of these stories probably fit under the umbrella of science fiction than fantasy. A couple ("The Panda Coin" and "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction") paint sweeping portraits of societies without ever offering a real narrative. Several others are jarringly short, but often clever, single images of scenarios that are over almost as soon as they begin. Some examples: In "Jane Austen to Cassandra," Austen writes a letter to her sister Cassandra, and receives one in reply from the Trojan prophetess, because why not? "Remember the Allosaur" is just the monologue of a Hollywood jerk insisting to a movie star dinosaur that no, he can't play Hamlet because he's a dinosaur. (Ouch.) And "At the Bottom of the Garden" is a brief, disturbing image of children callously dismembering fairies because of course they would. Whether this sort of unpredictable reading experience is enjoyable or not will, I suspect, depend greatly upon the reader.

One of the stories that stood out to me as most complete was "Turnover," a generation ship story about a character who dances a form of ballet called "Ballette" that's meant to be performed in low gravity, and what happens when she comes face-to-face with the idea that the art form she's dedicated her life to will not survive the ship's eventual arrival at its destination. I'd say this was my favorite in the collection. Another that made an impact was "A Burden Shared," a more tragic family story about a near future where loved ones can use a technological invention to undertake each other's physical pain.

Oddly enough though, one of the longest pieces here is a not-so-short play entitled "Three Shouts on a Hill." It's an experimental, mythos-jumbling quest story, and it reads like the enthusiastic work of an amateur playwright out of her medium. I cannot imagine staging it. The play comes after the stories in the sequence of the collection, but precedes the poems (yes, there are poems). I am a genuine fan of Walton's poetry, and I think that the examples on display here are wonderful. I don't know why they were all tacked on the end like an afterthought... I usually find it more successful when poems are interspersed throughout story collections.

I am generally a fan of the eclectic in speculative fiction, and so I enjoyed a lot of the eccentricity on display here. But while I found much of Starlings charming to read, there wasn't much of a take-away for me, and I wouldn't recommend it broadly as a strong single-author collection. I've read many that left more of an impact.

Walton's novels are engrossing. The pieces in this collection, though, aside from a truly interesting dramatic short story in the form of a play, don't really get off the ground. It could simply be, though, that this reader doesn't have a wide enough frame of reference to make these works meaningful (i.e., Walton is too smart for me and would require me to have been much more widely read to get some of what she's saying).

Jo Walton's Starlings is a breath of fresh air. It's like a gentle breeze that carries the fragrance of some sweet flower we already know and love. The flower I have in mind is the style of Oscar Wilde. When I read the "Three Twilight Tales," I could not help recalling the whimsical, cruel reality that inhabits Wilde's fictional world - that world finds its reflection in the short stories of Jo Walton., and I dare say that anyone who enjoys reading the works of the former, will have a satisfactory time diving into this book, too.

The cover cannot be left unmentioned either. It may speak for itself but I think it is necessary to give it a word of heartfelt praise: it's harmonious in colour and design, reflects the content, and it must earn a place on the shelf of any bird-lover bibliophile.

I really wanted to like this collection. I’m a big short story reader. I loved Jo Walton’s The Just City. But ultimately this not a very strong collection of short stories.

In the introduction Jo Walton writes about her difficulty writing short stories and how they don’t come easy to her. This didn’t put me in the greatest confidence about the collection. It’s been a while since I read this collection as I wanted time to think about it. But ultimately I didn’t really like any of the stories.

Walton writes in a very soft, almost fairytale tone. This works agains most of the stories though as it was difficult to really feel connected to them and a lot of the stories just felt like they didn’t go anywhere. I don’t mind stories that aren’t epic in scale, but it’s hard to care about them when the writing makes it difficult to connect with the story and the narrative isn’t compelling.

The second reason I’m not a huge fan of this collection, is because the last third of it is a long play and some poems. The shift in tone from short stories to plays and poems was a bit jarring and didn’t help my disassociation with the collection.

I love the novels by Walton that I’ve read but don’t think I’m going to be reading any more of her short stories or recommend this collection to others.

3.5 stars/5

I don’t read short stories as much as I do novels but occasionally along the way I may pick up one that holds great promise. Starlings gave me mixed feelings.

From a sentient Google to a world where pain can be borne by consenting individuals, to a story of The Wicked Queen’s beginnings told through the eyes of The Mirror, to a time where readers can interact with simulations of dead people; originality is something that’s certainly not lacking in Walton’s Starlings.

You won’t find the twists and satisfying endings that’s usually vital, and expected, for a good short story. But what it lacks in gratification, it almost makes up with its fresh takes on genres saturated with clichés and truly thought-provoking points.

I do want to mention that the author, Jo Walton, herself admitted that short stories are not her forté, I’ll have to agree with her. Though her ingenuity and ability to ask stimulating questions puts her novels on my must-read list!

P.S. It should be 3 stars but I feel like the fresh factor deserves the extra half star.

I'd only read two of Jo Walton's books so far, but absolutely loved them and kept recommending them around me: "Among others" and "Tooth and claw" (the best Jane Austen's fan-fiction ever written!). I actually don't know why I waited so long to read another of her books, probably because some of the themes broached in them aren't some I like to read about... a shame and a wrong decision, probably. I will make an effort soon.

Well. When I discovered this collection from Jo Walton, and had the opportunity to read it offered by Netgalley, I was enthusiast and happy to read it. I was also a little wary, as I'm not known to appreciate easily short stories: it's often difficult for me to immerse myself in a story, and if the effort isn't worth doing, if the story is just meh in the end, I'm rather frustrated. And conversly, if the story is fascinating, I'm also frustrated, because it's to short!

A reader life can be difficult, sometimes...

Before beginning reading these short stories and poetry, I read the introduction by the author, and found it quite fascinating. Among things, she explains her relation with short stories, how she used to consider them much more difficult to write than novels, and also how she had incidentally discovered that some ideas were good basis for short stories, but not for novels. "Starlings" perfectly illustrates how the author manages to use this revelation.

I really loved this book, which I found astonishingly easy and entertaining to read. (I didn't read all the poetry however: English isn't my first langage and I still haven't learned to appreciated poetry in this langage). Of course I preferred some stories, but all were good, or very good. And the very good ones were absolutely fantastic! I loved how the characters were immediately likeable and perfectly characterised. As a lot of the ideas were astonishing and frequently funny (even irreverently so!), I was deliciously entertained while reading them from their very beginning and spend some times after their end thinking about them - which is a sure sign of quality stories!

I thank again Netgalley for giving me this opportunity to read a book that I probably won't have chose spontaneously, even knowing how the author had previously delighted me, because of my mistrust of collection of short stories. I very probably will buy the paper book at the first opportunity to re read it. I warmly recommend it to all passionate readers of science-fi and fantasy.

Honestly, if I had read the introduction before reading this book, I probably wouldn't have requested it. Walton herself admits that she's not much of a short story writer, and that this book is a collection of a few genuine short stories but mostly things that are really first chapters of unwritten books and failed shorts.

I enjoyed "Sleeper" and "Relentlessly Mundane" a lot. They felt both like successful short stories but also first chapters of books I would read. "Turnover" also worked for me, although less so. Similarly, "What Would Sam Spade Do?" was one that I'd classify as more of an interesting than completely successful experiment, but I'm glad I read it. I didn't enjoy any of the others.

Note: I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review.

I know Jo Walton from her fiction first, and her articles on tor.com second. I have read Among Others years ago, and loved it, both for her style of prose, as the deep love of SFF that shines through. When her collection Starlings came up on NetGalley I couldn’t wait to read it.

Walton says herself in the introduction: “So here in one place for your reading convenience are two short stories that I wrote after I knew what I was doing, two I wrote before I knew what I was doing, some exercises, some extended jokes, some first chapters of books I didn’t write, some poems with the line breaks taken out, a play, and some poems with the line breaks left in.” I’m glad she put that in, because some stories did feel a bit unfinished. Good ideas, but not quite done yet. They were still very enjoyable mind you, but also left me wanting more.

Some of my favorite stories were: The Panda Coin, where we follow a coin around a space station, Turnover, about art on a generation-ship, Three Twilight Tales, which is a real fairy tale and A Burden Shared about what if we could take someone else’s pain from them.

If you approach this collection with the knowledge that not all stories are finished and polished up, then this is a lovely collection. It has fairy tales, science fiction and everything in between. It has a lot of poems, a play and short stories (from short short to a bit longer, but no novellas or novelettes). I give it four out of five stars (mainly because I wanted more from some stories and am not one for poetry).

I read this book because I wanted to get away from reading books that are lengthy (200+ or 300+ -paged books sometimes become too lengthy for me) so I opted to read short about short stories and this book was happily sitting on my TBR pile, waiting for me to grab and read it. And read I did.

Starlings by Jo Walton is a collection of short stories and poems where readers will have a chance at encountering aliens, robots, sorcerers, retellings, and other characters. The diversity of genre told in this collection is rich hence, making each story unique in their own way and invites the reader in a new world every time. That said, this book will be sure to stretch your imagination further down the horizon.

I didn't find it much interesting, though, except for a few stories that grabbed my attention. Three Twilight Tales was my favourite out of all the short stories because of how it was able to capture my full attention and drew me in its magic. The ending was satisfying and I couldn't ask for more.

There was also a retelling that I found interesting as well and if you get to read this book, it's called On The Wall. It made me crave for a longer version of the story because I just couldn't get enough of it! It's like Heartless by Marissa Meyer but more about how Snow White's stepmother came to be. It was definitely a good one!

The poems in this book were also unique. However, I didn't find any that I liked or got fascinated with.

Overall, I'm rating this book with two stars. While I enjoyed only a small portion of the book, it was able to pull me away from a bit of a reading slump.

This book is great for readers who hope to have a break from reading chapter books or from a reading slump (like me). The stories aren't heavy (or stressful), has a magical atmosphere to it, and doesn't take much of your time.

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

7/10, rounded down.

Okay, so this was my first Walton, and wasn't really where I thought I'd start. I have plans to pick up The Just City next week, so i'll be trying to fit that into my reading very soon. Any who, as an introduction to Walton's writing, this was...well, I probably wouldn't suggest it. It's such a varied mix of styles and genres, each story a different quality to the last. On the whole, I'm undecided. There were a few stories I really quite enjoyed, and then there were those ones that I was a bit taken a back at their inclusion, more quality wise than content.

Favourites go to a short story about the burden of sharing pain in the future, and the consequences of it on the relationships between family, another short about the exchange of currency in the future and the many ways people live, and then finally the play at the very end. In all honesty, I was skipping through the play when I suddenly decided to read a page (plays aren't my thing), it caught my attention, and I went back to the beginning. As a play, it's not great, but as an enjoyable read it was quite fun. I'm sure someone who gets the historical connotations may have gotten more out of it, but by and large, just a bit of silly fun for me.

There were some stories, as I said, that I was a bit perplexed by their inclusion. Interesting ideas that were given a few pages and then left off. Maybe that's what normally happens with short story collections, I don't know, but it left me feeling like I was missing something. And then there were a few stories that just felt rather rough around the edges. This I expected; Walton notes that the collection is made up of some good and some bad, so at least she's upfront with it.

On the whole, probably wouldn't let people start with this book of Walton's. As a collection of short stories, it's fine, but it's such a mix of different things, I feel like it might turn people off. It took me a lot longer than I would have expected, but I put that down to not being a huge fan of short stories. Overall, I enjoyed the writing style, and how that style could be given to so many different stories. I'm looking forward to see how this applies to a larger work, and how her characterisation plays out.

Jo Walton is an accomplished writer and shows it with this short story collection. Each story was beautifully woven and crafted, managing to complete the entire arc of a story often just in a few hundred words. As with any short story collection, some were better than others, and I often found the flash fiction stories that were only a page or two to be stronger than the longer ones in the collection.

Fans of Walton will no doubt love it, but I'm not sure it serves as a good introduction to her writing as it's often disparate and there's no overall uniting theme besides the author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the copy.

DNF’d at 33%. I didn’t find any of the stories enjoyable or memorable.

It is no secret that I love short stories. They are so hard to write, but are beautiful to read. There is something brilliant about how authors manage to create a whole world, complete characters and stunning story in just a few pages. So when I saw Starlings I wanted to read it straight away. I had heart of Jo Walton before but actually hadn't read anything by her yet. Knowing she writes Science Fiction and then seeing the mention of legends in the below blurb, I had a feeling that I would love Starlings. And guess what, I did! Thanks to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Starlings starts of with an eponymous poem, which immediately became one of my favourite things about this collection of work. Also at the beginning of Starlings is Walton's introduction in which she prepares the reader for what is to come. She explains how the stories that are about to come are partially experimentation, efforts on her side to try something new, to understand how short stories work, or how to write a play. For some perhaps this might lessen their enthusiasm but it actually heightened mine. I love seeing the process, the work, that authors put into creating their work. It's part of why I love Tolkien so much, because you can trace all the work he did over the years to build his work. And in the same vein Jo Walton now shows us her work. Here is a short story that was really a poem. Here is a joke that became a short story. Each story is followed by a few lines from Walton explaining how it came into being, how it started, what happened to it, how she feels about it. In a way reading Starlings made me feel very close to Walton and I admire her bravery in revealing her process to us, showing us the different puzzle pieces and how they came together.

There are too many stories and poems in Starlings to go through all of them so I'm just going to tell you about some of my favourite ones. 'A Burden Shared' is a brilliant look at a future in which you can share your physical pain with others. The story is scary, sad and sweet all at once. 'On the Wall' was a great take on the Magic Mirror in Snow White, 'Three Twilight Tales' a beautiful triple story that constantly surprised me. 'Jane Austen to Cassandra' was not at all what I expected but I loved it. 'Out of It' was another story that took a classic as a jump off point and then ran with it. I really loved those stories in Starlings. Perhaps my utter favourite in Starlings was actually a short play, 'Three Shouts on a Hill', a loving and satirical take on Irish legends, poetry, and mythology itself. I loved how it went a little meta towards the end and I also thought it was just really funny. I would pay to see this, actually... When it comes to the poems my favourite was definitely 'Hades and Persephone' because that's just the kind of person I am. It was also a great poem.

Walton is an award-winning novelist, so she really doesn't need me commenting on her writing style. But I'm going to anyway. I really enjoyed how surprising each story was. By being open in the introduction about the fact she was experimenting with these stories, I went into Starlings not knowing what to expect and being excited about that. Almost every story felt like a thought exercise, especially when you could see Walton had been inspired by something and had decided to take it one step further, to see how far she could push a certain thought or idea. I enjoyed all the different directions that Starlings went to, whether it was into space, into the mind of a computer, heaven, or the future. Also, if something perhaps didn't entirely work, then Jo Walton is the first to admit it and suggest why. For an established author to take risks like these is really interesting and as an aspiring author myself I actually found it really inspiring. I will definitely be rereading Starlings in the future, even if only for the sheer fun of some of her stories.

I adored Starlings and pretty much raced through the different stories! Jo Walton takes risks with her stories and imagery and it really pays off. I loved being surprised by every story, wondering what was going to happen next etc. Whether you've already read her novels or are new to Walton like me, definitely check out Starlings!

Having purchased "Thessaly" through our local book exchange some time ago and having (typically) not found the bravery to pick it up yet (it's a massive compendium), I am familiar with the name Jo Walton without having actually read a single work of hers. "Starlings" provides, I think, the perfect entry point into her voice and way of being in the way that all single-author short story collections do. It is not a perfect book in that it suffers from the usual ailments that such collections suffer: namely, unevenness in quality, content, and voice. In her introduction, Walton herself admits that it is something of a grab-bag of odds and ends ("So here in one place for your reading convenience are two short stories that I wrote after I knew what I was doing, two I wrote before I knew what I was doing, some exercises, some extended jokes, some first chapters of books I didn't write, some poems with the line breaks taken out, and some poems with the line breaks left in.") But that is not to say this is not a worthwhile or enjoyable book; it absolutely is! Here we have poems, some of them quite good indeed (the opening, titular poem, for example). Here we have truly short stories in the briefest of sense. And here we have some longer, more rounded, more alive pieces. The book opens on a great note, with "Three Twilight Tales," an interconnected set of tales full of the misty atmosphere of bygone magics, a structure which is echoed to good effect later in "The Panda Coin," which I loved for many reasons. The conceits behind "Jane Austen to Cassandra" (one of Walton's "extended jokes," I'm sure), "A Burden Shared," and "The Godzilla Sonnets" still have me emotionally fatigued (in the best way). I understand the fun behind "Not a Bio for Wiscon: Jo Walton" but am confused as to how it found its way into this book, a tonally discordant note. I will confess to being moved more easily by Walton's prose than her poetry (or her play, alas) but I emerge from this collection encouraged, and affirmed in my decision to purchase "Thessaly" without knowing the first thing about it. Walton is an author with range, and talent. I will be reversing time and reading her past works in the future with pleasure.

I wanted to love this one.
Nice collection of uniquely themed short stories-gods, mythology, and even poetry; however, I just felt that these short stories, were, well too short and scattered to even have them make much sense. I read that some of these were first chapters to novels, and it is evident. Still giving it a solid three stars, as some stories were brilliant and wonderful.
I would like to thank Jo Walton and Tachyon Publications for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was overall a pretty fun short story collection which I picked up because Jo Walton was recently the guest of honor at a writing convention I attended a month ago, LTUE in Provo, UT. I enjoyed hearing her speak at a few panels, so when I came across this book on NetGalley, I definitely decided to pick it up.
I'm not big on the short story form, but to be fair, the introduction indicated that Walton isn't the biggest writer of them. They weren't perfect-- some didn't really keep my interest-- but one story really stood out to me, "What Would Sam Spade Do?" That was a fascinating premise for a story that really worked for me.
Overall I think I preferred most of Walton's poetry that Starlings also collected. The best poem, in my opinion, was definitely the delightful and humorous "The Godzilla Sonnets," but I dug almost all of them. I'd definitely be interested in picking up an all-poetry collection.

A strange Eritrean coin travels from lovers to thieves, gathering stories before meeting its match. Google becomes sentient and proceeds toward an existential crisis. An idealistic dancer on a generation ship makes an impassioned plea for creativity and survival. Three Irish siblings embark on an unlikely quest, stealing enchanted items via bad poetry, trickery, and an assist from the Queen of Cats. With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and wholly reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic—rising from the everyday into the universe itself. 



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Starlings
Jo Walton

I'm going to start this review with a little disclaimer. I don't really like short stories. I enjoy large worlds with depth and descriptions and large plot lines. So I don't get on with short stories often because they lack the immersion you get with full length novels. That's not to say I hate short stories, and I do occasionally (like this one) pick up a set to read in between novels as they're much faster to read, and it helps bring me out of the novel's world.

Jo Walton has created some beautifully magical stories and quite a few of them made me want more. I would say this is both a good and a bad thing. Good, because the story is so well written that I wanted it to be expanded on, but bad because sometimes these stories needed to be expanded on. I don't know if I'm making much sense? But there's always a slight disappointment at the end of a book that isn't finished enough and this is how I felt about the stories I did like. 

There were also some stories that just didn't catch my attention at all. The quality of the stories was mixed throughout, some could be a strong 4 stars but others are dipping into 2 star territory. This is an obvious outcome for any collection of short stories, so not a surprise for me. But similar to wanting the expansion of the stories, it would have been nice to have a common theme which makes the stories more similar than what they were as then they would automatically be more interesting (for me anyway!). 

I still have not read all of the stories, some of them I skipped after a couple of pages and just didn't want to read. Some I just haven't gotten to as I'm reading them between novels. And some I probably won't read as I've already seen other peoples thoughts on them, and the titles don't intrigue me enough. 

POSITIVES
+ Kept me wanting more

+ Magic

NEGATIVES
– Mix of quality

I received Starlings by Jo Walton from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an unbiased and honest review

This was a delicious read. Well, the parts of it that I understood. I didn't much get the poetry, but I loved the short stories, my favourite being Three Shouts on a Hill. I specifically enjoyed the way Walton developed her characters in the stories. A very enjoyable read and a good introduction to the works of Walton.

This was honestly a pleasure to read. I've had Jo Walton books on my tbr for a while because I always read their summaries and think "that's so cool!", and after this collection I'm super excited to actually dive into them. Each of these stories had a unique and interesting premise, and was executed superbly. I'm often left with a feeling of "that was too little" or "that was too much" after short stories, but these were just right. The poetry was also an interesting addition, and went well with the atmosphere of the short fiction.