A major mea culpa needs to proceed this review. I read The Hole in the Moon and Other Stories genuine years ago and somehow my thoughts never moved from my head onto the (web)page. For that I apologise. This mess-up, however, did give me the perfect excuse to once again luxuriate in St. Clair's writing, however. Thanks to Dover Publications and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This edition of Margaret St. Clair's stories hopes to return her to her rightful place in the pantheon of SciFi authors, or so the introduction by Ramsey Campbell argues. While I often tend to save the introductions for last, not wanting to be spoiled for the stories themselves, I took my time with it this time. Campbell discusses the way in which St. Clair's writing got dismissed during her own time as "cozy" horror or SciFi, not comparable to the "grand masters" like Asimov etc. Campbell, however, argues for the complexity of St. Clair's work and I think the variety of stories collected here does attest to that. We get Science Fiction elements, Fantasy themes, Horror scenes, Ecocritical arguments, and much, much more. Alongside that there is an almost irrepressible humour in most of these stories which means I snorted out loud on the bus at least once.

'Rocket to Limbo', the first story, is a perfect example of that, as it discusses a married couple who might just be willing to use space travel to solve their marital issues. One of my favourite stories is 'The Hierophants', in which a junk salvage mission on a remote asteroid turns into a Lovecraftian but beautifully lyrical religious experience with a tragic end. I genuinely sat with the resolution for a bit, wondering how I'd feel and what I'd do, utterly captivated by St. Clair's descriptions. 'The Gardener' is another favourite, from its anti-cop start to its ecocritical message. Also some solid horror material in this one. 'Hathor's Pets' had me laughing even though I don't know if that's the intend. Imagine a man, his mother, and his sister and her husband trapped in some alternate dimension with enormous, maybe divine, mystical beings, desperate to return home. Thinking they're seen as pets they figure that misbehaving will see them "rehoused" back home. The ending really came out of nowhere. Si many others, like 'The Causes' and 'The Island of the Hands', are brilliant and their imagery will stay with me for a while. The final story in the collection, 'The Sorrows of Witches', is the most Fantasy-influenced of all the tales, and tells of the tragic love life of a necromantic queen.

In her memoir, as Campbell tells us, St. Clair said she wanted to write about people in the future who were just as clueless about their technology as we are now. And when I read that I was immediately on board. I could technically tell you what a phone does, i.e. what its uses are, but if you'd ask me how it works, how the wifi moves (?) between routers and phones, or even something like how the electricity gets into the wall for the socket to work, I'd be kinda lost. I doubt people in the future will fully understand their bionic organs or limbs, just like I don't really know what's in a paracetamol but trust it to work. So throughout St. Clair's stories we get characters who simply live in their world(s) but do not necessarily have an overarching view of how everything works or why certain things might be weird, like in 'Rocket to Limbo'. What elevates this for me is the writing, which is consistently strong and surprising. There is an ease to the prose which belies the difficulty of writing that way. It's hard to make complex things simple, as I keep experiencing in my own writing. On top of that, the imagery and pathos in each story is stunning. As I wrote above, I first read these stories years ago, and when I reread them now I had the vaguest of memories of them. I had small glimpses of moments that had stuck with me all this time, and rediscovering how they connected was a great experience. I'm definitely on the look out for more of Margaret St. Clair's writing!

The Hole in the Moon and Other Stories is a delightful collection of tales that range from Science Fiction to Fantasy to Horror to Thriller. Margaret St. Clair's writing is accessible and beautiful, always good for a laugh, and often sneakily terrifying. I'd wholeheartedly recommend this collection!

I was introduced to the work of Margaret St. Clair decades ago through her novels, The Dolphins of Altair and The Dancers of Noyo. I still have those old Ace editions. Now Dover has gathered together her short fiction, which belongs on every SF collector’s shelf. The stories show the scope (and weirdness) of her imagination. Her stories are often uneasy, dark and Twilight-Zone-ish, but always fiercely intelligent. She trusts her readers to perceive what is going on without explaining or spoon-feeding.

In researching her biography, I learned a couple of fascinating things about St. Clair – that she was a lifelong supporter of American Friends Service Committee, and that she lived at Friends House in Santa Rosa in the last years of her life. So it did not surprise me to learn she was indeed a birthright Friend (Quaker), although she became interested in Wicca later in life after researching a novel. She wrote:

“Those who have lived through the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Coventry, Dresden, may be excused for forgetting that love, kindness, compassion, nobility, exist. Yet in man’s animal nature lie not only the roots of his cruelty, viciousness, sadism, but also of his perfectly real goodness and nobility. The potential is always there.”
-- Quoted in Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

The first couple of stories were fine, in a sort of minor episode of The Twilight Zone way, but not the sort of thing which explained why St Clair should be in need of reintroduction. Should I have been warned by that Ramsey Campbell introduction? I've never entirely got him either. But then I realised the collection was in chronological order, which has an obvious sense and neatness to it, but will often mean frontloading the apprentice efforts. And the third piece, starting in much the same mode, sunk into a whole other level, seductive and ornate, as alluring visions transfix the unwary human visitors to an asteroid – a little Clark Ashton Smith, but perhaps even more in thrall to the Decadents. After that comes 'The Gardener', which recalls a particular major episode of The Twilight Zone, given extra moral force by a dash of MR James and a lot of head-shaking at the follies of colonialism. True, the ending would have been more chilling for being more implicit, but it's haunting all the same. Another tale anticipates several of Philip K Dick's hits, years before he was doing that kind of stuff himself; the title story has a proto-Tiptree gender savagery; Stawdust recalls Jerome Bixby's It's A Good Life, but with the perspective flipped to make for a whole different flavour of chilling. The last and latest stories from a long life are outright fantasy, one in a vaguely Larry Niven vein, the other suggesting Smith again, but from a very different angle. By the end, I was in no doubt that St Clair was a significant talent. Just maybe don't start with those first two stories.

(Netgalley ARC)

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

While I read some of Ms. St. Clair's work back in the 70s, this short story collection really showcased her talent at writing science fiction/horror. Her work is subtle, not in your face - the horror in some of the stories creeps up on you, leaving an unsettled feeling. Like any collection, some stories stand out more than others, but there's not one in this book that isn't worth reading.

I was particularly taken by "The Gardener" - its ecological theme is perhaps even more relevant today than when it was written. "The Island of the Hands" was also particularly striking, with its theme of "what happens when you get what you wish for." "Rocket to Limbo" is a fun little reversal of "The Gift of the Magi" - you can see what's coming, but it's fun to watch it play out.

One of the things that struck me about these stories is how they rarely feel dated - there is one, "Hathor's Pets," written in 1950, in which women in the 80s were put back into subordinate positions, but it's easy enough to mentally fit this into context. For the most part, there's nothing about these stories, except minor physical details, that makes you think "how aged and quaint" - I enjoyed them very much on their own merits.

Good stories, by an awfully good writer, who has been somewhat overlooked. I'm glad this anthology of her stories has been published, so her stories can be rediscovered.

I've always enjoyed Dover Books and their low-cost reprints of interesting by hard-to-find titles from the past. This falls right into that category, being a collection of science fiction stories by a lesser-known (today, anyway) author. Good selection and a couple titles near the end are her newer material as a bonus.

One of the better short story collections. Great mix of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. I've actually read one of them in another collection. It's not often that you read a book of short stories and not get bored with a few. Magic Margaret was ahead of her time and a wonderful author.

Thank you Netgalley for the Arc

This is an excellent set of stories. It seems like a "best of" collection even though it's not described that way. Highly recommended for sci-fi fans.

I really appreciate the copy for review!!

I hadn't heard of the author before this book but I love short stories so I wanted to give it a try and I'm glad I did. Some stories I really liked, some were just ok, but overall I enjoyed the book. (Although, I'm not going to lie, I only skimmed the intro because I just wanted to get to the stories.) I also felt like some of these would have been perfect for a graphic novel.

I would like to thank the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this book for an honest review through Netgalley.

I love these stories of the fantastic by Margaret St. Clair and wish they'd been more widely available sooner. Her writing is sharp and concise, and her stories are excellent forays into SFF, including the more human elements of the genre. The collection is marred only by a terrible and stiff introduction by Ramsey Campbell, who seems intent on telling readers that "male writers did it first" in regard to everything St. Clair wrote. So skip the intro and jump right into the stories.

This is my first experience reading Margaret St. Clair. As a follower of science fiction, I was glad I had the chance to check this book out. The stories are relatively short and many have appeared in publications I know.

St. Clair sets about to build worlds in short written spaces, and she does so with detail and interest. I’m recommending this collection to others that enjoy science fiction and fantasy, and I’m going to read this a second time.