**I was provided an electronic ARC through the publisher via NetGalley.**

Actual rating: 2.5

Editors Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz present The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie, an anthology comprised of speculative short fiction and poetry inspired by the life and work of Marie Curie. Genres range from historical fantasy to more paranormal or scifi with tinges of horror.

I have always considered anthologies to be, by nature, a mixed bag. I would say that is true of this anthology more than others. Even authors whose other work I have enjoyed, I found to be just fine or not to my taste in this collection. The one standout of this collection, for me, was Jonathan Maberry's The Night Flyers, which was my sole 4 star of the included works.

As a scientist by education and experience, it was interesting to see the authors various takes incorporating a historical and scientific lens to speculative fiction. For me, however. I simply wasn't a fan of the execution and did not find the works memorable. I am not entirely sure what my expectation was, but I, nevertheless, find myself disappointed.

I have long enjoyed historical-inspired fiction (Lady Janies series, Iron Widow, Solomon's Crown, Dead Djinn Universe, Winternight Trilogy, etc.), but I think the shortness of the pieces actually worked against them due to lack of time to absorb and become invested in the changes.

While this one was not for me, I would still recommend this book to interested parties.

This is my second book in a row made of short stories. I think the idea is probably good for some, but I seem to struggle with the style. It seems like I have a hard time fully immersing myself in the stories when they end so quickly. Furthermore, it was a little too YA for me. I did love the background information at the beginning. I think it helped with understanding the stories better. I do recognize the issues I had with this book are stylistic in nature, so other people will definitely love it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC!

This was very different than waht I was initially expecting. I was intrigued about the concept of short stories surrounding Marie Curie. I just felt that it would have been better had there been a little more concistency between the stories. If anything, with the spelling of Marie's name. I understand it did change some of the stories having the original spelling compared to the French, but the whiplash between stories made it hard to fully immerse myself in the them and enjoy them. I appreciate the mix of science and imagination coming together to span multiple genres, but as a collection, they fell flat with no flow to the stories.
I think I just went in wanting too much to come out of this book for what it was. I hope it's what intended audience needs while reading. I hope it's able to spark a love for science in a younger generation. It just wasn't there for me.

Thanks to NetFalley for this ARC.

I appreciated the concept behind this a lot! I would love to see lots of STEM-centred stories aimed at/about women and I liked that this is what this anthology is trying to do. I enjoyed the introduction that explained the anthology and provided background about Marie Curie's life.

Unfortunately I think I just wasn't the target audience for this anthology, as it definitely tended towards the younger side of YA in my opinion. I found the stories entertaining enough, but just okay. None of them really stuck with me. I liked the blending of science and magic that a lot of them had, but I feel like maybe it would have made more sense being about scientists *like* Marie Curie as children in general, rather than all being specifically about her. I'm not sure that having them all be about the same figure actually added much as they are all separate and mutually exclusive stories, and didn't have all that much to do with her later discoveries.

While this one wasn't for me, I'd definitely recommend it for young teens interested in science, sci-fi and fantasy.

I liked this concept a lot. I mean, what could possibly be better than reading stories (fictional with some basis in fact) about the growing up of a famous scientist? I tried a few of the stories, hoping something would catch my mind and set me on a firestorm of reading, but it just didn't take. I would say that any lay reader of Marie Curie is going to probably be lost in the details with these stories.

Having said that, a true fan of her work and life will probably really enjoy this. Like I said, the concept is really cool. But I think the story is probably for a specific subset of readers.

"Luckily for humanity, scientist Marie Curie applied her brilliant mind and indomitable spirit to expanding the frontiers of science, but what if she had instead drifted toward the darkness?

At the cusp of between child- and adulthood, at the crossroads between science and superstition, a teen Marie Curie faces the factual and the fantastic in this fabulous collection of stories that inspire, delight, and ask the question: What if she had used her talents for diabolical purposes?

The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie includes twenty short stories and poems by award-winning writers including New York Times bestselling authors Seanan McGuire, Scott Sigler, Jane Yolen, Alethea Kontis, and Jonathan Maberry, among others."

More Seanan McGuire folks!

I was really excited when I saw this anthology, especially because it has pieces from some really great authors. They stories were well written and I loved the background info in the beginning as I didn’t know much about Marie Curie’s background. I think maybe the prompt for this collection may have been a little too narrow because as I got about halfway it started to feel like the stories were the same (and they weren’t, they were creative takes for sure),. The postscripts after stories to highlight some science were ok, but they would been bette if they didn’t feel the need to say things like Marie Curie did not actually raise an animal zombie army because really that seemed obvious to me when I read the story. I am really glad to see so much creativity and focus on a woman scientist, it feels very timely right now. Good collection for sure.

Interesting take on Marie Curie as a child and teen. All stories range from fantasy to dark Sci fi, with some darker than others. I used this as a cleanser between other books, but at times they were somewhat repetitious of each other. Personally if I read this one after another they would tend to blend into each other, so one or two at a time makes it more enjoyable..

An anthology of short stories that imagine dark and bizarre events in the life of a teenage Marie Curie.

When I read the premise for this anthology, I was really excited to read it. I've been interested in Marie Curie, her work and her life, since I was a child and the idea of inserting her into weird and spooky scenarios appealed to my little horror-loving heart.

I enjoyed most of the tales included in the collection, to varying degrees. As is the way of anthologies, some stories were better than others but overall I felt the stories leaned more towards 'good' than 'great'.

I found that reading multiple tales in one sitting didn't work well for me. Due to Marie, and often her family, being the main character in each tale, I found it hard to separate the individual stories from each other which caused the differences between them to feel like inconsistencies. Once I started to read just one story at a time, this feeling of inconsistency went away.

Overall, this is an enjoyable anthology with a unique and interesting theme.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the editors for giving me a free digital copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review.

This collection has a nice variety of stories and styles and authors. I didn't love all of the stories, but that's common with an anthology like this. The stories by Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, and Jane Yolen were my favorites. Overall, a great set of stories and I enjoyed the book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

There's something for everyone in this anthology. Fans of Marie Curie will love seeing magical takes on pivotal events in her life and those who only know of her may learn something.

As with all anthologies, some stories will stand out for you more than others. Still, a solid collection.

Book about Marie curie's life and how she could have seen certain events in her life through short, fanatasy filled stories.
Personally there was a point where I got bored, it became repetitive and I was happy to finish it.

This book is a really neat take! However, I do not think it is really for me. I would definitely recommend for someone who likes darker stories!

The compilation of short stories span a range from fantasy to science fiction to horror. All of the stories center around Marya (aka Marie Curie) primarily as a young adolescent before she furthered her education in France. I appreciated the forward, which provided a short biography which included details of her early life that are normally not mentioned when writing about her many accomplishments. I also thought that it was an especially nice addition at the conclusion of each story to describe the scientific basis or a potential hypothesis for some of what transpired for many of these stories. Most of the stories in this compilation are written by masters of their craft but all of the stories included were excellent. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly as it captures the interest of a reader on many levels.

I loved all the different stories about Marie Curie. There are not many stories about women in science and she is a major person from the profession. I am not a big fan of the poetry but that is just me. I enjoyed all the short stories that make up this book I highly recommend it.

As is often the case with a collection of short stories, some of them are bangers and others are good, while still others are most likely fine, but just not for me. I really appreciate that this book exists. My favorite part of this collection was the editor’s notes when the science used by the authors was so speculative, that they chimed in to explain things. That was fun. Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC. I think there are a lot of 12 and 13 year olds who are going to love this.

I have to say I was really looking forward to this one and was left disappointed. None of the stories are bad. They're all written well-enough - though some of quite boring and the poetry by Jane Yolen (who I normally quite like and was really looking forward to most) felt dialed-in - but are mostly quite repetitive.

The repetitiveness, or my thought of it, actually became a question when I came to the short story 'The Magic of Science' by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G.P. Charles, which read a bit like a Sherlock Holmes story. I love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' stories, and those follow the same beats like the stories in this collection, but I don't think of them as repetitive, so why do I feel that way about these? I honestly can't say, except that halfway through I was so bored of what I was reading that I had to push through to the end.

A few stood out at times, like the one mentioned above, along with 'Fight or Flight' by Jo Whittemore (gruesome), and 'Retribution' by Christine Taylor-Butler (some interesting sci-fi), but for most I was just glad to finish them.

I will also say that after a while it started to feel kind of weird reading what is essentially fan fiction of Marie Curie as a teenage genius, particularly given all she went through in her life. I'm glad there's a brief biography of her at the start of the collection, but that may also be what contributed to that weird feeling.

Overall, not terrible, just... weird and kind of boring?

This is a collection of 16 short fantasy stories and four poems, many by best selling authors like Jane Yolan, Mylo Carbia and Jonathan Maberry. An introduction with facts about twice Nobel prize winner Marie Curie provides useful information and context, especially about the pioneering scientist's early life in Russian-occupied Poland. There is also a resource list in the back as to further books about Curie, and books and websites about girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

There is a similar plot to the majority of stories: the young Marie, usually 14 or 15 years old, is a brilliant student whose drams of further study--or even a decent school laboratory, are restricted by reactionary views of what girls can do. She uncovers (or in some cases invents) a supernatural threat to her family or to her fellow Poles, who are suffering under Russian oppression. She uses science to overcome the threat. The stories (and free verse poetry by Jane Yolan) are all well-written and often include interesting snippets of Polish folklore (such as Susanne Lambdin's The Cold White Ones) and history. Anyone who likes a little horror, and their stories on the dark side will enjoy this anthology, despite the contrived feeling of most of the stories. Jonathan Maberry's The Night Flyers really stands out for its excellent plot and sense of suspense.

This is a timely anthology, given the attacks on both science and women's rights (including, as Afghanistan's Taliban show, the attack on education for girls). The world pandemic means many people, including young adults, are grappling with illness, disrupted educations, and the deaths of loved ones. Marie Curie was deeply affected by the early deaths of her mother and of her sister Zofia, which forms a strong part in many of these short stories. All in all, this anthology succeeds in entertaining and at the same time encouraging girls' empowerment.

I live historical fictions.
And this one is s great collection of interpretations and fictional stories about the great mind that was Madam Currie.

I personally loved the poems
I would definitely recommend this for a quick read as there are some really short stories with huge impact

The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie is a collection of imaginative short stories that hypothesize what Curies life may have been as a teen. It’s clever, humorous, and illustrative. Each story has a bit of a dark twist and keeps you on your toes! I was expecting something a bit different, and found the “drive” Curie had to conduct her experiments a bit off. Otherwise, It’s perfect for anyone who has an interest in science or Curie.