Ok this was “a romp”! It’s always extra fun to read big names in SF—names like Nalo Hopkinson, Amal El-Mohtar, Premee Mohammed, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, and more. This multi-author anthology opens with a review of the year that was in Canadian publishing and SFF: *The Year in Review 2023* (the big story being the rise of generative “AI”). If you usually skip intros, don’t skip this one.

There are many really good stories (and poems) in this collection. Like Amal El-Mohtar’s *John Hollowback and the Witch*, an absorbing fairytale with a touch of horror (so, basically, Brothers Grimm); and so is the also excellent *The Lover* by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. *The Girl Who Cried Diamonds* by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia is about exploitation; I thought it was particularly clever/apt to use mineral extraction from a girl’s body to tell the story. I loved Derek Künsen’s super imaginative *Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel* because of the “trantus worm” which is “a behavior-altering parasite that infects many intelligent species of the galaxy” and enables time travel (kind of)—reminiscent of Star Trek Discovery’s Stamets plotline (so now I must make time to watch it again).

The *Manic Pixie Girl* in A. C. Wise’s story is probably not one you want to get tangled up with. *The Distance Between Us* is an intriguing poem by Rati Mehrotra, about love and other great forces. Premee Mohammed’s *At Every Door a Ghost* is a thoughtul “What If?” about government surveillance and science in the wake of terrorism. Douglas Smith’s entry, *If I Should Fall Behind*, is a cool love story about the many-worlds theory. Kelsey Hutton gives us a welcome alt-version to the many Western-oriented stories about Victoria (a 19th c. queen) in *Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea* (bonus: magical dresses!!). Also loved Grace P. Fong’s Medusa-themed revenge tale, *The Toll of the Snake*, and Manuela Amiony’s time travel story, *The Long Way Home From Gaia BH1* (particularly because the central relationship is not your standard romantic one).

There’s looooads more. A story about a violinist with a haunted (?) prosthesis, by Aleksandra Hill. From Chandra Fisher: women who sink their sorrows into a particular part of the sea. I’m yet to decipher J.D. Dresner’s poem *For the Robots* (it’s in hexadecimal). There’s a very cool story about human-pseudo-octopus co-operation by Isabelle Piette and Margaret Sankey. A “holiday suit” forms a protective (maybe too protective) barrier against the world in a story by Rich Larson. There’s a cleverly circular story by Justin Dill. More out-of-time-ness, in a building this time, from P. A. Cornell. An excellent post-apocalyptic story featuring the best protagonist and a robot by Fiona Moore. On Mars, there’s a smart (and/or haunted) truck and reimagined imprisonment in Phoebe Barton’s *And Prison On My Back*. And that’s only about half the pieces in this fantastic collection, which closes with Nalo Hopkinson’s powerful *The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World*.

As you can see, more than worth your time and money. If you’re a SFF fan, this will be an excellent addition to your library.

So very many thanks to NetGalley and Ansible Press for DRC access.

A nice collection with both very good ones and the opposite. I have noted a few authors that I'm very curious about. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the chance to read this book.

It is always interesting to read authors in their national context, some of whom I was surprised to discover were Canadian. Highlights were Cory Doctorow’s compassionate and hopeful “The Canadian Miracle”, which heads this impressive anthology, A.C. Wise’s “Manic Pixie Girl” featuring a bad-ass Tinker-bell doing the work to be a better person, and Amal El-Mohtar's "John Hollowback & the Witch" is a darker story about gaslighting and restitution.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ansible Press for an ARC of this book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I usually love Anthologies, but sadly this one was a bit of a miss for me. There were a handful of stories that were really good, but also some that I deeply disliked. Getting a few stories in and then reading about the brutal r@pe and torture of a young innocent girl, really set the tone for the rest of the book for me. (The story was The Girl Who Cried Diamonds)

The length of the stories was excellent, and they generally took about 10-15 minutes to read. None of them felt like they dragged on too long, which was really nice.

I appreciate that there was a lot of poetry in this anthology! That is very rare to find in anthologies, and I loved all the poems. They were the highlight of the book, and what kept me reading to the end.

I wish I had loved this anthology more, but it just wasn't the book for me. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to read it, and I hope it will be a better choice for someone else.

A great collection of books, bringing together Candian Fantasy and Science Fiction. I particularly enjoyed the story by Amal El-Mohtar, John Hollowback and the Witch. It tackled a lot of issues and was also well written, with interesting concepts and ideas presented to the reader. I would recommned the story to others and there are also plenty of other stories which will appeal to readers of all tastes.

I have never been disappointed by one of these collections, and this is no exception. Some of my favorite writers are here, and I found some new favorites. The variety is great, with some stories that feel almost current and others that have so much imagination. There was a lot of humor, too. Thanks to much to NetGalley for letting me read this.