Turn the Other Chick (Chicks in Chainmail)
The fifth volume in editor Friesner's series of stories about "chicks in chainmail" marks promotion to hardcovers, between which lie 22 stories, author profiles, and Friesner's acerbic feminist introduction. Few of the stories are anything other than zany, although Jody Lynn Nye's "Defender of the Small" will move cat lovers. In "The Truth about the Gotterdammerung," Eric Flint merrily savages Wagner and the Norse pantheon, while Casandra Claire's "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" sends up evil potentates (it isn't the only story here to do so), and Jim C. Hines' "Over the Hill" addresses the question of retirement for barbarian (or even civilized, for that matter) swordswomen. Harry Turtledove's "Of Mice and Chicks" is plain zany, his wife Laura Frankos' "A Late Symmer Night's Battle" expresses a bent for Shakespeare, and all in all the book is a romp for the humor-unimpaired and must reading for Xena fans.Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved