![]() ![]() This story really displays Roberts' knowledge of Roman history as well as familiarity with many mythological creatures. The men are here, and they have power of a kind - they banish woman, they are given women in marriage as political contracts - but it is the women who wield the power against the monsters, most especially the Julias, who are the warriors who don armour and fight the beasts which plague the family. This is a very clever story, giving the reader an introduction to both the world and its beasts, and the family itself (including a few emperors who will be familiar to even those readers who have only minor knowledge of Roman history). Deeper, it is a history of the family itself, with focus on the females in particular. The first story in the collection is Julia Agrippina's Secret Family Bestiary, which is, on the surface, an alphabetic list of the beasts and monsters which Julia Agrippina's family have encountered over the years. The above quote sums up a lot of the tone of the collection, and if you've smiled reading it, I can almost guarantee that you'll enjoy these. This collection features four stories set in the same alternate world, where monsters live side by side with humans and Roman history is nothing like what we know. The second book in the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press is Love and Romanpunk, by Tandy Rayner Roberts. "One of my grandmothers turned herself into a dragon to prove a point." ![]()
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