Arabesques: More Tales of the Arabian Nights
Susan Shwartz (editor)

Shwartz convinced an impressive range of modern fantasy writers to contribute short stories to Arabesques: the thirteen include Gene Wolfe, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Andre Norton, Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove. Set within a framing story by Shwartz herself, about an English knight stranded in Kashgar, the stories are all located within the fantastic world of classical Islam, with djinn and flying carpets and magical transformations. Some use this just as a setting, while others try to capture something of the form and style of the period's literature. None of the stories are really memorable, but they are all enjoyable and the volume is a pleasant entertainment.

 

 

Silk Road
Jeanne Larsen

A fantasy novel set in Tang China, Silk Road follows a young girl, daughter of the commander of the military post at Khotan in Western China, who is kidnapped by Tibetan raiders and sold into slavery. Parrot, as she is known, ends up as a courtesan first in Don-Huang and then in the capital of Chang-An; her quest to find her mother will take her across China and down the Yangzi to Cavegarden Lake.

Parrot's story is interleaved with largely comic episodes involving the immortals who follow her progress and manipulate her life: an Undersecretary in the Taoist Celestial Administration, King of the Dead Yama, the Good Lady Guan-yin, the Western Motherqueen, and an assortment of other figures. Much of the story is told from Parrot's perspective in the first person, but much is in the third person, with many sections modelled on Ming short stories (complete with interjections by the storyteller) or other Chinese genres. Larsen draws on Chinese sources not just for content but for structure and form, though heavily reworked for a Western audience. (And she sensitively negotiates the dangers involved in cultural appropriation of this kind.)