Dangerous Women    edited by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois Order:  USA  Can Tor, 2013 (2013) Hardcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Hilary Williamson There's something for every taste in this fascinating collection, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, of twenty-one original short stories featuring Dangerous Women. Genres range from westerns, mysteries and historicals to fantasy and SF. In Joe Abercrombie's Some Desperado, Shy is a female outlaw hunted by past associates who plan to turn her in for the reward money. They catch up with her in a ghost town, where everything goes wrong for her. Somehow she survives, only to be hunted again. Megan Abbott's My Heart is Either Broken is more of a psychological mystery. Nancy Kress's Second Arabesque, Very Slowly is a dystopian in which an unlikely alliance is made to preserve something beautiful in the world. I've long been a Cecelia Holland fan - her Nora's Song is an engaging historical written from the point of view of the littlest of the eight children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Sharon Kay Penman's A Queen in Exile is also a historical, about Sicilian Constance de Hauteville who is wed to Germany's cold monarch. And Diana Gabaldon gives us a look at a young Jamie Fraser's early exploits in France (alongside Ian Murray) in Virgins. Brandon Sanderson's Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell is one of the best - Silence uses her grandmother's ghost to assure her family's survival. Megan Lindholm's Neighbors gives a fantasy alternative to ageing and dementia. And A Song of Ice and Fire fans (me included) will welcome George R. R. Martin's The Princess and the Queen, or, The Blacks and the Greens, which (as we've come to expect from this author) slaughters almost everyone on its pages. I expect I've missed some that may turn out to be your own favorites. Dangerous Women is quite a tome and offers many hours of excellent and varied entertainment - enjoy! Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Fantasy books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews