Review by Booklist Review
Some of history's most iconic figures are shoved into bewildering circumstances in this eccentric debut collection. In the first story, King Henry VIII discovers that his wife, Anne Boleyn, won't die. She survives beheading, drowning, and choking on scarves, crawling back to her bedroom after a long day of dying. Despite her fortitude and the couple's surprisingly tender moments, Henry continues to plot her demise. In another tale, the mysterious Historian traps John Adams and Marilyn Monroe, among others, in a mansion that becomes the site of a murder mystery. The guests reckon with the death at hand as well as their own fates in their original worlds. And a young girl finds herself being possessed by the spirit of Joan of Arc. It is, simply put, a very confusing experience for all. Author Ahmad's genre-defying short stories teeter on the brink of fiction, twisting time and space in a way that will keep readers on their toes. A surreal collection steeped in dark humor, this book is perfect for history buffs who need a chuckle.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ahmad debuts with an ambitious collection of stories that take novel approaches to significant moments in history. The opener, "Let's Play Dead," is a clever and mischevious retelling of Anne Boleyn's 1536 beheading after her conviction on false charges of adultery and treason. The executioner has a tough time getting the job done, which presages the story's fantastical twist, as Anne's body spasms back to life and she reattaches her head, then goes on to survive subsequent executions. In "The Houseguest," an actor plays Lizzie Borden, who was accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892, in a film called Axe-Woman, which spawns a popular franchise (as one fan writes in an online review, "seven thumbs up / im growing more thumbs in a vat so i can give it so many goddamn thumbs up"). "Choose Your Own Apocalypse," written in the second person, takes place in Los Alamos, N.Mex., in 1945, where a woman scientist dreads the testing and use of the atomic bomb and reckons with the "part-physicist, part-mystic" appeal of Dr. Oppenheimer ("You'd assumed, with enough time and careful observation, that you might absorb this enigmatic patina as well. You were incorrect"). With each story, Ahmad offers a satisfying exploration of feminine defiance. The result is arresting. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Imagine the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as a feminist manifesto, then imagine a novelization of that version of the film, penned by Guillermo del Toro--and this only begins to capture the absurdist, genre-defying storytelling in Ahmad's debut collection. Time, geography, and recorded history have fluid boundaries in this volume, whose first few stories feature Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc, all in distinctly bizarre and surreal circumstances. Numerous other historical figures also make appearances. For instance, in late 19th-century New York, Nellie Bly has a run-in and then a protracted relationship with Julius Caesar, while Henry VIII tries repeatedly to do away with Anne Boleyn, who keeps popping back up in the castle, despite his best efforts. In some of the stories, Ahmad introduces elements of body horror, plus plenty of intentional anachronisms of plot and language. All but one of the nine works in this collection feature women in leading or otherwise crucial roles, as Ahmad seeks to reimagine history in a feminist manner. VERDICT Entertaining, creative, and thoughtful reimaginings abound in this speculative story collection.--Jessica Epstein
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The past comes to unexpected, vivid life in these speculative short stories. History repeats itself, goes the famous saying by Karl Marx, first as tragedy, then as farce. If that's true, then the characters in these off-kilter, even madcap, pieces of historical fiction, caught in the strange loops and eddies of speculative time, may have passed beyond both tragedy and farce into an altogether unnamable place. In the show-stopping opening story, Anne Boleyn, à laGroundhog Day, comes back to life after every attempted assassination by Henry VIII ("Let's Play Dead"). Joan of Arc repeatedly inhabits the sleeping body of housekeeper Claribel in 1926, Joan bent on revenge and Claribel on annihilation after a series of losses leaves her hollowed out ("Our Lady of Resplendent Misfortune"). In the grimly playful finale, readers take a young female scientist working closely with J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project through choices like "To approach the oversized lungs, turn to…" in a surreal choose-your-own-adventure story ("Choose Your Own Apocalypse"). If all this sounds rather bonkers, it is. Ahmad swings for the fences by taking unusual premises--what if many Napoleons rented a house together? What if Nellie Bly met Julius Caesar?--and drives into left field with surreal and speculative plot turns, like talking crows or werewolves that turn into men on the full moon. Doubling down on this weirdness can feel like a hall of mirrors--just as readers settle into a story's reality, they bump into more illusions. But more often than this effect frustrates, it enchants, and it helps that Ahmad is exceptional at the sentence level: "The heat of July has the wrath of an old god," reads one description of a New York City summer; thistle grows "in vengeful bursts around the yard." A debut teeming with strange delights. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
