Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Review: Giving the Devil His Due by Various

 


Genre: Short Story Anthology/Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction

Description:

"What if a young girl had the power to stop her tyrannical father from battering her mother ever again?

What if a student had a secret weapon to end sexual assault by her predatory professor permanently?

What if a housewife had unusual means to get back at her controlling husband and walk away from her marriage alive?

In Giving the Devil His Due, The Pixel Project’s first charity anthology, sixteen acclaimed fantasy, science fiction, and horror authors take readers on an unforgettable journey to alternative worlds where men who abuse and murder women and girls meet their comeuppance in uncanny ways.

Featuring stories from Stephen Graham Jones, Christina Henry, Peter Tieryas, Kelley Armstrong, Linda D. Addison, Hillary Monahan, and more, Giving the Devil His Due presents sixteen stories that will make you think about the importance of justice for the victims of gender-based violence, how rare this justice is in our own world, and why we need to end violence against women once and for all.”

The proceeds from this book will go to support The Pixel Project, a non-profit focused on ending violence against women.

Author:

Sixteen authors, each with their own take on things and each bringing something personal to their story as mentioned in the appraisal below.

Appraisal:

The description for this collection says that these stories “will make you think about the importance of justice for the victims of gender-based violence, how rare this justice is in our own world, and why we need to end violence against women once and for all.” That’s the obvious goal of the stories and they absolutely deliver on that promise. The stories vary in genre, tending to have aspects of the speculative fiction genres, horror, fantasy, and science fiction, since these are the genres the authors invited to contribute specialize in. I found that some of the stories connected with me better than others, but hasten to point out that this wasn’t due to flaws in the stories. Instead, it was the particular set of circumstances and how well it related to those things I’d observed or could relate to in some other fashion. Which stories click with you will no doubt be different, but are varied enough that I think most will find many they can relate to.

After each story there is a brief author’s note that discusses the inspiration for the story, often a real-life experience of the author or someone close to them. These brief notes drive home that while these stories are speculative fiction and in some cases have paranormal or other aspects that obviously aren’t true, the issues at the core of the story are all too real.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language and a lot of adult situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

My version was a pre-release ARC (advance readers copy) and I’m unable to gauge the final product for these kind of issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

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