Of Sorrow and Such – Angela Slatter
One of the biggest unforeseen benefits of ramping up review cadence and outreach on The Warbler is the opportunity I’ve had to read so many different works by authors of whom I hadn’t heard, in formats outside the long-form epic fantasies I long favored. Through this new, widened lens, I’ve (re)discovered that novellas are wonderful things. Angela Slatter’s Of Sorrow and Such is one such thing of wonder. Slatter is an award-winning Australian author—a doctor of creative writing—with an impressive list of published short fiction, flash fiction, and anthologies in her CV. Of Sorrow and Such is published by Tor’s new imprint dedicated to short fiction, Tor.com Publishing. Of Sorrow and Such occupies that special space in speculative fiction, wherein a fantastical, dystopian, or utopian setting is a vehicle for the expression of raw human experiences. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a great story in it, but the novella deals with hard, human