Margaret Adelle Laupp

A Testament

Revisado: 01-04-25 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Love it when authors send me an audio book.

"Songs of a Befuddled Muse" is an anthology collection focused mainly on sci-fi mechanics. The stories vary wildly in tone and premise (we'll get into it) but the biggest feature is a three-part story where a time traveler is trying to save Lady Jane Grey from her assassination during the Tudor era. Like I mentioned in the opening, I was sent an audio book of the collection.

If you haven't seen me review an anthology collection before, I don't usually review each story individually. That would take too long and risks spoiling something. Instead, I prefer to talk about the collection as a whole, general writing styles and the curation of the entire thing.

I loved each story individually, but the curation gave me whiplash. Going from a story about horrific war crimes to a clown private eye was a trip. There are stories of child abuse and "good for her" revenge up with funny sci-fi mishaps and cute plot twists. It was a lot to take in. I understand that this was the author first coming back to writing (there's a lot of talk about the power of writing in a couple different stories) but I'd love to see a more cohesive theme in future stories. Otherwise it feels a little back and forth for the tone.

As for the audio book, I adored the narration. Liz May Brice was constantly changing the tenor of her voice not only for every character, but for every story. Her tone in the "good for her" story was particularly impactful on the themes. The one downside was the final story, which is told through emails. Both the email addresses and the time stamps are read out for every email, some of which are only a sentence or two long, so it got real repetitive real fast. But other than that, I highly enjoyed the experience!

The through story of time traveling Lady Jane Gray could have had it's own novella, honestly. Not that I didn't enjoy it (some of the talk of the sci-fi tech did make my eyes glaze over at one point, and the audio didn't help much) but that I think it would stand better with a more drawn out narrative. Time travel stories can be tricky to understand at the best of times (lol), but jumping from one to the other in rapid succession can increase the confusion. Not to mention the greater worldbuilding that comes from changing the time continuum, where each era needs it's own explanation. And I feel like the action-packed ending of the third one could have been drawn out more for even greater tension.

Overall, this anthology is a great read for both sci-fi and deeper literary themes. A true testament that you're never too old to put pen back to paper.

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