Death Singer -- a review by Susan Price
Mythic and Magical by Katherine Roberts 'On my one-hundredth birthday my father made me a present of a mortal man…’ So we’re told by Kryssa, the heroine of ‘ Rubies’ , one of the stories collected in Katherine Roberts' Mythic and Magical. ‘Rubies ’ reminded me of Bradbury’s tales of supernatural families, not only in its subject, but in its sensuality: ‘Her hair, black as mine, glittered with diamonds that outshone the early stars…’ And later, as Kryssa, her hair threaded with rubies, looks at her reflection in a lake: ‘Yes, I could see myself. Or…I could see moon-pale flesh shimmering with gold, and the pinpricks of red stars surrounding me: Grandpa’s rubies blurred with the millions of worlds above…’ ‘Rubies’ is romantic, lush, Gothic, and its theme, like the other stories, is that of rebelling against the rules your society insists you live by. And, in these stories, at least, the rebels most...