I've finally finished reading Viva Las Vegas from Gypsum Sound Tales. I have a story in this anthology, and that's the only reason I finished it. I'm not exactly proud of being in it, and have to disagree with the Amazon reviewer who said mine was the perfect introduction to the rest of the stories. I sincerely hope that is not the case.
My story is about Lady Luck, disillusioned with Vegas, trying to get the city to be better than a scummy pit of sex and crime. To which most of the other stories reply "Yeeeah, no."
I write diverse, inclusive, happy stories. Feminism and queer and glitter! Whee!
But this book is... What if that boring old white guy writer you hated in high school wrote demons into the plot of the Hangover? I lost count of how many times a character needed to "piss."
Judging purely by the pronouns and names in the author bios, I'm one of only two female authors in the book. My story is the only one with a main character who is female, and the only story where the female character has agency, is not evil, and is not just pretty set decoration.
None of the stories feature queer characters (well, all of my characters are queer by default -- Lady Luck is asexual and panromantic, but it isn't mentioned in the story so I don't count it). There was a black character in one story -- I know because the two times he was mentioned, he was called "the black man."
A couple of the stories are good. Most are meh. Several are downright ableist and fatphobic. I didn't even finish the last story because it was so insulting to fat people.
And the copyediting left a lot to be desired.
I love my story, and next year when my contract lets me, I'll post it here so you can read it for free. Until then, I'm not going to provide a link to it in my page of my work, because I can't endorse this book.
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