Special Double Review
by
Francine Taylor & Seraph
[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]
Strange Horizons, July 21, 2025
Reviewed by Francine Taylor
“The second time she brings you back, you’re relieved to find yourself speechless.”
“Resurrections” by Emet North is equal parts chilling and full of wonder. You hope for a good ending for the protagonist, but you are afraid to get too attached because of the sub-bass tones playing uneasily in the background. There’s also some blood spilled, a minor issue but if you are squeamish you might be cautious in your reading.
The beginning of the story is straightforward enough, told in second person. The protagonist is a drug addict, dead of an overdose, who requested that Charon send her to Persephone. She hires her as a gardener, to take care of her plants for the six months that she spends in the underworld. She meets her dog, Kerberos, who gets overexcited and kills her. She brings her back for the third time. The protagonist doesn’t mind so much, Kerberos didn’t mean to do it, we understand, as the dog sits drooling from all three mouths, just a big puppy who doesn’t know his own strength.
She shows her how to tend the garden. The various flowers are described with a lyrical humor. (“Gentler than you would think, these ones. They like it if you hum to them”). Any avid gardener will recognize the names of these flowers, some just from the pages of a Burpee seed catalog, of a flower you know you’d never be able to grow (“Black bat flowers with enormous diaphanous leaves and two-foot-long whiskers.”)
If you are an experienced gardener, you’ll love the familiarity of all the details of fertilizing and watering and the PH balance of soil. The contemplation of a new life spent tending this magical garden is a compelling one, but unanswered questions hang like hummingbirds in the air.
Persephone is a very relatable character. She is everything that the goddess of Spring should be, and yet, she seems almost too human. Her relationship with Hades has echoes of romance, but a realistic one, not the perfect illusion of soulmates that we have come to expect in popular romances. I appreciated the depth that their story added to the narrative.
Eventually, the first of your questions is answered. The protagonist tells her story to the flowers, of how she came to die, of why she had asked to be sent to Persephone. She tends the flowers and reflects that she is happier than she has ever been. Everything seems to be going well.
Then disaster strikes. It isn’t the protagonist’s fault. Persephone doesn’t blame her, but she blames herself, and fury fills her at the thought of this threat to those who she has come to love. But the situation is beyond her ability to resolve.
The story is beautifully written, mingling both sorrow and delight. If you are a person who looks for layers of hidden meaning and a fist raised in social protest, this offering may not be for you. It’s all transparent, and a little predictable. But if you want interesting and likable characters, and an ending that makes you want to go sit outside on the porch and hug your pet for comfort, I’d recommend this story.
♦ ♦ ♦
Strange Horizons, July 21, 2025
Reviewed by Seraph
Some stories just aren’t meant to have happy endings, and sometimes those endings really didn’t have to be as bad as they ended up. It’s as true for fantasy as it is for life. What happens when one bad decision leads to another poor choice, and two dozen resurrections later you still aren’t sure where you went wrong? OK, so in fairness that only happens in fantasy, but that’s the story here. Persephone’s motives are a bit unclear, but she resurrects a young girl after the girl rejects living and seeks out the goddess in the underworld, thinking that it must be better than life above. I never tire of innovative takes on mythology, especially those that really dig in deeper to the less sugar-glazed varieties that have become so popular. Some of these myths are originally just… grim, and they lose something crucial when they’re lightened up. The themes in this story revolve around Persephone, and are told through the eyes of a young woman who quite literally died for the opportunity to meet the goddess. The girl is tasked as the gardener to Persephone’s plants whilst she is in the mortal lands, and really just nothing goes right at all. There is an almost modernistic twist to the story, but who is to say Persephone can’t have a cell phone? She does spend six months above ground, after all. The story is innovative, but above all it is dealing with some incredibly heavy topics, such as familial trauma, suicide and domestic abuse. Myths teach us things about life, presented from fantastical perspectives, right? The author embraces this fully, and does so in a way that is difficult to achieve: not shying away or glazing over the darkness of the issues at hand, but also not over-detailing or glorifying them in a way that disrespects those going through it.