Strange Horizons, October 16, 2017

“As Tender Feet of Cretan Girls Danced Once Around an Altar of Love” by Julian K. Jarboe

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

The narrator of “As Tender Feet of Cretan Girls Danced Once Around an Altar of Love” by Julian K. Jarboe is a snake-woman who has been reincarnated many times over thousands of years. The story moves back and forth through time. In the present, she lives on one of the islands of the Azores. In the early Twentieth Century, she is a laborer, excavating ruins on the island of Crete. In the distant past, she is a companion of the legendary Ariadne. This is an interesting, if overwritten, combination of drama, history, and myth. The final, hallucinatory scene contains vivid imagery, but is difficult to understand.

Victoria Silverwolf thinks this story has a really long title.