Dreamlands

I’ve become a big fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia in the past few years. By now, I’ve read most of her novels, but before I catch up on the three still on my TBR, I wanted to dive into her shorter fiction, too. Earlier this year I enjoyed her short story, The Tiger Came to the Mountains, and now I decided to read Dreamlands, her duology of the novellas The Return of the Sorceress and Prime Meridian. This time I opted for the audiobook version, narrated by Maria Liatis.

Summary

The Return of the Sorceress is a fantasy about Yalxi, once the Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers. She’s been deposed—betrayed by her lover, who then seized the throne. Yalxi is on a mission to regain her magic and overthrow the usurper.

Prime Meridian is science fiction, set in the near future, in which Amelia dreams of going to Mars. She’s at a dead-end in life, with limited financial resources and a bad romance with the ex who left her at his parents’ urging. Can she find a way to her dream destination?

Review

Final Thoughts

Between the two novellas in Dreamlands, I preferred Prime Meridian more. It felt intimate and complex, even if the main character is stuck in spite of her goals. The Return of the Sorceress was interesting, but would have worked better in a longer format. Both stories fit in with Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s larger catalogue of speculative fiction, and I enjoyed getting these smaller slices of her compelling imaginings.

Get the Book

You can buy Dreamlands here – it’s available as an audiobook.

Dreamlands by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Short Stories Included	The Return of the Sorceress; Prime Meridian
Audiobook Narrator	Maria Liatis
Audience	Adult
Genre	Fantasy; Science Fiction
Setting	Mexico
Number of Pages	5 hours
Format I Read	Audiobook
Original Publication Date	2021

Official Summary

A collection of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s short stories, including Prime Meridian and The Return of the Sorcerers or the Diamond Heart.   

Prime Meridian is a novella set in a near-future Mexico City, where Amelia, an ex-university student scraping by with menial jobs, dreams of going to Mars and starting over. When she gets pulled back into the orbit of a wealthy ex-boyfriend and all of his broken promises, Amelia must decide if she will take the chance to follow her dreams or settle for a meandering existence. Prime Meridian was included in Gardner Dozois’ The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection, and Locus magazine called it “one of the best novellas I’ve seen” and included Prime Meridian in their 2018 Recommended Reading List.   

The Return of the Sorcerers or the Diamond Heart is a sword and sorcery novella in the vein of Michael Moorcock’s classic Elric saga or the fantasy tales of Clark Ashton Smith. Yalxi, former supreme mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers is on a quest for revenge. Her lover and confidant seized her throne and stole the precious diamond heart, the jewel that is the engine of her power. Yalxi sets out to regain her magic and find a weapon capable of destroying the usurper. But this will mean turning to an old ally and opening herself up to unpleasant memories that have been suppressed for many years. For Yalxi is no great hero, but a cunning sorceress who once forged her path in blood – and must reckon with the consequences.

Return:

Yalxi, the deposed Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers, is on a desperate mission. Her lover and confidant seized her throne and stole the precious diamond heart, the jewel that is the engine of her power. Yalxi sets out to regain her magic and find a weapon capable of destroying the usurper. But this will mean turning to unlikely allies and opening herself up to unpleasant memories that have been suppressed for many years. For Yalxi is no great hero, but a cunning sorceress who once forged her path in blood – and must reckon with the consequences.

Set in a fantastical land where jewels and blood provide symbiotic magical powers to their wearers, The Return of the Sorceress evokes the energy of classic sword and sorcery, while building a thoroughly fresh and exciting adventure ripe for our era.

Prime Meridian:

Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life.