What it feels like to be Goosled...

Reviews have been coming in thick and fast for Ellen Datlow's Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Some of them mention 'The Goosle', some of them (shock-horror!) don't. Here is the round-up.

Publishers Weekly:

Standout selections include Margo Lanagan's deeply disturbing “The Goosle,” which eloquently corrupts the Hansel and Gretel fable with bubonic plague, sexual slavery and mass murder...

Rich Horton in Locus:

Margo Lanagan’s “The Goosle” is a very dark retelling of Hansel and Gretel, everywhere harshly new.

Nick Gevers, in Locus:

Margo Lanagan is in truly savage mood in “The Goosle”, a revision and continuation of the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the tale’s origins in poverty and plague are foregrounded to chilling effect, cannibalism, paedophilia, and all.

Don D'Ammassa, over at Science Fiction:

Richard Bowes has an okay story followed by Margo Lanagan with a clever twist on a fairy tale.

Library Journal:

...Margo Lanagan's wicked version of Hansel and Gretel...

Rod Lott, on Bookgasm:

To lesser effect [than Maureen McHugh's 'Special Economics'], Margo Lanagan reimagines the “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale as “The Goosle,” with a disturbing sexual bent (”Show me your boy-thing,” the mudwife would say. “Put it through the bars”).

Booklist:

Margo Lanagan’s “The Goosle” combines Australian myth with horror in a gruesome sequel to Hansel and Gretel.

Alex Telander in BookLOON Reviews:

The high point of the collection is Margo Lanagan's The Goosle, a dark and twisted Hansel and Gretel retelling, involving mass murder, the bubonic plague, and sexual slavery.

And finally, Bookpage.com:

Lanagan's retelling of Hansel and Gretel, "Goosle," reminds readers that fairy tales are definitely not all for children...

De-heh-heh-finitely not.

When am I going to get to see all these other stories?