A Cathedral of Myth and Bone

I’ll be honest: *A Cathedral of Myth and Bone* left me conflicted. The standout here is the novella *Once, Future*, a clever, campus-set Arthurian retelling where the women—Guinevere, Morgan, Nimue—aren’t just players in a man’s story but the architects of their own fate. Howard’s dialogue crackles, and Lambert’s narration sells the academic satire with dry wit. But then there are stories like *The Calendar of Saints*, where the prose turns so lyrical it risks drowning in its own metaphor. I love the ambition, but some pieces feel like they’re trying too hard to be *literary* at the expense of emotional punch. Lambert’s performance is consistently excellent—her pacing is deliberate, her character voices distinct without veering into caricature. The production quality is flawless, no awkward edits or volume spikes. My biggest gripe? The collection’s unevenness. A few stories (*The Speaking Bone*, *A Life in Fictions*) land with gut-punch precision, while others meander into abstraction. If you’re a fan of mythic feminism or experimental fantasy, there’s gold here, but you’ll have to dig through some pyrite to find it. Not a waste of time, but not a masterpiece either.