Dangerous Women

By: Gardner Dozois, Joe Abercrombie, Megan Abbott, Cecilia Holland, Melinda Snodgrass, and more, George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Claudia Blak, Scott Brick, Karen Dotrice, Jonathan Frakes, Iain Gren, Janis Ian, and more

Length: 32 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Twenty-one original stories of dangerous women by top genre writers, brought together in a new anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Intrepid warriors, far-ranging spacewomen, formidable superheroines, hard-living bad girls, embattled survivors, private investigators, seductive femmes fatale and haughty queens; as Gardner Dubois writes in his introduction, 'if you want to tie any of these women to the railway tracks, you'll have a real fight on your hands!'

This thrilling collection features both standalone tales and familiar worlds and characters, including Joe Abercrombie's Red Country backdrop; Jim Butcher's world of Harry Dresden; Lev Grossman's Magicians; Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series; and a story by Caroline Spector in the Wild Cards shared universe. Return to Westoros in The Princess and the Queen, a new novella from George R. R. Martin about the Dance of Dragons, a bitter civil war that divided the kingdom nearly two centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones.

©2013 Random House (P)2013 Random House Audio

Restored my faith in short story format

Where does Dangerous Women rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is the first collection of short stories I've listened to and I was impressed. Each author has taken their own interpretation of what "dangerous women" means and while some of the stories are not to my taste, the ones I did like were well written.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the short story format immensely - studying English literature had put me off the format in the past, but this showed that you can have layered world building, character development and complex plot in a short story without it being a painfully dry academic experience.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narration by different actors helped to separate the book into the different tales, and automatically told you what kind of tone the story had through narration style.

My worst purchase in 4 years

Aside from the first novel (Abercrombie; so great as you would expect) all of these are bad, and with lots of narrators that should not narrate, some have such loud mouth noices I had to skip the entire novel. And the last one from R. R. Martin was a disapointment, I actually quit with only 45 minutes left, not worth it.

A full box of chocolates

It's seldom that a collection of short stories and novellas of such a vast array of authors pulls a listener time after time into its narrative worlds. While I bought the book because of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Novella, I was pleasantly surprised by the 20 other stories.

Though not sticking to only fantasy and SciFi the various authors are seasoned and upcoming writers who have staked their claim in the SciFi/Fantasy world. My favourite stories in this anthology are: Joe Abercrombie's “Some Desperado” (when chasing a 'cow girl' the danger is immanent), Megan Lindholm's “Neighbors” (danger lurks in the woman with Altzheimers), Sharon Key Penman's “A Queen in Exile” (when a queen refuses to be just a queen), Diana Gabaldon's "Virgins" (a feline take on Jamie Fraser) and George R.R. Martin's "the Blacks and the Greens" (a war prequel to the Game of Thrones). However there are many more that is probably just as good.

This anthology is like a full box of chocolates, the novellas and short stories might not all be to your taste... but they are delicious and worthwhile to listen too.

I don't think that you can go wrong. In "Dangerous Women" the adjective 'dangerous' is explored in depth. Almost every time you are challenged by the idea of what could be dangerous in a woman.

I really enjoyed it. It is one of a very few anthologies where you cannot go wrong. It is especially worth your while if you are seeking for new authors to listen too. It comes highly recommended!

A promising premise sadly unfulfilled.

This collection is a very poor choice of books. The first two stories are horrible, several of the others I was wondering where the so-called dangerous woman was. Only a couple of these stories were worth listening to, the best being Jim Butcher's story which integrates into his Harry Dresden series which I have enjoyed very much.
I bought this during one of Audible's special low price books promotion as it is a good way to find new authors and at 30+ hours long I thought it would be a great bargain giving me many hour's worth of listening pleasure. How wrong was I? Very. I couldn't stomach several stories, fast forwarding through, and now know why I will never hear any more tiresome and stolid George R. R. Martin books. I could also live without the introductions which ramble on and on. On the plus side, all the narrators were excellent, except maybe for the Martin book, possibly why I didn't get on well with it and its dragon riders (who exactly was the dangerous woman in this story?).
If you are looking for an anthology of interesting, amusing, serious, light-hearted, fantastic, sci fi, mysterious, feminine biased stories .... keep looking because this isn't it and I am returning it, I never want to hear it again, wish I hadn't heard it the first time!

mostly extracts not standalone stories :-(

got frustrated stopped listening four hours in mostly extracts from books not standalone stories, disappointed!

Usual mix of excellent and rubbish

An anthology by George RR Martin, containing a story in the world of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) - this is gonna be good. I also approach that there will be at least 10% of the stories that will be totally rubbish - and 10% that will be amazing. The rest should be good.

This anthology has a number of different genres, Fantasy, SciFi, Ghost, Crime, History etc The collection of authors contributing is immense, with some at the top of their game. With a subject of Dangerous Women, we could be expecting a number of stories where women are at the forefront and will be either kick ass, or very brutal and DANGEROUS.

Pity this is not the case in most of the stories. A good story was Wrestling Jesus. I really enjoyed this, but it centred on a young boy learning wrestling from an old man. The 'Dangerous Woman' didn't appear until the end and really didn't add anything to the story. This happened a number of times. Some of the historical shorts were excellent - but they were slightly restricted in what their lead can due to facts - but at least they were female led (some were brave, courageous - rarely dangerous).

George RR Martins story was very lame and a total disappointment. Brandon Sanderson delivered a 5 star masterpiece. Abercrombie's was excellent, but you really need to have read his Red Country book to get the full impact.

There was a lot of dross here - mainly the modern thriller/horror type stories. I know how to Pick Them - one of the worse.
The worse story of them all was Vigins - An outlander novella. I only managed to get half way through this story before giving up. Reading about a group of young scotsmen who want to get laid is not a good story. If you are an Outlander fan i am certain you will love this, but as someone who has not - this was a terrible introduction and i will NOT be reading them in the future.

The narration for the most part was excellent. There were a few where it was poor, but those were mainly in stories i didn't rate. I liked the varied narrators for different stories, and the variety of them - from actors of the screen to professional audiobook readers.

I am glad i listened to this anthology. I am even happier that i got it as part of Audibles buy 1 get 1 free sale - otherwise i would have been annoyed at the cost.

Enjoyable Dangerous and Wonderfully Diverse

What did you like most about Dangerous Women?

The dichotomy of story and style while maintaining, on the whole, the quality of writing. add to that the wonderful and unexpected energy and outright style displayed by the narrator's on show.

Who was your favorite character and why?

too many to chose but the Joe Abercrombie character of 'Shy' gives the book a raw compelling bang that has you plunging, head first into the pages that follow with eager anticipation.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favourite?

too hard. kept changing from story to story. Made me want to read the authors novels in many cases and in one made me want to know more about the, real life, Historical character of one narrative

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

yes i laughed out load, during some stories while others left me excited and in one case, u expectantly discomforted.

Any additional comments?

im now off to purchase 'Rogues' and hope it comes close to this choice collection of imaginative tales

Not surprisingly, it's a mixture.

What did you like most about Dangerous Women?

Some of the stories are fabulous. “My Heart is Either Broken” by Megan Abbott is creepily atmospheric. “The Hands That Are Not There” by Melinda Snodgrass is imaginative and compelling.

Any additional comments?

Some of the stories just aren't that great. I suspect that the authors aren't masters of the short story - it's a skill in and of itself. Some of them are just, well, boring. This is a very, very long book (over 20 hours) and I confess I skipped through a couple because they weren't gripping me. It's still good value for money though, because it's so long.

not too meny dangerous women

If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?

Not sure as they are meant too be short stories of different kinds so I think all depends on what you like,

What was most disappointing about the authors’s story?

Lack of dangerous women

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Most narrators were very good!!

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Dangerous Women?

Some of the story's were very boring and long winded so I would make some of them shorter.

Any additional comments?

I would not want to pay full price for this book although 30% of the story's are good.

A bit like the Curates Egg

Like most anthologies you a'nt going to like them all but the majority are good with some excellent narrators. Lets face it its cheap enough.

The biggest surprise is I hated the George R R Martin. Everyone's been telling me how great he is which is why I bought this collection. I have not finished his story because it is so boooooring, too many names, turgid story and characters you do not even care if they live or die.. I hope it is better on television (not that I want to watch Game of Thrones).

I am glad I bought this collection it has saved me buying anything else by him.

Not worth the credit

Majority of the stories don’t seem worth the effort or the credit.
The quality of the readers do not help.

Not what I expected

I thought this would be a collection of stories about strong and powerful women. I was left disappointed. There was a lot of male gaze and too much sexual violence for me.

Very Disappointed

A real letdown. I was looking forward to many hours of wonderful listening but badly let down. The first story was great but I’d heard it before in another of Joe Abercrombie’s audio books. The stories which followed were just not very interesting. I was expecting stronger characters, based on the title, but they didn’t appear. I confess I didn’t listen to every story but I’m not prepared to waste any more time on this book. Come on Audible, you can do better!