Allegories of the Tarot by Annetta Ribken

This is an awesome collection… Really. As usual, I was a little skeptical while picking up a book of short stories because very few short stories can actually satisfy my book-wormish curiosity. Mostly I am left feeling cheated because I always need to no more – it happens with novels too.


I have very little knowledge of Tarot yet these stories practically spoke to me. Based on the cards of Major Arcana, this series of stories embodies the factors that these cards stand for. Sometimes the stories physically feature a card and sometimes they just signify each card. As a result each story is unique – they can be classified into different genres ranging from sci-fi to horror. Each story being written by a different author has a different narrative style too. So while, there’s a theme to tie them together – the stories stand apart from each other. Also the common denominator in all these stories is the fact they are all well written and fascinating on their own.


It is difficult to point out just one story that stood out for me… but my favourites were Phoenix by Laura Eno, The Moon by J.H.Sked, On the Shoulders of Muses by Jessica McHugh and Transformation by Timothy Smith.