Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices

Arthurian legend is well-trodden subject matter, but the 16 shorts in this collection (divided into sections called “Past,” “Present,” and “Future”) reimagine the legends with new details and diversity (of race, religion, geography, gender, and sexuality). In “The Once and Future Qadi,” by Asuma Zehanat Khan, an Islamic judge from the Maghreb travels to Camelot to uncover the truth about the queen’s fidelity. A baseball player must decide if he can follow in his famous father’s footsteps, using his bat Excalibur, in Alex Segura’s “Black Diamond.” In Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “A Shadow in Amber,” a nameless woman becomes fixated on Lancelot when she purchases his memories. Editors Krishna and Northington have brought together a selection of quietly moving and well-paced stories, spanning the historic past and the distant future.