Engraved on the Eye consists of eight short stories by the Saladin Ahmed. Because I had read and thoroughly enjoyed Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon, I didn’t hesitate to download this collection—it’s only available as an e-book.

Engraved on the Eye

While Arabian culture weaves its way through all of the stories, that’s where the stories' similarities end. The settings vary from alternate and magic-filled worlds, the familiar and present day and a future-based Earth. The the main characters include a demon hunter, a hermit married to demoness, a Dervish swordswoman hell-bent on keeping her promise to her dying mother, a group of supercriminals who aren’t the sharpest tools in the toolbox, a typecast Arabic actor working on a US filmset, a gunslinging bounty hunter, a cybernetic soldier in search of medication for his sick wife and a mercenary who makes an unexpected discovery.

The author’s breadth of voice across all eight stories is impressive. Each story introduced me to a very different narrator and their unique point of view. That’s great writing!

My favourite story in this collection is Where Virtue Lives, in which we meet again (if you’ve already read Throne of the Crescent Moon) Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the best ghul hunter in Dhamsawaat. While the story is about Makhslood searching for a newlywed abducted by a water ghul, it also tells of how the gul hunter met the Dervish, Raseed bas Raseed. All the other stories come a close second.

If you like your fantasy and sci-fi with a Middle Eastern flavour, I’d give this short story collection a go.

Image: Amazon.com 03-Dec-2019

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