Leonard Rysdyk published a handful of short stories in the early 1990s, and has continued to self publish novels. His second short story, “A Sound Like Angels Singing,” appeared in 1993 in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s anthology Snow White, Blood Red, the first volume of their six book fairy tale anthology series.

Rysdyk’s narrator is a rat who goes about its rodential business scrambling for food, having sex, fighting with other rats, and basically living a glorious rat lifestyle. They do have to avoid the dogs and cats that humans employ to attempt to kill them, but for rats, every day is pretty much like every other day. The status quo doesn’t make for a good story, and so on this particular day, something strange seems to be happening, although the narrator can’t quite place what it is.

Many of the rats seem to wander off, summoned by a strange noise that they occasionally hear, although the narrator consistently stops them from leaving their nests, reminding them of their important rat duties: scrambling for food, having sex, fighting with other rats, etc. The nature of the noise is left unexamined until the rats ignore the narrator’s pleas and head out to track down the source of the sound.

Rysdyk does an effective job of taking a well-known fairy tale and turning it on its head, telling it from the traditional antagonist’s point of view and making the protagonist into a villain. That doesn’t mean the outcome of the original fairy tale changes, nor does it mean Rysdyk sees the story through to its traditional ending, instead completing the story at a point which makes sense for his narrator.

“A Sound Like Angels Singing” is a story which would be strengthened by not appearing in a themed anthology, since the anthology’s theme has a tendency to give clues to where the story is going and how it will play out. Nevertheless, Rysdyk offers a clever twist to the story that works within the confines of the story, even when the theme’s clue is known.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference six times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.