books

Josepha Sherman

Books: Fantasy | Short Stories

Anthologies

Dragon Fantastic (1992), Warrior Enchantresses (1996), Twice Upon A Time (1999), Assassin Fantastic (2001), Rotten Relations (2004), Murder by Magic (2004)

Dragon Fantastic (1992) edited by Martin H. Greenberg

Published by Daw

Warrior Enchantresses (1996) edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch

Published by DAW

Twice Upon A Time (1999) edited by Denise Little

Fairy tales seen from another perspective--the wife of the giant from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The hunter in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The Wolf who appears in multiple tales.

This book is hit and miss. Some of the stories are excellent, others are so-so. The idea of retold fairy tales is an excellent one, unfortunately not all the stories in this collection were able to pull it off as well as it should be done.

(What I found interesting is that although no single story was a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, they still managed to show up in several different tales.)

Of the rest of the tales, some were good, some less so. I'd pick it up if I saw it used, but I don't think it's worth the $6.99 cover price.

Rating: 5/10

Rotten Relations (2004) edited by Denise Little

Rotten RelationsI was really disappointed in this collection. I had, as the song goes, high hopes, but was, in the end, let down.

I picked up the book because the idea of it sounded great: villains from fairy tales and literature telling their side of the story (much like Gregory Maguire's Wicked I believe.)

As with Twice Upon a Time, we got stories based on the same tales, several times, when there are so many other stories out there besides Cinderella, and I can only take so much of Cinderella.

There are some good stories in this collection, such as Josepha Sherman's The Trick of the Trickster's Tricked, where we get to see the wife of Iktome, Spider, and what she's learned, living with a trickster for so long. Josepha Sherman got the Trickster tale tone perfectly. I also liked Von Jocks Thrice Told, which reminded me of a story I heard on Selected Shorts. However many of the stories came across as half-hearted attempts of the evil-doer to justify their actions.

No offense, but there's enough of that in the news and media, I don't need it in my fantasy.

Rating: 3/10

Assassin Fantastic (2001) edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Alexander Potter

I know that Martin Greenberg puts together good anthologies, however there's something about the “Fantastic” that gets tacked onto the end of each anthology theme title that puts me off for some reason. However, I've always been fond of Assassin characters, so I picked up the book.

I think I would have liked Josepha Sherman's "Never Say Die" far better if it hadn't be written in the first person--or perhaps if it had been in a slightly different style. What is it about assassin stories that so many were written in first person? As if assassins have to channel hard boiled detectives? For instance:

The neat little sign in my tiny office reads simply, "Alexei Danilovich," which is almost my true name. And beneath that, in smaller, precise letters: "Removal Service--Discreet and Efficient"

I would think that assassins and detectives would have quite different voices--the in-your-face bragging of detectives seems to have little place in the world of death by stealth. But here, the narrative voice just doesn't strike me as discreet.

All in all it was a good anthology, and I quite enjoyed it. There were lots of original stories, and for the most part even the ones I didn't care for were well-written, making it more a matter of taste than of quality. And I found a couple of new authors to look for as well, which is always a good thing.

Published by DAW

Rating: 7/10

Murder by Magic (2004) edited by Rosemary Edghill

I love fantasy, and I love mysteries, so I figured that this should be a great short story collection. After all, I've read some excellent fantasy mysteries recently, such as those written by Charlaine Harris and Simon R. Green. This collection, however, was a mixed bag. For one thing, it look me about three months to read. I'd zip through a couple of stories, and then get bogged down in a story that took days to read, and then I set it aside for something else that looked more interesting.

The problem with several of the stories seemed to be that the ability to write good fantasy does not mean the ability to write good fantasy, and vice versa.

But there are some excellent stories in this collection.

Rating: 5/10