books

S.M. Stirling

Books: Fantasy

Anthologies

Better Off Undead (2008), Down These Strange Streets (2011), Dangerous Women (2013)

Better Off Undead (2008) edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Daniel M. Hoyt

Anthologies edited by Martin H. Greenberg are usually ones I can pick up knowing that I'll like the majority of stories within.

This volume? Not so much. There were a handful of stories I thought were good, but for the most part? Meh.

And… that was about it. Like I said, most of the stories were meh, and some I actually disliked, but if you come across any of the above in another anthology, I highly recommend them.

Published by DAW

Rating: 5/10

Down These Strange Streets (2011) edited by Gardner Dozois & George R. R. Martin

If you look at the list of authors above, you'll immediately see why I read this series. There are some of my favorite authors here–many of whom write short stories I tend to love. And surprisingly, I loved most of these stories, especially a few by authors I haven't particularly read before.

S.M. Stirling's story "Pain and Suffering" is a police procedural that felt (to me) very different from the usual supernatural story. The protagonist is working against something he doesn't understand–that doesn't make sense. He doesn't like unexplained things, so he continues when he really shouldn't have. I really enjoyed this story.

All in all, I found this to be a fabulous anthology, and I highly recommend almost all the stories I read–even the ones I didn't love were, for the most part, interesting.

Published by Penguin

Rating: 9/10

Dangerous Women (2013) edited by George R.R. Martin &  Gardner Dozois

Dangerous-Women

There are a lot of different stories here–on purpose.

Dangerous Women was conceived of as a cross-genre anthology, one that would mingle every kind of fiction, so we asked writers from every genre— science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical, horror, paranormal romance, men and women alike— to tackle the theme of "dangerous women,"

Thus I was fully expecting there to be a number of stories I wouldn't particularly like, or would even skip. And there were. Unfortunately for me, the dislikes were higher in number than the likes, and there were several dystopias, which I really dislike. And a lot of the women were in the neutral to evil category of dangerous. Which is fine, but all that dark got a bit overwhelming, which is why I took several months for me to finish this anthology.

"Pronouncing Doom" (Emberverse story) by S.M. Stirling is another dystopia, but oddly I found I liked it, mostly because the dystopia was simply the background setting, rather than the looming misery it often is in dystopias, touching every part of the story in doom.

All in all, there were more stories I disliked than liked, which sometimes happens. As this covers all different genres, you're likely to find at least one story you like, you'll just have to decide if it's worth the price.

Published by Tor Books

Rating: 5.5/10