Kicking It

Kicking It (2013) edited by Faith Hunter and Kalayna Price

“Forked Tongues” by Rachel Caine
“Stolen Goods” by Shannon K. Butcher
“The Girl with No Name” by Chris Marie Green
“The Devil’s Left Boot” by Faith Hunter
“High Stakes” by Chloe Neill
“The Parlor” by Lucienne Diver
“Red Really Isn’t My Color” by Christina Henry
“Snakeskin” by Rob Thurman
“Ruby Red” by Kalayna Price

I’ll be blunt–I didn’t read all these stories. If a story didn’t hook me within the first couple pages, I moved onto the next story. The stories I did read, however, I typically enjoyed a lot.

“Forked Tongues” by Rachel Caine. I’ve read another short story with these characters (Holly and Andrew), so I wasn’t completely lost in the story, and I did read it in its entirety, and it was interesting, but I can’t say I particularly liked it. (5/10)

“Stolen Goods” by Shannon K. Butcher is set in a world with which I was unfamiliar, and I can’t say that the world was clear to me even by the end of the story. I also can’t say I particularly liked either of the characters. In fact, in retrospect, this was more of a hate read. Why? Because the characters were inconsistent. One character forces another to go on a mission she absolutely doesn’t want to go on through a mixture of bribery and guilt trip. Here’s one of my notes: “What the hell? He forced her into this against her better judgement, and now he’s complaining about her having problems?” And here’s another note: “Really? You’ve been saying how important it is they remove the hammer, and so you stay behind WITH THE STUPID HAMMER?”

So, yeah. Hate read. (1/10)

“The Girl with No Name” by Chris Marie Green was skipped.

“The Devil’s Left Boot” by Faith Hunter was set in Jane Yellowrock’s world, but Jane makes only a brief appearance. And I am completely okay with that, because I liked seeing two characters we hadn’t spent any time with before: twins Liz and Cia Everhart, sisters of Molly and Evangelina (Evangelina who Jane had to kill several books ago).

Although they’ve played almost no part in the Jane Yellowrock series, besides being background characters, in this story they were complete with full (and separate) personalities, including how they feel about being twins.

Half of being a witch was knowing the math. Half was practice. Half was gift. And half was instinct. At least that was the way it worked being twins, and having four halves.

Although this story was a start towards the resolution between the Everharts and Jane–you can’t blame then for not wanting to deal with Jane, after she killed their sister, but Jane was in the right in doing so, so they had to deal with it. (9/10)

“High Stakes” by Chloe Neill was another story I skipped.

“The Parlor” by Lucienne Diver starts with the main character being teased for wearing booty shorts and knee-high silver boots, as part of going undercover to look for a missing man.

I read this story, but I can’t say I was particularly impressed with it. It wasn’t terrible–the idea of descendants of the gods of mythology existing hasn’t quite been overdone yet–but I can’t say I’m drawn to read any other books by the author. (5/10)

“Red Really Isn’t My Color” by Christina Henry is another story I skipped after reading a few paragraphs.

“Snakeskin” by Rob Thurman is a Trixa Iktomi story, but you absolutely don’t have to know anything about the main character to enjoy the story–and Trixa: “I didn’t have bad hair days. I had unique-hair days.” I need to remember that one.

A woman comes to Trixa with a problem she thinks Trixa can solve–for a price, of course. And even knowing Trixa was a trickster, I was still surprised by the ending.

Lying is an art. Poorly done, of course, that’s a shame and annoying as hell. But brilliantly done, bless, you just have to stand back and applaud the artist.

I really liked this story. (9/10)

“Ruby Red” by Kalayna Price I skipped.

As I wrote this, I discovered what the problem is with some of the anthologies I’ve been reading recently: Authors don’t know how to write short stories. Anthologies like this make me understand why many people don’t like short stories and avoid anthologies. Which is too bad, because a well-written short story is a joy and a treasure.

But writing short stories is a skill, and one which many of these authors simply haven’t honed. Taking an existing world and writing a brief tale in which existing characters have an adventure is not writing a short story.

A short story involves giving the reader everything they need to fall into your world in a small package. If enjoying the story requires already being familiar with your world and your characters, you haven’t actually written a short story.

All of which is too bad, because, as I said, I love well-written short stories. And there were some well-written short stories here. There were just more stories that weren’t. So I can’t really recommend this anthology, I can just recommend that you look for stories that were good, to pop-up on-line as short story eBooks or perhaps, later, as part of different anthologies.
Rating: 2/10

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