Thieves’ World: Enemies of Fortune

Thieves’ World: Enemies of Fortune (2004) edited by Lynn Abbey

I still haven’t completely decided how I feel about this series. The stories are good, and I enjoy them, but they’re not quite the old ‘Thieves’ World’ and I’m not quite sure what it is that’s missing.

As I said, the stories are excellent–Lynn Abbey gathered an excellent group of writers for this second book: Mikey Zucker Reichert, Andrew Offut, C.J. Cherryh, Steven Brust, Diana Paxson, Dennis L. McKiernan–all authors I really like. And the others are excellent as well: Robin Wayne Bailey, Jane Fancher, Jeff Rosen, Selina Rosen, Jody Lynn Nye, Jeff Grubb. But there’s something from the old series that’s still missing, and I’m not sure precisely what it is. Of course this is only the second book, so it’s quite possible that the series just hasn’t perfectly gelled together yet. After all, I started at book three when I began the last Thieves’ World books. Or it could be that I miss Enis Yorl and the old Prince.

Of the stories in this book, I particularly liked Jeff Grubb’s ‘Malediction’ and Jane Francher/C.J. Cherryh’s ‘Legacies.’ The second story surprised, because although I like C.J. Cherryh, I normally find her stories difficult to read–I feel like I’m missing something, and I’m never sure quite what. But this story didn’t make me feel like I needed to read it again to figure out what was happening.

I also liked Jody Lynn Nye’s ‘Consequences.’ It seemed to have exactly what I liked about the first series, although if I was to try to define precisely what that was, I doubt I could do it, though it may be the character Pel.

I still don’t know how I feel about Steven Brust’s story ‘The Man from Shemhaza.’ It’s a good story, and fits well into Thieves’ World, but it felt more like an introduction to the character of Tord’an J’ardin than a complete tale.

‘Good Neighbors’ by Lynn Abbey was good, although extremely depressing. Thieves’ World stories are always dark, but this one struck me as particularly bleak. But it could just be me.

The other stories were good, but sometimes I felt like they were missing something–I loved Shadowspawn, but Andrew Offut’s Lone does not yet seem to have that indefinable something that Shadowspawn had, and the fact that he has Shadowspawn lurking in the background only reminds me more of what I miss.

All in all the book is good, but not fantastic. It’s not yet the Thieves’ World I loved, but it definitely has the potential to get there.

• Browse the archives:
  
• Legends II » »
• « « Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword And Sorceress XXI