Hit Man (1998) Lawrence Block Keller–he has a first name but no one uses it–is a hit man. He gets a call to visit the Old Man in the house in White Plains, receives instructions, and then does the job he’s paid to do. Hit Man is not a novel, it’s a collection of short […]
Must Love Hellhounds (2009) Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook I picked up this anthology solely because I saw Ilona Andrews had a story in it. Charlaine Harris also usually writes decent short stories, but not always. But I figured, I like everything I’ve read by Ilona Andrews, and there should be at […]
Strange Brew (2009) edited by P.N. Elrod I love short story collections. They’re a way to discover new authors, visit with favorite characters, and to be honest I just enjoy short stories. Now if you like short stories, you eventually learn that a lot of collections are not worth buying, but there are certain authors […]
Promises to Keep (2007) Charles de Lint Charles de Lint said he wasn’t going to write about Jilly any longer–he’d already done plenty to her in The Onion Girl, and resolved things for her in Widdershins, but in Promises to Keep we get to go back to Jilly’s past. Not the terrible past, but the […]
Mean Streets (2009) Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, Thomas E. Sniegoski OK. I admit it. I’m an Amazon junkie. I often search for my favorite artists and look at coming releases to see if anyone I love has something new coming out. Which is how I stumbled upon Mean Streets. I believe it […]
Unusual Suspects (2008) edited by Dana Stabenow I own and read Dana Stabenow’s first fantasy/mystery anthology, Powers of Detection and found it a mixed bag. But when I saw Unusual Suspects and saw it had stories from Sharon Shinn & Simon R. Green, I knew I would have to have this anthology. In general, I […]
Borderland: Where Magic Meets Rock and Roll (1986) edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold The Borderland anthologies contain stories by some of my favorite authors, in this volume Charles de Lint and Ellen Kushner contributed stories, along with Steven R Boyett and Bellamy Bach. I’ve been a fan of shared world anthologies since […]
The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales (2007) Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling I love short stories. Aside from collections by Charles de Lint, I best love anthologies by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling best. Their books are like comfort food, and I save them up for when I’m sick or feeling low. In the same vein […]
Many Bloody Returns (2007) edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner I pre-ordered this, not realizing it was in hardback. As much as I love anthologies, I’m not that excited about hardback books–especially anthologies where I don’t know all the authors or the quality of the stories. Many Bloody Returns pretty much tells you […]
Places to Be, People to Kill (2007) Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Brittany A. Koren I really like short stories, so I’m a sucker for anthologies. I’ve been burned a couple of times, but for the most part, anything that Martin H Greenberg has a hand in will most likely contain a majority of […]
The Essential Bordertown: A Traveller’s Guide to the Edge of Faerie (1998) Terri Windling & Delia Sherman The Essential Bordertown is a collection of short stories set in Bordertown, the land between our world and Faerie. The stories are written with a teenage audiences in mind, with primarily teenage characters, and parts of a “traveler’s […]
Children of Magic (2006) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes As I have mentioned on many previous occasions, I am a huge fan of short stories. Occasionally I have been disappointed, but for the most part the anthologies I have read have good, especially the one edited by Martin H. Greenberg. The theme […]
The Repentant (2003) edited by Brian M. Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg I love short stories, so I tend to pick up anthologies when I come across them–assuming they look even remotely interesting. The Repentant looked particularly interesting, since it had several authors I particularly like: Tanya Huff, P.N. Elrod, and especially Nina Kiriki Hoffman. […]
The Little Country (1991) Charles de Lint While musing over a broken relationship that may lead to a broken tour of American, Janey searches the attic and finds a book by her favorite author–an author who was good friends with her grandfather–and discovers there was only a single copy of the book printed, and that […]
Swan Sister (2003) Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling I don’t think I’ve come across a short story collection put together by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling that I didn’t like, and Swan Sister is no exception to the rule. The stories are fairy tales retold, by a variety of authors–many some of my favorites. The […]
Widdershins (2006) Charles de Lint Widdershins is the latest book by Charles de Lint, and I debated for about a month as to whether I wanted to buy it in hardback or wait for it to come out in paperback. First there was the fact that I own Spirits in the Wires and Tapping the […]
Snow White Blood Red (1993) Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling I often have a hard time putting down interesting books. Which means that if I’m reading a book I real like before bed, I end up staying up past my bed time instead of falling asleep. One solution is to read non-fiction before bed. The […]
Dreams Underfoot (1993) Charles de Lint I believe that Dreams Underfoot is the first Charles de Lint book I bought. I may have read one of his stories somewhere (Now that I look, I may have first read “The Moon Is Drowning as I Sleep” in Snow White, Blood Red, and from there been sucked […]
Powers of Detection (2004) edited Dana Stabenow I like fantasies. I like mysteries. So… “Stories of Mystery and Fantasy” sounds like a good thing. Plus Charlaine Harris has a Sookie Stackhouse short story, and that had to be a good thing. Well, it was an okay thing. The Charlaine Harris story was good. In “Fairy […]
Maiden, Matron, Crone (2005) Kerrie Hughes and Martin H. Greenberg I try to pick up fantasy anthologies when I see them, since chances are they won’t be there the next time I look. I picked up Maiden, Matron, Crone while ago, but saved it to read during the school year, because short story collections are […]
Assassin Fantastic (2001) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and 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 […]
A Wolf at the Door (2000) edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling I love folk tales and fairy tales, and I love the idea of stories that have been told and retold, and then finally captured on paper. The problem of course, is finding an author who is good at translating stories from an […]
Legends II (2004) edited by Robert Silverberg I picked up this book just for the Neil Gaiman Shadow story, so the fact that I found it in the bargain bin means that any stories beyond ‘The Monarch of the Glen’ were an added bonus. And ‘Monarch of the Glen’ was good. Very good. It made […]
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 […]
The Faery Reel edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling Any time I see a fantasy anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, I’ll often as not pick it up, because I know that it’s going to be good. Usually very good. This volume however, has the added bonus of poems by both Charles […]
Waifs and Strays (2002) Charles de Lint Charles de Lint’s latest short story collection is not as much for young adults as it is about young adults. As I recognized several titles in this collection from other collections, I hadn’t been in a hurry to get this collection. That was my mistake. Only the last […]
The Sandman Book of Dreams Neil Gaiman and Ed Kramer, editors It took me several months to read this book, not because it was boring, but because I was carrying it back and forth to work to read at lunch, or if I had to go somewhere for an appointment. This means that as I […]