{"id":174,"date":"2006-01-04T09:23:41","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T16:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=174"},"modified":"2021-09-22T17:44:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T21:44:47","slug":"murder-by-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/174","title":{"rendered":"Murder by Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Murder by Magic<\/a><\/em> (2004) edited by Rosemary Edghill<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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<\/a> and Simon R. Green<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But there are some excellent stories in this collection. <\/p>\n

My favorite story was Laura Resnick’s “Doppelgangster,” and I even made Michael read that one (he also loved it). It’s quick and funny, it even made me laugh out loud. And it was a good mystery as well, with the clues there to be found, if you noticed them.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Esther Friesner’s story “Au Purr” which was well done fantasy and a pretty good mystery. I also really liked Lawrence Watt-Evans’ story “Dropping Hints.” It reminded me of a puzzle that I’d heard, or perhaps a folk tale, of five identical creatures, and how do you tell them apart? M.J. Hamilton’s “Double Jeopardy” was also interesting, although I found the fantasy element rather confusing in the beginning.<\/p>\n

And confusing is where the stories I didn’t like seemed to go wrong. I had a terrible time trying to make any sense of Debra Doyle’s “A Death in the Working.” The story was only 8 1\/2 pages, but took me three days to read, and I never did make sense of what was happening. <\/p>\n

And there were some stories that were good fantasies, but really didn’t seem like mysteries. I enjoyed Mercedes Lackey’s “Grey Eminence” but it hardly seemed a murder mystery. <\/p>\n

So, as a mystery collection, I found this anthology mostly disappointing. But I really do recommend looking for Laura Resnick<\/a>‘s “Doppelgangster,” which was just plain fun.
\nRating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,48,291],"tags":[297,342,238,313],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-female","category-paper","tag-charlaine-harris","tag-laura-resnick","tag-mercedes-lackey","tag-vampires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-2O","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/133","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":0},"title":"Powers of Detection","author":"Michelle","date":"September 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Powers-of-Detection.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1243,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1243","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":1},"title":"Strange Brew","author":"Michelle","date":"July 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Strange-Brew.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/82","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":2},"title":"Dead Until Dark","author":"Michelle","date":"June 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Southern Vampire Mysteries: Dead Until Dark (2001), Living Dead in Dallas (2002), Club Dead (2003), Dead to the World (2004) Charlaine Harris If I told you I'd been reading erotic, vampire mysteries, would you still respect me? If the answer is \"No,\" too bad. Since the Victorian part of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/Dead-Until-Dark.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1713,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1713","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":3},"title":"Dead and Gone","author":"Michelle","date":"May 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dead and Gone (2009) Charlaine Harris When I first discovered the Sookie Stackhouse books the were like a revelation: Romance can be fun? Really? And they were fun! Mysteries, vampires and sex that wasn't completely ridiculous! Then at some point, they started to get ridiculous. It seemed as if every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Dead-Gone.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":226,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/226","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":4},"title":"Dead as a Doornail","author":"Michelle","date":"April 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Dead As A Doornail (2005) Charlaine Harris Dead As A Doornail is the fifth book in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series, and full of complications and murder and danger. Someone is killing the double-natured, and since Sookie's brother Jason was bitten, he's in the same danger as the rest. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/04\/Dead-Doornail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/246","url_meta":{"origin":174,"position":5},"title":"Definitely Dead","author":"Michelle","date":"May 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Definitely Dead (2006) Charlaine Harris First things first, this book had me laughing out loud, and reading passages to Michael. That usually only happens for Steven Brust books, but in multiple places Charlaine Harris nailed the dialog, and forced me to keep interrupting Michael game so he could laugh with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/05\/Definitely-Dead.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}