Author: Anne Bishop
Publication: Ace (February 27, 2024)
Description: A magical collection of stories new and old spanning across all of Anne Bishop’s most beloved fantasy worlds.
Here, together for the first time, the shorter works of New York Times bestselling fantasy author Anne Bishop are included in one dazzling volume.
A master of bringing fantasy worlds to life, this collection showcases Bishop’s impressive range, from rarities of her earliest writing to the Realms of the Blood, from darker fairytale retellings to the Landscapes of Ephemera, and from standalone stories of space exploration and fantastical creatures to the contemporary fantasy terrain of the World of the Others.
Includes previously published and unpublished tales, as well as two brand-new stories, written especially for this collection: “Friends and Corpses,” a murder mystery in which the corpse has some decidedly unusual qualities, and “Home for the Howlidays,” a heartwarming return to the Blood Prophet Meg Corbyn and the shapeshifting Simon Wolfgard from The Others.
My Thoughts: This collection of Anne Bishop's shorter works contains 22 stories which span her writing career to date.
The first section titled The Early Stories contains six stories which are various explorations from a variety of inspirations. They all had a fairytale sort of feel to me with sometimes large touches of horror.
The second section includes the Fairy Tales with Bishop's take on The Little Match Girl, Rapunzel, and two takes on Snow White. Again, many of the stories were trending toward dark fantasy.
The third section were stories from The Black Jewels universe which is firmly fixed on dark fantasy. Having read that series, I particularly enjoyed seeing a bit more about favorite characters especially Surreal.
The fourth section provides two stories from The World of the Others. This is my favorite of all of her series, and I was very glad to have a story about Simon and Meg. The other story takes place along the coastline of what had been Cel-Romano before the HFL caused the Others to destroy it.
The fifth section titled New Places introduces an unusual world where the dead don't die all at once and a person can get a job as a Deceased Reclamation officer -- otherwise known as a corpse catcher. I liked that story which was a mystery.
The final section is called Potpourri and contains five stories. After "Home for the Howlidays," all of my favorites from the collection came from that section. I really enjoyed "A Strand in the Web" about a spaceship set off on a tour of the universe to rebuild worlds. I liked the science fiction aspects of the story.
For a look at an author's growth as a writer, this was an excellent collection of stories. I loved all the worlds Anne Bishop has built.
Thanks for the review.
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