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chuckroA collection of stories, mostly categorizable as "fantasy", though some are better described as horror and others a bit more sci-fi. They feature a lot of queer folks of various colors and body shapes.
The first story, "The Easthound", is actually a decent sense of what to expect from the book and a strong opener. Which is good, because he second story "Soul Case" didn't win me at all. The other story I really couldn't get into was "Ours is the Prettiest", which is a "Bordertown" shared-world story and I know nothing of that world or its characters.
"Shift", on the other hand, was unquestionably a solid story, but one I bristled at because it takes an approach to Shakespeare's "The Tempest" that is different from my favored approach (and that being my favorite of the Bard's works, I'm rather married to my approach.)
The story I think I enjoyed the most was the delightfully-whimsical "Emily Breakfast", closely followed by the similarly-whimsical "Snow Day" and "Herbal". "Delicious Monster" stands out for using tropes I generally enjoy, as does "The Smile on the Face". But really, there's a lot to like here. Everything is clever, even if I couldn't get into it because it wasn't my thing.
Overall: I got this as part of the Humble LGBT Bundle, and never having heard of the author before I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. Basically, if you like fantasy short fiction, it's worth a read.
The first story, "The Easthound", is actually a decent sense of what to expect from the book and a strong opener. Which is good, because he second story "Soul Case" didn't win me at all. The other story I really couldn't get into was "Ours is the Prettiest", which is a "Bordertown" shared-world story and I know nothing of that world or its characters.
"Shift", on the other hand, was unquestionably a solid story, but one I bristled at because it takes an approach to Shakespeare's "The Tempest" that is different from my favored approach (and that being my favorite of the Bard's works, I'm rather married to my approach.)
The story I think I enjoyed the most was the delightfully-whimsical "Emily Breakfast", closely followed by the similarly-whimsical "Snow Day" and "Herbal". "Delicious Monster" stands out for using tropes I generally enjoy, as does "The Smile on the Face". But really, there's a lot to like here. Everything is clever, even if I couldn't get into it because it wasn't my thing.
Overall: I got this as part of the Humble LGBT Bundle, and never having heard of the author before I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. Basically, if you like fantasy short fiction, it's worth a read.
