✍ Scribed by Jonathan Strahan
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Australian editor Strahan continues his wide-ranging and occasionally controversial anthology series with 15 boundary-pushing stories. Pat Cadigan's “Don't Mention Madagascar†and Nnedi Okorafor's “On the Road†play wittily with reality and identity, and are exquisitely crafted. Maureen McHugh's “Useless Things†and Ellen Kushner's “Dolce Domum†are melancholy but no less fascinating. Jeffrey Ford's “The Coral Heart†nicely tweaks high fantasy tropes, while Peter S. Beagle's “Sleight of Hand†and Nicola Griffith's “It Takes Two†examine the nature and power of love from very different angles. The less successful efforts by Elizabeth Bear, Molly Gloss and Paul Di Filippo are still ambitious enough to be worth reading. Only Daniel Abraham's cliché-driven “The Pretender's Tourney†and Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple's predictable short-short “Mesopotamian Fire†seem really out of place. Despite the weak spots, Strahan continues to secure his place as a top anthologist. (Dec.)
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In a brilliant, wide-ranging anthology, Strahan presents stories by authors as diverse as Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Bear, and Paul Di Filippo. Ellen Klages contributes “Lotion,“ a story about imaginary numbers and the strange powers of math, in which a young girl discovers the magical potential of pure math. Ellen Kushner’s “Dolce Domum” is, perhaps, not about what its characters think it is. Bear’s “Swell” is a fairy tale about a musician seeking her voice, in which a mermaid’s gift is not as wonderful as at first glance it seems. Molly Gloss’ “The Visited Man” presents a lonely pensioner who lives upstairs from le douanier Rousseau and the relationship that develops after the painter brings the retiree a stray cat. As for the previous Eclipse anthologies, Strahan has picked stories whose authors care about both the craft of storytelling and the stories they tell. Each piece is distinctive and haunting. --Regina Schroeder
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