Summit couldn’t wait even a year to bring you the next installment of their personal mint; Eclipse is already out, and before you decide to give in and buy a ticket because you could use two hours of air conditioning, there are some things you should know.
Admittedly the original stories are from some author-dude you’ve never heard of named Ronald Reuel or something like that, but since even the superior cartoon, The Hobbit, eliminates much of Tolkien’s voice and pacing, we’ll place the blame squarely on Messrs. Rankin and Bass.
Night Shade has, over the last couple of years, published several striking mostly reprint anthologies, on various fairly broad themes. Here in the summer of 2010 we see two more, one a collection of stories about the devil, the other a collection of dragon stories. Both are obviously significant Fantasy tropes, with a plethora of excellent short stories to choose from. And the editors, in each book, select some exceptional stories, a nice mix of fairly familiar work and worthy lesser known pieces.
Andrea was my sister. Dad wasn’t. I couldn’t share Andrea being my sister with him, but he kept asking. He kept trying to share Andrea being his daughter with me, like I could reminisce about her in her baby jumper hanging onto mom, or like I’d want to if I could.
Have you ever jumped out of an airplane? Me neither, but I think I know what it feels like, at least the part before you actually jump, when you’re standing in the doorway, looking out over the land and the sky below you and thinking to yourself: ‘Am I really about to jump out of [...]
I’m not afraid to go there. This time fear works for me, not against me. My dreams and fears now stand arm in arm behind me, urging me to take that next step and the one after, to take chances, fail and pick myself up again, to explore the burnished recesses where focus and dedication forge talent into, well, who knows? Dreams. Fears. Fancies. I have six weeks to figure it out.
As to why I did accept Dark Faith as a project? First, the subject matter interested me. Second, I had worked once before with Maurice on his collaborative (with Wrath James White) novella Orgy of Souls and knew him to be a professional and someone fun to work with
I’ve done a fair amount of traveling, but everything people had been telling me about India turned out to be true, and I’ve never been anywhere that challenged me or inspired me so much in such a short time.
Eastern Europe has become an increasingly popular tourist destination since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In recent years countries such as Romania and Bulgaria have been incorporated into the EU, further easing travel. The rise of budget airlines has made most Eastern European cities accessible as weekend trips from Western Europe. Major tourist destinations such as Prague, Krakow and Dubrovnik boast castles and walled cities, but there are other interesting fortifications that receive far fewer tourists.
All the stories are superior choices. And, in and of itself, Richard Bowes’s is-it-fantasy-or-is-it-mainstream novelette, “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said,” is worth the price of admission; and the same is true of Elizabeth Hand’s re-envisioned fairy tale, “The Far Shore.” Wilde Stories 2010 is a worthwhile volume for anyone who enjoys literary speculative fiction.
