Georgia O’Grady, a twenty-first-century fifteen-year-old English schoolgirl, is more likely to be mistaken for an English schoolboy, with her short, spiky hair, indifferent manner of dressing, and pre-adolescent figure. She’s also horse-mad, and when she finds a winged horse figurine in an antiques store, she saves up for and buys it. Of course, it turns out to be a Stravagating talisman, and she falls asleep and finds herself in Talia. She ends up in a stable in Remora, an analogue for Siena, and they mistake her for a boy, renaming her Giorgio Gredi. There, she finds herself swept up in the annual horse race, to be held shortly. Of course, though, because she is a Stravagante and this is Talia, there’s more going on than just a simple horse race . . .

Georgia doesn’t have the most pleasant life. Her stepbrother, Russell, makes her life very difficult, and although her stepfather isn’t actually a bad person, he and Georgia’s mother don’t really believe the extent of Russell’s abuse. At school, her life isn’t much better; she’s not one of the pretty, popular girls, and doesn’t have many friends. Her main afterhours pursuit — horseback riding — is generally a solitary affair (until she meets Alice, who is also horse-mad), and she’s not particularly interested in having a boyfriend just for the social cachet. However, in Talia (Remora), she has friends (Lucien, from the previous book, with whom she went to school, appears), she has horses, and she is, as a matter of fact, significantly happier.

While the horse-racing is the main point of the book, there’s a secondary plot with a young member of the Di Chimici family, Falco, who was injured in a riding accident some years back. Due to the limits of sixteenth-century medicine, he is now unable to walk unaided and has no chance of ever riding a horse again. Between him and his next-older brother, Gaetano, we are shown a softer, more human side of the Di Chimici family. Clearly, of course, they are still the nemesis in the book, but things become a lot more complicated when we see that they are not nearly so different from the Duchessa and her family as might have been believed.

This book also has hard choices and deaths; it isn’t exactly a sequel, as shown by my un-cut description, but it definitely seems to be tied firmly to the previous volume. I don’t think much of this book would make sense — especially the stravagating (traveling from 21st-century England to 16th-century Talia) — without what we learned in the previous volume. Somehow the travel seems less hokey the second time around, and the story is longer and richer, with a grander cast of characters and more questions about one’s role in life. I am still definitely looking forward to the next books in the series. 4/5 stars.

Lucien Mulholland is a fifteen-year-old twenty-first-century English boy, who is unfortunately dying from a brain tumor. Arianna is a fifteen-year-old sixteenth-century Talian girl living in an alternate universe where Remus founded Italy instead of Romulus. The connection? A journal, that allows Lucien to travel in his sleep from England, where he is doing poorly, to Talia, specifically Bellezza (an alternate Venice), where he is hale and healthy. Arianna wants nothing so much as to be a mandolier (gondolier), despite her gender, so she sneaks into town for the trials. There, she meets Lucien, recently traveled and confused, and they get caught up in the politics and plotting of the time. The Di Chimici (Medici) family wants nothing so much as to kill Bellezza’s Duchessa — can two teenagers help stop that from happening?

Ms. Hoffman’s alternate Italy is a very detailed and fascinating place. Those who are more intimately familiar with alternate-universe theory will have to suppress their disbelief that all the same locations and personages would have evolved, in remarkably similar fashion, with such an early (pre-Roman empire, obviously) split. Those who are more familiar with more science-fictiony time- and space-travel will also have to suspend that knowledge; yes, Lucien is simultaneously traveling back some six hundred years and over a distance of some miles. However, if one can set these concerns aside and go with the flow of the story, it’s captivating.

Lucien is perhaps not the most fascinating character; he really seems to have no traits that distinguish him from many other fictional English schoolboys, but his role as a sort of Everyman cast into a strange situation fits. The cast, primarily Talians, surrounding him is wonderful. Arianna is strong-willed, independent, and intelligent; Rodolfo is enigmatic but warm; the Duchessa herself is rich and complex. Another favorite character of mine is Dr. William Dethridge; he speaks in a form of Shakespearean English, and it’s quite amusing to have to sound things out through his eccentric (and historically accurate, in that way where English spelling wasn’t standardized until much later) spelling. Lucien’s parents are quite sympathetic, too; they perhaps have the hardest lot in the story, with a dying son.

The tale didn’t go exactly where I expected. The characters make some hard choices, and there are on-screen deaths (more than one) of sympathetic characters. It’s actually, despite the somewhat hokey setup, a great story about leadership, choices, politics, and life. There are a few twists and turns that I didn’t even see coming. In short, Ms. Hoffman has set up an interesting world, with interesting characters and a surprisingly refreshing plot. Her research into the standard-universe Italy shows, although not irksomely so, and the details about mask-making, the lagoon, and lace were a welcome addition. I am very much looking forward to reading more books in this series. 4/5 stars.

Paula is Jena’s younger sister, the scholarly, studious one. She has been helping her father with many of his business matters, and dreams of starting her own rare-book collection. When he mentions that he is going to travel to wherever-it-is, Paula immediately clamors to go along — and is allowed. For in the city, there is a woman named Irene who has her own scholarly haven for women, and Paula would like to study there. They get to town, hire a bodyguard for Paula, and she begins her studies — but something is strange about the piece they have come to town to buy, called Cybele’s Gift. Many people are after it, and things are starting to happen — attacks, sudden withdrawals from the bidding, and the involvement of strange individuals including a pirate . . .

Our setting, for this volume of the story, is Istanbul, and we are still in the eighteenth century, as far as I could tell. It’s a great time and place to set a book; many things are all converging between the Eastern and Western worlds in that area at that time. The history of the Ottoman Empire is so rich, and Ms. Marillier didn’t even mine a significant percent of it. She didn’t need to — she set out to write a story about a merchant, his daughter, and an exotic, possibly magical piece, and wove in realistic details without overencumbering the story with the entire weight of Turkish civilization. However, Ms. Marillier included excellent details about being a woman at that time in that city, and I found them captivating.

The plot isn’t thoroughly novel; it’s sort of a puzzle story mixed with a love triangle wrapped up in some goddess lore. While it draws on many sources, though, it manages to take all the elements and mix them togehter into something that’s entirely its own. The puzzle story had enough detail to keep me interested (another example of a common puzzle story would be anything by Dan Brown), although not enough that I had figured everything out by the end. The love story was enchanting, and the goddess lore read as quite logical to me. While she isn’t that well-known, Cybele is actually a Phrygian earth/mother goddess sort who was worshipped in the Mediterranean in the past.

I liked Paula, a lot, but I’ve always liked truly brainy, bookish female characters. (What? I identify with them? No, really?) I’m sort of disappointed to realize that even if Ms. Mariller writes another book featuring this family, it will not be focused on Paula herself. Her swains — the pirate and the bodyguard — are also both interesting in their own ways. Paula’s father is much more interesting in this volume than in Wildwood Dancing, but that is most likely because he’s actually on stage for a larger percentage of the book. Irene, the Greek scholar, has quite a few secrets, and managed to retain my interest because of them.

This book has, as I’ve detailed above, a wonderfully exotic setting, a fascinating twist on a common plot, a great love story, interesting characters, and a satisfying resolution. In other words, I loved it, and I have no hesitation in giving it 5/5 stars.

The Thirteenth Child is set in an alternate universe, where North America wasn’t settled by Asians via the Bering Strait, and mammoths, dragons, and other various megafauna still roam most of the country. Eff Rothmer is the second-to-last child in her family — the thirteenth, to be precise — and the twin sister of Lan, who is the seventh son of a seventh son. He is considered particularly lucky and possessed of an amazing ability to do magic, and it was suggested to her parents by more than one relative that they should have drowned her at birth. When the twins are still young, the entire family moves out to Mill City, which is just on the edge of the frontier. Mr. Rothmer has gotten a job as a professor at the brand-new college there, and besides, it would be best to move somewhere where no one knows that Eff is the thirteenth child and Lan is a double-seven. Out there, they find all sorts of adventure — on both sides of the Great Barrier that keeps the rest of the country safe from the frightening flora and fauna that characterizes the wilderness.

I would be very much amiss if I didn’t mention that this novel has been a bit controversial recently because of its race issues. First of all, by not having the Asians settle North (or South) America (Columbia, in this book) via the Bering Strait (or boats or however), Ms. Wrede has essentially erased Native Americans/Indians/First People from history. Even if it’s a fantasy world, it is still being read by people in our world, and her choice interacts with the whole of American history and literature (where we have tried to erase the Native Americans time and time again). Second, the two non-white characters who show up over the course of the book are both Aphrikan (African, black), and they seem to have no other point in the book but to be Eff’s teachers.

I will absolutely give Ms. Wrede points back for including slavery and then having her characters fight it, albeit offstage; for having sympathetic non-white characters (I really liked Wash and Miss Ochiba, despite their limited roles); for having the characters who believe that Avrupean (European) magic is inherently superior be portrayed as bigoted; and for having a story that indicates, to me, that in the next volume, Eff will include an Hijero-Cathayan (Asian) magician as one of her teachers. I do think that it’s very possible that non-white people will show up in better roles in the next volume. Unfortunately, I can’t actually give her bonus points for something she hasn’t published yet.

The book is significantly more complex than it appears at first. Primarily, it’s a coming-of-age tale set in a land of frontier adventure, but on the second level, it’s a story about self-esteem. Eff’s has been decimated over the years by being the thirteenth child; she undergoes some awful abuse at the hands of her cousins and one uncle. Even out in Mill City (a Minneapolis/St. Paul analogue, by the way) she assumes that everything that goes wrong is her fault. Her brother Lan, on the other hand, has been told that he is the savior of the world since birth, and by the end, there are indications that this might be a problem. On another level, it’s about synthesis. Eff turns out to be significantly more talented at Aphrikan magic than she is at Avrupean magic, despite the fact that she is of Avrupean heritage. Although being the thirteenth child is unlucky in Avrupean superstitions, it isn’t so in the other cultures, and Eff attempts to absorb that information. Out in the frontier, especially on the other side of the Barrier, people are attempting to use both magical and non-magical means to defend themselves — something that those in the big cities of the East wouldn’t consider, generally.

Another interesting addition is the Society of Progressive Rationalists, who eschew the use of magic. I am somewhat perplexed, I admit, regarding magic in the world. Is everyone talented at magic? In which case, I do not understand how the Society of Progressive Rationalists manage to eschew it. It is indicated by more than one character that if they don’t use their magic, it will build up inside them until it explodes. If so, how do the Rationalists do it? It’s very possible that some of this will be addressed in a future volume. That aside, I did enjoy including them, and I thought it presented another interesting thread in Ms. Wrede’s tapestry.

I liked the characters. I thought Eff was a bit wallpaper-pasty until most of the way through the book, but she really redeemed herself about two-thirds of the way through. I loved the rest of her family — even Rennie, her bossy sister — and I was quite fond of William, the son of the other professor of magic at the school. His transformation from annoying only child to a young man was actually rather fascinating, and I watched it with many expectations of what would happen in the future. The Aphrikan characters, as I mentioned before, were great, and I definitely want to see more of both Wash and Miss Ochiba — plus her family members, who seem to be equally accomplished and fascinating — in future volumes.

I am in a position of privilege, in that I have the option of disregarding race most of the time (I’m white and middle-class). It’s very possible that I would have merely accepted this story at face value without having read about it on the internet beforehand. Unfortunately, it’s not so much about the merit of the book — which is not so bad; aside from the race issues I’d give it 4/5 stars — but what the book unwittingly does — specifically, the erasure of Native Americans from American history via the lack of Asian discovery of the Americas. If one does read the book, and recommend it to YAs, I would consider it in tandem with Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, or other such work. Another option would be a large amount of considered, rational discussion. Again, it’s very possible that future volumes could redeem this book, but I can’t count on that until they’re published. Ms. Wrede is still on my auto-buy list, but I’m going to refrain from giving this book a conclusive number of stars as I am uncomfortable with doing so.

This collection of short stories includes apparently 41 of his biggest and best tales, ranging from one of his first published works (“Deep Without Pity”) to three stories that had web debuts within the last couple years (“Straws,” “Golfing Vietnam,” “Fear Itself”). The tales range from a couple of punk westerns, a few pulp-type stories, straight-up science fiction, ultra-short literary fiction, a few that were intended for men’s magazines, and, of course, a few tales about rock ‘n’ roll. I won’t list all 41 titles, as that would take too much time, but interested readers can haunt the Sub Press website until they post the table of contents. This book will be published at the end of November this year.

Three of the stories are connected, as they are all about a Vietnam vet P.I. named Dan Sloane. Not many of the rest have characters that travel between stories, although there are many themes that resonate through his work. Mr. Shiner even comments in the author’s notes for a story called “Jeff Beck” that “[i]f there’s such a thing as a typical Shiner story, this is it: a magic wish that doesn’t work out; a troubled marriage; rock ‘n’ roll; and a big dose of working-class angst.” Quite often, elements from his own life story (there’s a giant autobiography on his website) show up in his stories. The story “Match” nearly happened; the main character in his novel Glimpses has a father who died the same way that Mr. Shiner’s father did. Many of his characters have unhappy marriages (he went through two), as well. One story — “Kidding Around” — is actually about someone else’s family, a writing student of his. (He obviously wrote the story with her permission.)

The last story in the book, “Lizard Men of Los Angeles,” Mr. Shiner describes (in his author’s notes on the story) as his favorite of all the stories he’s written. It’s a pulp-type story commissioned originally by Joe Lansdale, set in 1934 Los Angeles (obviously), and including Aleister Crowley, spontaneous human combustion, a stage magician and his beautiful assistant, a former child star turned ingenue, and, of course, lizard men. I loved the tone of the story; in fitting with the pulp sensibility, it was definitely tongue-in-cheek, and yet serious at the same time. I suspect that I need to read more pulp fiction, or at least the modern homages to pulp fiction. I’d really love to read more about Johnny Cairo and Mrs. Lockhart, although I doubt that any more is forthcoming.

Overall, this is an amazing collection; I would definitely recommend it for fans of his other works, and fans of short fiction such as John Crowley, Jai Claire, and even Charles de Lint, although his tone is not nearly as gentle. There’s something for nearly everyone, and while there are often violent and unpleasant events and even quite a few unlikable characters (or at least hypothetically unlikable ones), overall there’s enough to balance the novel. There’s even a children’s story, “Mark the Bunny,” which has some obvious socialist overtones, and although I wouldn’t recommend the collection as a whole for children, the story’s really hilarious for adults. 5/5 stars.

The titles of the stories that I reviewed are as follows, with a short description:

“Autumn’s Country” (Asian-set story about arranged marriages and the possible results)
“The Dancer’s Gift” (Dark secondary-world fantasy about destructive empathy)
“Through the Obsidian Gates” (Sort of an Orpheus-in-the-Underworld story, but with Mayans)
“Obsidian Shards” (Aztec death priest fights crime!)
“The Lost Xuyan Bride” (Alternate-history Dashiell-Hammett type mystery)
“The Dragon’s Tears” (Asian-set death, riddles, and [obviously] dragons story)
“Beneath the Mask” (Aztec death priest fights more crime!)
“Sea Child” (Secondary-world fantasy with high cliffs and dangerous waters)
“The Naming at the Pool” (Different secondary-world fantasy, with different riddles and changes of identity)
“Weepers and Ragers” (Future-set science fiction with melting brains and murder)
“For a Daughter” (Literary flash fiction about China’s one-child policy)
“Citadel of Cobras” (Hermits, forests, and magic)
“The Triad’s Gift” (Novella-length story about riddles, losing one’s kingdom, and nagas)

The first story I read was “Autumn’s Country,” and while it was interesting, I wasn’t that enthralled. I read on, though, and discovered her Aztec stories. The main character of these tales is Acatl, a death priest, who somehow gets roped into investigating crimes. I love what are essentially gumshoe tales set in fantasy lands (some of Terry Pratchett’s qualify, as well as Tamara Siler Jones’s Dubric Byerly novels), and this was, in addition to being a mystery, a great fantasy land. I don’t think that Central and South America have been mined nearly enough for fantasy. Not only does Ms. de Bodard make great use of it as a historical kind of world in this story, but she uses the trappings of the empire to make a more current fantasy story.

That story (“The Lost Xuyan Bride”) is set in an alternate reality where China, Europe, and the Aztec empire (called Mexica) share North America. the Europeans (“Americans”) have the eastern chunk, the Chinese (the Xuyans) have west of the Rockies, and the Mexicans have the south. There’s a great deal of xenophobia, especially the Americans; the main character had the misfortune to fall in love with a Xuyan woman, and he was nearly put in jail for it. This story is also a detective tale; it starts out with the traditional beautiful woman coming into the office to ask for help, and the private investigator almost refusing the case. It’s a little longer than some of her other stories, and probably the best of them so far. Her website indicates that she will be publishing many more stories in this world, and I look forward to it.

The other stories have various settings which, while all quite detailed and impressive, are perhaps not quite as appealing to me as her alternate reality. I do admire her breadth of settings, and if she were to choose to write a novel, I very much hope it would be set in the alternate reality. However, if she continues writing short stories, I would not be in the least disappointed. Her character types are rich, as well — while most of her main characters seem to be male, they aren’t one-dimensional in the least, and most aren’t even the least bit similar to each other. Even the detectives don’t resemble one another at all. In short, I’d recommend searching out her works, and I very much hope that she wins the Campbell, so a publisher will take a chance and put out a collection of her short works. 4.5/5 stars for the group.

Mau is just about to be initiated from boyhood into manhood in his tribe, which lives on an island in the Pelagic Ocean, when a giant wave comes and kills everyone but him and the grandfather birds. Ermintrude (who quickly renames herself Daphne, given the chance) is thirteen and 139th in line for the British throne, and was traveling on a boat when the wave came and capsized her on the island. They are the only two humans on the island at first, and they have to learn to survive, both together and separately. Also, 137 specific people have died, and although she doesn’t know it, Daphne’s father has just been named king. She’s a princess now — but will her father or anyone else ever find her on the island?

I’d heard from more than one source that this book wasn’t very good, and I’m relieved to say that they’re wrong. The book is actually incredibly good. What it isn’t, is a Discworld book. The Discworld books are puns, physical humor, and inside jokes from beginning to end. This book has about as much humor as the average Diana Wynne Jones book — which is to say quite a bit, but not nearly as much as Sir Terry’s other works. Fans who were expecting a new Discworld book are, of course, going to be somewhat disappointed, but those who go into the book pretending it’s a new work by Ms. Jones or the like will actually be pleasantly surprised.

Daphne is as well-drawn as any of his Discworld characters; she doesn’t particularly remind me of any of them, though, which is good. She’s not only English, but Victorian-era English, and she has hangups (instilled by her grandmother) regarding so many different things. At some point, she has to decide what’s herself and what’s her grandmother, and the results are a bit surprising. Mau spends most of the book in a crisis of faith, and while he never quite comes to a conclusion, I found that more realistic than him particularly deciding one way or another. His grief is quite obvious, and he deals with it in a surprisingly mature way.

Other characters generally exist to provide humor — especially the gray parrot, who flies around squawking, “Show us yer drawers!” — or balance. The other Islander characters (well, from different close-by islands) include a priest, who is funny, quite a bit, but who also reminds Mau of why he had faith in the first place. Another woman, so old that she can’t chew her own food, Daphne calls Mrs. Gurgle, but she proves to have wisdom and power beyond the girl’s expectations. These touches of light do help with an otherwise not-happy plot, but fortunately Sir Terry has impeccable balance and the book is a wonder to read. 5/5 stars.

Langdon St. Ives is known as a collector of curiosities, and when a curiosity-shop owner finds a map supposedly drawn by Bill Cuttle, an old companion of Dr. St. Ives’s, he immediately contacts St. Ives’s people. The map is apparently in high demand; it is stolen (or so they think) before St. Ives and his faithful narrator, Jack Owlesby, can get there. Except fortunately the shop-owner made a fake for St. Ives’s arch-nemesis to steal, and armed with the original, St. Ives and Owlesby go searching for the treasure at the end — whatever it quite is.

This is steampunk of the highest order, and was written in a pseudo-Victorian style containing a good deal of humor. When one of the major events of the book is a field full of flying cows, one is generally expecting other absurdities to follow. That having been said, it’s only a little over a hundred pages long, and contains a great deal of movement, action, excitement, danger, and science (imagine that last said in a Julius Sumner Miller voice). Some characters are trustworthy, some are not; some turn out to be somewhere in between. For example, they send an acrobat-type street boy out to buy food, giving him more money than necessary, and he complains to them that they shouldn’t have, because this isn’t the best of neighborhoods.

Probably my favorite part of the book was when they use a bathysphere (or something like it) to go down to the bottom of a quicksand trap. This scene has a lot of drama because, well, it’s quicksand, and most readers have seen enough movies involving quicksand to be frightened of it, even if we’ve never seen it in person. St. Ives and Owlesby are depending on a piece of equipment that most readers consider antiquated at best and not terribly trustworthy in any case, and they’ve got a short time frame due to oxygen. Of course, the scene turns out a bit differently than we’re expecting, but overall, it’s actually a bit frightening.

I’d read most of the St. Ives short stories prior to reading this, and I think some knowledge of Langdon St. Ives, his general time period, and his relationship with Ignacio Nardondo (or whatever he’s calling himself) is necessary to understand this book fully. I’m not even sure this would be a good introduction, even if one is planning on reading the rest of the books and stories. Fans of the St. Ives books will definitely be interested in reading this volume, slim though it is, and I definitely enjoyed it, but I am not entirely sure that this is the best place to start. The Langdon St. Ives omnibus, while daunting and in a remarkably tiny font, would probably be a better choice. I do highly recommend this story, though. 4.5/5 stars.

Skybreaker continues the story of Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries, and because it’s a sequel, I’m cutting the plot discussion. Matt is a student at the Academy, in Paris, and has almost completed his first year. Kate also lives in Paris, and she’s studying anatomy and biology avidly. When Matt was on one of his two-week training missions, he spots a legendary ship, the Hyperion, floating at 20,000 feet — well above where normal airships fly. Enough people get wind of this that Kate decides to mount a mission to catch the ship. Unfortunately, there are very few ships that can fly that high, but she finds one. Will they catch the ship and find the treasure aboard?

There are, of course, some complicating factors. The only ship in the area that can make it up that far (a kind of ship called a skybreaker) is called the Sagarmatha, and it’s owned by Hal Slater, who would love to court Kate. Matt isn’t terribly fond of him, for obvious reasons. On the other side, we have a Roma girl named Nadira, who claims to have the only key that can get them into the Hyperion. She’s quite attractive, and Kate isn’t terribly fond of her, for similarly obvious reasons. Hal is a bit shady, and Nadira is quite secretive, and other than the attraction-jealousy factor, Kate and Matt are each suspicious of what the other two are hiding.

They also aren’t the only ones looking for the ship, and some of these searchers are not terribly honest, honorable, or otherwise helpful. The man who originally owned the Hyperion was a scientist (hence Kate’s interest), and he may have invented some interesting things that other people would love to get their hands on. In addition to that, they have the weather to contend with — up at that height, things are very cold, and the air gets quite thin. Human beings aren’t really intended to be up that high without a pressurized cabin, and they can’t afford to pressurize the cabin and pump in oxygen full-time. Also, who knows if there are any creatures up that high?

It’s a very exciting story, with the same element of danger and survival that characterized large portions of the first volume. The jealousy-misunderstanding romantic plot was a bit cheesy, but what can one expect from a YA novel? It very well might be the reader’s first time encountering such a story, and to a newbie, it won’t seem quite so trite and frustrating (“JUST ASK HER ABOUT IT!”). I still like Kate quite a bit, and if Matt is a bit wallpaper-paste, the rest of the characters certainly make up for it. I still have a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief about hydrium (which is lighter than hydrogen but inert), but it was certainly easier the second time around. 4/5 stars.

Novelties & Souvenirs collects all his short fiction through its publication in 2004; it was published by Harper Perennial. Four of the stories were originally published in a collection called Novelty, after one of its stories. Others were published in various formats, including a chapbook, a collection printed by Subterranean Press, Asimov’s, and a few other anthologies. The titles include “The Green Child,” “An Earthly Woman Sits and Sings,” “The Nightingale Sings at Night,” “Missolonghi 1824,” “The Reason for the Visit,” “Novelty,” “Gone,” “Antiquities,” “In Blue,” and “Great Work of Time.” They include retellings, dystopias, alternate histories, and most other kinds of speculative fiction.

Probably the greatest work in the volume is “Great Work of Time,” being that it’s the longest and, after all, a World Fantasy Award winner. It’s perhaps seventy pages long, and encompasses several episodes. The basic concept is that there is a secret society who can travel through time, and they’ve been ‘fixing’ the past to bring about a less-violent future that still contains a British empire. Cecil Rhodes, who in our reality died of old age and donated his entire fortune to Oxford to create the Rhodes Scholarship, died young in Mr. Crowley’s reality and donated all his money to this secret brotherhood (the ‘Otherhood’). Unfortunately, there are significant problems associated with constant revamping of history, and they encounter too many of them.

A few of the stories had an overarching conceit that they were being told by one character in the story to another. “Antiquities” is one of them; I believe the two characters were having a drink together, or something else innocuous. “Missolonghi 1824″ is another one of those; the main character is an unnamed poet assumed to be Byron, telling a story in which he encounters a Greek god (perhaps) to a young boy. Even a significant part of “Great Work of Time” was two characters discussing the story, rather than the events actually happening. In that way, I suppose that Mr. Crowley is fond of passive scenes, but I don’t think that makes the stories any less exciting.

In some ways, these are literary fiction stories rather than speculative fiction stories. By that I mean that typically lit-fic stories are concerned with an image, an idea, or a moment in time, rather than a plot, and spec-fic stories of the kind written by Michael Swanwick and Allen Steele are concerned with telling a good tale. These are more similar to Jai Claire’s work, or perhaps the genre- and mind-bending tales of Robert Freeman Wexler. Fans of Charles de Lint will also recognize some of the elements, although Mr. de Lint’s tales are generally gentler. I would definitely not call Mr. Crowley’s work plotless; obviously this isn’t the case, but he’s content to end the stories where they will, rather than tying everything up with a bow. 5/5 stars, and highly recommended to fans of the authors mentioned before, primarily adults.