Schuyler Hernstrom

Honestly, this collection is worth it just for Schuyler Hernstrom's Gift of the Ob-men, a Vancian fantasy that packs more of an epic feel into a dozen or so pages than most multi-volume series do over several thousand. Kat Otis's This Day, At Tilbury is a great historical coming of age story set during the religious war. Abraham Strongjohn's At the Feet of Neptune's Queen is a fantastic throwback to the old Planet Stories swashbuckling romances. It doesn't add much new to the genre, but modern reads who are unfamiliar with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his literary descendants will be in for a treat.

Brian K. Lowe offers a great time travel story with Rose by Any Other Name that's self contained while feeling part of a larger narrative. Late Bloom by Melanie Rees is a pretty good steampunk yarn with great characters and a surprising ending. I wasn't keen on the present-tense narration though. Donald Uitvlugt's The Hour of the Rat was a fun story in the vein of the Thief games, with a weeb-ish vibe. Misha Burnett's A Hill of Stars is all right as a Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche with Lovecraft monsters, but it's overshadowed by the other stories in the Eldrich Earth 'verse (see Cirsova #5.)… (mehr)