3.5 stars. Some of the stories in here don't quite seem to fit the warrior and the wizard mark that's supposed to be the standard for this anthology. Some of the stories in here are really really good and some of them are just ok.

( )

This is a nice fat book with LOTS of stories in it, almost all of which were new to me.

The stories sometimes adhered closely to the usual S&S tropes, but were often very different indeed. Both "warrior" and "wizard" were defined very broadly indeed, leading to a lot of variety, and not nearly as much swordfighting as one might have expected, given the title and cover.

It was also nice to visit so many diverse cultures! Some seemed based on ones in our world, while others were fascinatingly new.

I started to cite a few of my favorites, but the list just got too long to be informative. Suffice it to say that almost all of the stories here are excellent.

Highly recommended for fantasy fans! ( )