This was the first anthology we've tried for family story time, so I wasn't sure how it would go over. I think everyone enjoyed most stories, and there weren't any that at least one person didn't like. This is a collection of retellings of Asian myths and legends. It was extra fun when one of the kids recognized what the story was based off of before the explanation at the end (both kids attend/attended a Chinese immersion school), but most of these stories were new to us. The diversity of where these stories were from and the ways they were adapted was really interesting.

Highly recommended! ( )

It was for English. If you’re a book and I read you for English, I automatically don’t like you. ( )

This review first appeared on Sci Fi and Scary

‘A Thousand Beginnings and Endings’ is hard to place genre-wise. It’s a collection of short stories by modern Asian authors, all based on myths and legends from Asian culture. With that brief I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the end product is a delicious free for all. There’s fantasy, supernatural horror, science fiction and contemporary romance. As with most short story collections by multiple contributors, not every story blew me away, but there was a lot to enjoy.
There are sixteen stories in total, each about twenty or thirty pages long and followed by a brief piece on the myth or folklore that inspired it. Those sections were almost as much fun to read as the stories themselves, with the authors explaining the personal and cultural importance of the original tales. Asia is a big place (duh!), and the range of countries and cultures represented here evidences that. China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, India and more are featured, giving a glorious variety to the stories and a rich flavour to the collection.
It offers up such delights as exotic fairy tales, subtle and moving ghost stories, epic battles in intergalactic conflicts, children discovering goblins, teenage vampires, star-crossed lovers and dance competitions. My favourite story concerned a young girl, a dead mother and an MMORPG. It was subtle, imaginative and emotional. It’s also typical of the stories in the book in that it gives a modern twist to old themes. These are often tales of what it means to be a human, the common things that transcend time, culture and geography. Family, love, rivalry, the need to fine one’s place in the world. All these things are wrapped up in stories that are engaging and packed with many small details of Asian life and culture.
Taken together they make a fascinating and enjoyable book that’s easy to read and consistently enjoyable. It’s introduced me to a number of writers I’m sure I’ll be reading more from in the future.




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I was promised a short story collection of Asian mythology. What I got was androids, robots, whiny teen drama and a lot of stuff I didn’t ask for. I saw this book on someone’s tbr one day. After reading Norse mythology by Neil Gaiman and buying Greek mythology by Stephen Fry I wanted more. What better way to get more by getting a short story collection with Asian tales? I’m always complaining that we as a western society don’t get enough information from Asia!

The short stories are all written by different authors. You get a great variation of divers authors all giving their own spin on an Asian myth. Some involve mountains others are centered around family drama, and some deal with the loss of a dear one and what it means for a person. After the stories end there is a little section for the author to write a sort of reasoning. They explain what the original story is about and what their reasons were for making it their own.

I want to start with the good parts of the book. The theming and some of the ideas these authors were trying to say were good. There was this story about a girl having to make food for the ghosts that pass over every year and it was by far my favorite. The tales dealing with grief and losing someone were really well done. What I liked even more were the little notes with explanations from the authors.
Having said that I have to confess that for most of the second half of this book I only read the little bits were the authors explains what they were trying to do. For most of these stories some of the explanations what the original story was based on was totally lost to me. I couldn’t make the connection and I felt downright lied to at some point. Having read most of the book I just have to say what a huge letdown this was.

Getting promised a collection of great Asian mythology only to receive bad writing and teen drama is a missed opportunity.
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