Within this cover are sixteen stories by sixteen Solaris Fantasy authors. Readers need to have an open mind with each and every tale since it runs the gamut of what Science Fiction & Fantasy has to offer.

Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast - Mark Chadbourn >> Is set in an alternate fantastical Elizabethan England; an England at war with Faerie, and spy Will Swyfte has been dispatched to Warwickshire to deal with a problem caused by Edmund Spenser and his love affair with the Queen of Faerie.

Reins of Destiny - Janny Wurts >> Very longwinded and self-indulgent since the story read either as chapters from a longer piece involving a clan war of overtaking the rule of a kingdom.

Tornado of Sparks - James Maxey >> A world in which dragons have human intelligence, behave and talk like humans. A skydragon proposes to become a court magician in the sundragon's castle. Promising start, I just wish I was able to find out the fate of the adopted human adopted by the dragons.

Grander than the Sea - T. A. Pratt >> The tale of Marla Mason dealing with an insane sorcerer who is about to try to raise a dark god from the sea. Sounded ridiculous for me from beginning to end.

The Prince of End Times - Hal Duncan >> Supoosedly elated to his novels "Vellum and Ink". The writing proved to be pretentious, focused mainly on baroque prose thus making the characters and setting completely impossible to identify with.

King Tales - Jeff VanderMeer >> Consists of three short "fairy tales" of sorts but it is just so slight, it leaves no impression on me.

IIn Between Dreams - Christopher Barzak >> Possibly the one I liked best in this anthology. Starts with a woman who serves as a cleaning lady in a Tokyo apartment and involves a man hidden a bedroom who spends all day dreaming, with his eyes open. This is instrumental to the woman finding herself or engaging in some soul searching. Abrupt ending of sorts.

And Such Small Deer - Chris Roberson >> Sends Dracula's Abraham van Helsing to the East Indies where he encounters a strange man with the initials F.A.M. (another well-known fictional character -- but I'll leave the secret for readers of the story to suss out) and some terrible mutilations among the native staff.

The Wizard's Coming - Juliet E. McKenna >> About a small country threatened by raiders who hire a wizard for protection. Found it to be utterly boring that I didn't even bother to finish it.

Shell Game - Mike Resnick >> Another of the supernatural detective stories that seems to be abundant in SF nowadays. This one involves a case of hunting down a stolen lamia egg (the last of its kind).

The Song Her Heart Sang - Steven Savile >> The story of a man named Lukas who is deeply in love with a blind woman called Lily. After Lily was healed by a witch-healer, Lukas feels she will not love him anymore because he saw the expression on her face when she finally saw him for the first time. He goes on a quest to find her a gem, and in the process discovers more about himself. It ends quite poignantly.

A Man Falls - Jay Lake >> Peleppos is the son of the first among the Law Kings, in a society living underground. He foolishly ventures to the surface, and encounters another society of humans -- and the teratornis.

O Caritas - Conrad Williams >> Reads as a psychologically darker vision or echo of Gaiman's London as seen in "Neverwhere". It has a very muddled up ending though.

Lt. Privet's Love Song - Scott Thomas >> A ship's lieutenant gets in an unforeseen trouble when a love potion he intended for a pretty barmaid ends up in another man's wife's drink instead. At the same time his kingdom is undergoing a succession crisis, as the old king is dying, and his two twin sons are about to take over. Things work out rather intricately, and pleasantly -- it's a fun and somewhat refreshing work. The twin potioneers stole the show.

Chinandega - Lucius Shepard >> A place that's not for the morally-upright and/or faint-hearted; Chinandega isn't a tourist place. But if you're looking for a haven of vice then it's definitely the right place. Unfortunately, the story's fantastical elements just serve as a flimsy cover for a story of incest.

Quashie Trapp Blacklight - Steven Erikson >> Reads like Pratchett's "Good Omens" written in such a dull way. I didn't bother reading the rest of the story.

Book Details:

Title The Solaris Book of New Fantasy
Author Edited by George Mann
Reviewed By Purplycookie ( )