Mammoth Book of Body Horror

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

Edited by Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

With a name like Mammoth Book of Body Horror, you can reasonably expect a high proportion of gruesome to be contained within - and yes, there is, but where this anthology really excels is the variety of horror tales presented - from classics by Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to more modern fare from the likes of David Moody, Michael Marshall Smith and Nancy A. Collins.

While some of the stories were a bit of a trial to read - John Campbell's Who Goes There runs to an insane length and Lovecraft's Herbert West - Reanimator would also have benefited from getting to the point a lot quicker - for the main, the collected stories make for a compelling read, ranging from out and out gross to fascinating dark satire.

The Body Politic by Clive Barker delivers a concept that is both creepy and just a bit clever. It tells the tale of what happens when hands develop independent thinking and stage a revolution against their body oppressors. The thought of all those hands scuttling around is likely to stick with you long after you've finished reading and Barker's delivery manages to make you side with the hands against the unpleasant protagonist.

In Fruiting Bodies by Brian Lumley we've got an enjoyably creepy story where an exotic kind of dry rot has overtaken the remains of a village abandoned due to cliff erosion.  While the tentacles of fungus that work their way into everything, including the remains of the graveyard, would be more than enough to feed nightmares, it's their interaction with the last living inhabitants - one man and his dog - that really hammer home the horror of it all. Where this story really scores is in its easy readable style that is reminiscent of classic King stories and it keeps your interest with relateable characters in a setting rife with possibilities.

Hitting the classics is The Fly by George Langelaan which is quite an intriguing yarn that was also the basis for the films of the same name. (Which I didn't know beforehand.)  The basis of the tale, therefore, should need little introduction - take one mad scientist fiddling about with teleportation, add in the unfortunate results of extra test subjects sneaking into the teleport process and merging on rematerialisation with the aforementioned scientist, and you've got a recipe for a classic mutation story.  All of which is fine enough but with such a pompous narrator opening things up the story runs the risk of crashing to a halt quite early.  Luckily, this isn't his story, as once the narration moves to the mad scientist's wife and her version of events, things pick up beautifully.

Butterfly by Axelle Carolyn is a bit of a mood piece - a short reflective story about a coma victim's transformation which has a definite aww factor to it while Tis the Season to be Jelly by Richard Matheson took me a moment or two to get into the hang of the slang but it's got a fun ending with a killer last line.

One of the stories I've definitely read before is The Look by Christopher Fowler, which first saw the light in the Urban Gothic anthology from Telos Publishing.  It hasn’t lost any of its appeal since then. In it you get a quite fascinating and very disturbing commentary on the modelling industry as you follow a couple of wannabes sneaking in to see a fashion designer in the hopes of the protagonist being picked to be the star model for the coming year. Except it's her friend who gets picked instead and the current star model decides to enlighten the protag as to just what nastiness her friend is going to be in for. 

Whether you're new to the horror genre or not as well read as you'd like to be, this is definitely a good anthology to dip into as it has a good balance of classic reprints and shiny new stories that showcase a wide range of horror styles and authors. Cracking stuff.

Find out more about the editors on their websites here - Marie O'Regan & Paul Kane.

The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror

The Satyr’s Head: Tales of Terror

Edited by David Sutton
Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

In 1975 a slim paperback boasting a fabulous cover by Patrick Woodroffe and bearing the title The Satyr’s Head and Other Tales of Terror was published by Corgi. And now, 37 years later the editor David Sutton has reissued the anthology on his own Shadow Publishing imprint, but with the subtly altered title to The Satyr’s Head: Tales of Terror. This time the equally striking cover comes from Steve Upham.

The Satyr’s Head includes ten stories by Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Joseph Payne Brennan, David Riley (who wrote the “title” story) and others. I don’t know if the editor deliberately chose stories on a theme, but the prevailing one is of angst, of guilt. And of people receiving their just, or unjust, reward from something supernatural and/or evil (but fortunately steering away from the worse excesses of some of the stories in the Pan Book of Horror Stories). As such, reading all these tales in one go may come across as somewhat downbeat and depressing. As with many other anthologies you may do best by dipping into it now and again.

I read this book in the early 1980s, a few years after initial publication when it was already difficult to buy. Therefore Sutton’s reprinting of it is very welcome. But my tastes have moved on and I didn’t get the same frisson on re-reading these tales now. The story that worked best for me this time round was Lumley’s Aunt Hester, which felt as fresh as it did then (even though poor Aunt Hester’s fate doesn’t come as much of a surprise). The stories are obviously of their era. Having said that, this anthology is a must; it should be bought and read by all fans of horror tales, particularly the younger ones who missed out on The Satyr’s Head and its contemporaries when they first appeared.

A few years before Satyr’s Head, David Sutton edited two volumes of New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural. I’d like to see these reprinted (unless they have been and I missed them). Sutton’s Shadow Publishing has a number of titles lined up, including The Female of the Species and Other Terror Tales by Richard Davis. Let’s hope the imprint grows from strength to strength.

The Satyr's Head is £5.99 from the Shadow Publishing website here.

New Releases: Armored

Another one for the SF fans - released today from Baen Books is Armored, a new anthology from editor John Joseph Adams.

The blurb:

SUIT UP. POWER ON. LOCK & LOAD.


Decades ago, Starship Troopers captivated readers with its vision of a future war in which power armored soldiers battled giant insects on hostile alien planets. Today, with the success of Iron Man, Halo, and Mechwarrior—and with real robotic exoskeletons just around the corner—the idea of super-powered combat armor and giant mecha has never been more exciting and relevant.

Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams brings you the first-ever original anthology of power armor fiction. Join leading SF authors Jack Campbell, Brandon Sanderson, Tanya Huff, Daniel H. Wilson, Alastair Reynolds, Carrie Vaughn, and others as they explore the limits of what a soldier of the future might become—with the aid of the right equipment.

Imagine power armored warriors battling at the bottom of the sea, or on nightmarish alien worlds, or in the darkest depths of space. Imagine armor that’s as smart as you are, armor that might keep on fighting even after you’re no longer willing … or able.

The possibilities are endless, but some facts remain constant: The soldier of the future will be fast. The soldier of the future will be deadly. The soldier of the future will be ARMORED.

Armored can be had from all traditional and online bookstores, and for some extra book related goodies, check out the Armored site here!

Coming Soon: Dark Currents

Launching at Eastercon this year is Dark Currents from NewCon Press.

With fiction from: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Nevill, Tricia Sullivan, Rod Rees, Nina Allan, Andrew Hook, Finn Clarke, Lavie Tidhar, Jan Edwards, Emma Coleman, Rebecca J Payne, Sophia McDougall, Una McCormack, Neil Williamson, Aliette de Bodard and V.C. Linde; the Dark Currents blurb says:

... an exciting blend of science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy and horror; a set of stories that traverses genre boundaries, linked only by their common source of inspiration. Contributors were given just those two words: ‘Dark Currents’ and then asked to write whatever story the phrase inspired. The result is a dazzling blend of exciting fictions, from haunted seascapes to distant starscapes, from reality-hopping soldiers in a surreal war to naval battles in the ether, from the deeply poignant to breathless excitement and back again, delving into the very undercurrents of life…

Looks funky! We're hoping to get our hands on a copy soon... It'll be available in paperback and limited signed hardback editions and can be purchased from the NewCon Press website here.

Recent Releases: Witches

Recently released from Prime Books is the fab looking Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful edited by Paula Guran.


The blurb:

"Surrounded by the aura of magic, witches have captured our imaginations for millennia and fascinate us now more than ever.

"No longer confined to the image of a hexing old crone, witches can be kindly healers and protectors, tough modern urban heroines, holders of forbidden knowledge, sweetly domestic spellcasters, darkly domineering, sexy enchantresses, ancient sorceresses, modern Wiccans, empowered or persecuted, possessors of supernatural abilities that can be used for good or evil—or perhaps only perceived as such.

"Welcome to the world of witchery in many guises: wicked, wild, and wonderful. Includes two original, never-published stories."

With stories from: Elizabeth Bear, Lean Bobet, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Nancy Holder, Ellen Klages, Mercedes Lackey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margo Lanagan, Tanith Lee, Madeleine L’Engle, Kelly Link, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Andre Norton, Richard Parks, T.A. Pratt, Linda Robertson, Delia Sherman, Cory Skerry, Cynthia Ward, Don Webb, Leslie What & Jane Yolen.

Definitely one to go on the read pile so watch out for the review!

The End of the World

The End of the World by Den Patrick
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

The apocalypse is a serious business - all that death and destruction and, well, contemplating the end times stuff... which is all very well but sometimes what you really want is something a little light hearted and The End of the World by Den Patrick delivers this beautifully.

Spittleshite, a daemon who goes by the name Speight (or sometimes Luke) when he's wandering the earth (because, well, you just would, wouldn't you...) has, in his own words "been tasked with witnessing the destruction of one of the world's greatest cities, just to make sure everything goes to plan."

Unsurprisingly, not everything goes to plan. See, there's a girl. The kind of girl who will quite happily tell off the prince of hell and mace a daemon in the eye. The kind of girl who calls herself Candy and once upon a time used to date our beleaguered daemon protagonist, but then the end of the world got in the way. Well, that and Spittleshite chickening out about the whole love thing.

So, yes, end of the world aside, this is a daemon love story; a very funny daemon love story that sneaks disturbing images into your brain like a bling bedecked Lucifer and daemons in Hawaiian shirts and angels dancing on a pinhead to the tune of 'Can't Get You Outta My Head'. (The horror!) It occasionally dives down to the type of humour that'll make you roll your eyes (Spittleshite is joined by daemonic colleagues Rigorprick and Bumblefuck) but whether or not you like that kind of thing, this still remains a story that'll leave you grinning. Great fun.

The End of the World can be found in Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin. Pandemonium is available in eBook format from here and as a bonus, a portion of the proceeds go to the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

More about Den Patrick can be found on his website here.

All These Little Worlds

All These Little Worlds
Edited by Rob Redman
Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

I read this anthology last year – probably around September – but for a variety of reasons didn’t get around to reviewing it. And then, just recently, the book resurfaced amongst the detritus in my study. All I knew, all I could remember, was that I thoroughly enjoyed All These Little Worlds, but not in enough detail to write a review. And so I re-read it and, again, found the anthology engrossing and … well … thoroughly enjoyable.

All These Little Worlds is published by The Fiction Desk, one of their quarterly anthologies. Ten pounds might sound a lot, at first, for 170 pages but a subscription cuts a marvellous deal: £30 a year. Check their website for details.

There are nine stories in this volume, mostly by British and American writers, and all share a high level of quality. Those readers looking for yet more horror may not be impressed, but readers with a broader taste should be delighted. Nevertheless, despite the quality of prose, some of the stories felt incomplete, too much like an anecdote rather than a tale with a – you know – beginning, middle and a suitable conclusion. But that’s a small quibble.

The book kicks off with Jaggers & Crown, a story that sometimes mirrors the career of a certain real-life comedy double act. Jaggers is already a comic performer during WWII when he encounters Crown, who soon becomes Jaggers’ straight man. But Jaggers falls prey to various addictions and rent boys (this is before homosexuality became legal), and in the end it is Crown who saves the act’s bacon. The story is told in retrospect, beginning when Crown opens a newspaper and reads his own obituary. But even knowing where the story will end, it is a moving account of the two character comedians who began treading the sleazy boards before the fame of television.

The next story reminded me of Rick Kleffel’s The Pet Peeve from Chills (reprinted last year in Dark Horizons). This is Swimming With the Fishes by Jennifer Moore. Here, a mother buys a miniature diver for her children’s aquarium. Daughter loves the little man with his red costume, but son wants something more exciting, such as a crab or an electric eel – with the inevitable consequences. Darkly comic.

Pretty Vacant by Charles Lambert, the third story in the book, is pretty damn good (and where did that title come from?). An Italian rich kid, Francesca, is sent to a private girls’ boarding school in England by parents splitting up – she was getting in the way of things. There, she meets Pilar, a similarly rich kid this time from Spain. Francesca is bored – really bored – with the whole thing, and this leads her into dubious activities, including befriending low-life Gary and then kidnapping Pilar. The consequences are never realised… Lambert captures Francesca’s personality perfectly, amazingly so. She is a spoilt brat, but at the same time vulnerable to the things tearing her life apart in Italy.

Story number four is Room 307 by Mischa Hiller. Here, a travelling salesman with problems back home (they haven’t had sex since their child was born months ago and neither will discuss it; yet both love each other) meets another rep, a beautiful woman who seems to pick him out for her own sexual needs. I didn’t buy the conceit, but I bought into the story; yet another writer who is able to get under the skin of his/her protagonist.

These, plus Dress Code, Glenda and After all the Fun We Had, are the book’s highlights for me. Worth the asking price. But if I were editor, one of the first four stories would have tailed the volume. But that’s the nature of anthologies: every editor and reader has their own preferences. Anyway, to end on a positive note: an exceptional collection of stories, the perfect antidote to many of the horror anthologies that cross my desk.

All These Little Worlds is available from The Fiction Desk for £9.99.

(This review was originally published on Piper at the Gates of Fantasy, reprinted with permission.)

Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels & Heavenly Hosts

Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels & Heavenly Hosts
Edited by Stephen Jones

Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

I hate angels (got that out of the system). Of course, by this I mean all those cutesy ‘beings’ that act as personal guardians that make sure everything is hunky dory. Fortunately you don’t get that sort of angel in this anthology of 28 stories. Stephen Jones, one of the best horror anthologists working in the field, makes sure that these deal with God’s messengers as they (probably) were (or are or will be). I was hoping for creatures similar to those Mike Carey described in his masterful Lucifer comics. I wasn’t disappointed.

It’s a rule of thumb that the first story in an anthology should be the strongest. It acts as appetiser to the meal. Here, Neil Gaiman’s Murder Mysteries does the first job perfectly. It has to be perfect since the story takes place in the Silver City, which God created perfectly. But obviously not perfect enough: there’s been a murder. The last story is Going Bad by Jay Lake, in which there’s another crime, this time involving ‘fallen’ angels. Although Lake’s is a good, albeit brief, tale, the penultimate story by Christopher Fowler shines brighter. Beautiful Men deals with the End, where a human is visited by angels, and is tempted. It’s easy to see why this story was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Awards.

Lake’s story is set at/after the End. See the thread? Stephen Jones’s selection charts the rise, decline and fall of these angelic beings, humanity, too. Many of the stories are original to this anthology: Lake, Fowler, Ian R MacLeod, Yvonne Navarro, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Robert Shearman (a weird tale), Ramsey Campbell. Reprints come from Gaiman, Arthur Machen (The Bowman), Sarah Pinborough, Lisa Tuttle and Michael Marshall Smith among others. Do yourself a favour: become a bit new dark-agey for a while and buy this book.

(This review was originally published on the BFS website)

Various Authors

Various Authors
Edited by Rob Redman
Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

Sometimes one has to read outside the confines of genre. And as much as I love fantasy/horror short stories there are times when I need to go off at a tangent. This is where Various Authors comes in. (Of course, one could argue that all fiction is just a bunch of lies and is, ergo, a form of fantasy fiction, but I’ll not go that route today.) Anyway, this anthology features twelve new stories from authors I’m not familiar with but, judging from their contributions, writers I’d like to encounter again.

One writer I should’ve recognised is Patrick Whittaker, he won the BFS short story competition a year or two back with Dead Astronauts. I dug out that issue of Dark Horizons and re-read and thoroughly enjoyed the quirky, surreal and humorous account of astronauts falling from the sky littering up the lawn. Whittaker’s story in Various Authors is Celia and Harold, equally strange and weird. It’s a horror story (can’t get away from them) about being trapped, unable to avoid the inevitable.

Other contributions include stories that touch on frustrating lives, on coincidences perceived or actual, on aspirations. It’s difficult to pick highlights: probably How to Fall in Love with an Air Hostess by Harvey Marcus and Crannock House by Ben Lyle, although, to be honest, I enjoyed them all. I imagine, however, that these stories won’t appeal to everyone because often they end unresolved; they are snippets of a larger story that continues after the final full stop. And yes, that can be frustrating but the quality of writing makes up for this. The characters feel just right and the narrative flows seamlessly.

Various Authors is volume one in an intended series published by The Fiction Desk which began life as a blog. Well worth getting hold of and reading.

(This review originally published on the BFS website)

Career Day

Career Day by Margaret Ball
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

Found in Chicks in Chainmail (ed. Esther Friesner), Margaret Ball's Career Day serves up that perfect combo of kick-ass warrior woman meets portal-fantasy done with a nifty comic twist. Though I'd expect nothing less from a Chicks story.

The story stars Riva Konneva - a sword-for-hire who raises her daughter on Earth while commuting to Dazau for merc-work. While distracted on a job she accidentally gets talked into taking her daughter's class on an off-world field trip (as you do). Naturally, hijinx ensue.

Above all else, this is an extremely fun story that blends consideration of real world concerns with a wry look at fantasy tropes. The commute to Dazau is expensive and Riva is just as busy juggling the finances to try and give her child a leg up in life, as she is hacking and slashing her assigned targets.

Ball does some fun things with her magic system, giving the story some interesting and unexpected resolutions while showing Riva as both canny and adaptable, and a generally appealing heroine.

This is one of those stories that it's always a pleasure to re-read as there's cleverness to be found beneath the humour and it's little wonder that Riva gets another outing in a later Chicks book (Fun with Hieroglyphics - The Chick is in the Mail.).

More about Margaret Ball can be found on her website here.
Chicks in Chainmail can be found in any decent bookselling venues, or for a funky e-book bundle of the first three Chicks books, mosey on over to Baen Webscriptions.

Zombie Apocalypse!

Zombie Apocalypse!
Edited by Stephen Jones
Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

To be honest, I get bored with trends – very quickly. The rash of books all about vampires and werewolves and zombies tend to pass me by. So I was a little apprehensive at first when I obtained Zombies Apocalypse! Fortunately, I had no reason to be concerned. Zombies Apocalypse! was a joyride, from page one to the end.

With over 15 contributors one might expect an anthology. Wrong. This is a mosaic – an epistolic – novel, cleverly woven together by Stephen Jones. Michael Marshall Smith kicks off the saga. Here, a man writes a long missive to his mother, almost a suicide note full of loss and regret. It hints at the tragedy to follow. The entry by Christopher Fowler describes the source of the zombie plague: a church yard being redeveloped for a New Festival of Britain. There then follows a series of police reports, medical reports, diary entries, and so on, and the horror of the plague becomes clear – there is no easy solution (if, indeed, there is a solution).

It’s not obvious exactly when the events are set. Based on clues sprinkled throughout, I suggest 2013. It appears that London’s Olympic Games were a flop – or didn’t take place – and so the Government forces through plans for the New Festival. Picture the Millennium Dome. At the same time, surveillance and the militia-like police create a society of fear and unease. But that society needs something to be frightened of and the zombies fit that bill. The zombies are clearly a metaphor for today’s bogymen (your choice).

Does this mean that the Government deliberately released the plague? Or just try to take advantage of it? Whatever, they failed to control the situation and the end of civilisation becomes inevitable.

Besides Smith and Fowler, other the contributors are (in order of appearance) Mandy Slater, Paul Finch, Sarah Pinborough Jo Fletcher, John Llewellyn Probert, Jay Russell, Kim Newman, Lisa Morton, Tanith Lee, Paul McAuley, Tim Lebbon, Peter Crowther, Robert Hood, Pat Cadigan, Mark Samuels, Peter Atkins, and Scott Edelman. There is no contents page, so it takes a bit of detection to work out who wrote what. It’s fun to do so but not necessary: just get on and read the book. A few characters reappear over the length of the book, notably Sarah Pinborough's young girl writing in her diary about the death of her mother and father. It felt realistic -- very touching.

Zombie Apocalypse! is a mix of horror and science fiction, with added supernatural elements. There is an end, of sorts, but not a satisfactory conclusion to the plague. It’s a scary read, reminding me of The Andromeda Strain and other convincing post-apocalyptic novels. Highly recommended.

(Review first published on Piper at the Gates of Fantasy)

Welcome To Bordertown

Welcome To Bordertown: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands
edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner
Reviewed by Jan Edwards

When Terri Windling created Borderland and Bordertown in the late 80's she was not the first by any means to imagine a place that lay between the Realm and the World. But her Bordertown is the construct said by many to define the roots of modern Urban Fantasy. Her Bordertown is a land filled with runaways and lost souls in search of those things that we desire the most and never quite manage to attain. That is not to say that this is a volume filled with unremitting angst. It isn’t. Its streets are dark and its inhabitants most often darker, yet filled with music and art and esoterica that fills us with wonder. If anything the overriding theme of this collection is of dawning realisations and acceptance.

Thirteen years after the original books the concept of Bordertown is introduced to a new generation. It dives between short fiction and poetry (and even one short graphic-story) in contributions by many of the biggest names in urban fantasy, including Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, Tim Pratt, Will Shetterly and Patricia McKillip.

Most of the stories, whatever the format, deal with the rigours of being a ‘noob’ in the city, though Charles de Lint’s A Tangle of Green Men is more concerned with the trials and misfortunes of getting there – or not. Like many stories here it questions why anybody sets out to find Bordertown.

Many of the stories are seen from a ‘human’ perspective, and set out to show how the town as a whole is an inhospitable and dangerous place for newly arrived and defenceless humanity; a mecca not just for the lost and lonely but for those who prey on their weakness.

And none show that more vividly than Incunabulum by Emma Bull. A young Trueblood (pure fairy) arrives at the gates unable to remember who he is or why he is there. Through his eyes we’re told how to wash up on the edges of Bordertown and survive, and that it’s no different for strangers from either side of the divide. Be they Worlder or Realmer a noob is a noob, and nobody, but nobody, gets a break unless they hustle for it. Jungle law prevails.

It is expectations that are at the root of all that occurs in the streets and back alleys of Bordertown. Some survive despite themselves, others because it is the only home they have ever known. And in amongst the dirt and the fight for survival there is always the music and poetry and art that make the dangers of life for most of the denizens of Bordertown all worth the while.

This is Urban Fantasy as it should be. Excellent collection. Highly recommended.

Find out more about the editors on their websites here: Holly Black and Ellen Kushner

Lavender and Lychgates

Lavender and Lychgates by Angela Slatter
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

Found in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #22 (ed. Stephen Jones), Lavender and Lychgates by Angela Slatter is definitely a story that should be read at least twice to get full appreciation of something that is both moving and creepy.

It tells the story of a girl finding her place in the world, but it also tells the story of the living coming to terms with the dead (and possibly vice versa) and the old trouble that haunts the family.

There's a dead brother and a restless sister, and an ill timed trip giving blood to his grave. There's a fox-woman who's trying to stir up some revenge and a lost woman who's willing to help from the shadows and all told with an evocative fairy tale quality that easily enchants the reader.

The characters are excellent and the family relationships and interactions both completely real and quite appealing. Oh, and there's a street where 'books are born', which is quite possibly the loveliest bit of city-setting I've ever seen. What with the print shops and paper makers and ink makers and bookshops, is it any wonder that our heroine chooses to take up the book-binding trade?
Lovely story, well told.

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #22 is available in pb for £7.99 from all sensible retailers. (Robinson Publishing/Running Press, ISBN: 978-1-84901-618-6)

If you want to read more Angela Slatter goodness, her collection Sourdough & Other Stories (where this story originally appeared) can be had in dead-tree format from Tartarus Press or e-book format at Smashwords and is highly recommended.

The Thief of Precious Things

The Thief of Precious Things by A.C. Wise

Reviewed by Jenny Barber

"The world has been still too long, crows above, foxes below,
and men somewhere in between."

There is a glass tower in the city, a place where the humans congregate and work on secret things, but fox-girls have a habit of getting into secret things - especially when there's Crow Lords to get the better of.

There is a fox-girl who dared what her sisters wouldn't and had her name stolen from her. She breached the tower but those memories, too, have escaped her and now what she found and what she stole is wanted by humans and Crow Lords alike.

There are a man and a woman whose goodwill and need for peace get them tangled up in trickster games, and when you play with tricksters, change is inevitable.

I'll confess, I have a thing for trickster tales and this one is a rather glorious example. It's about freedom and becoming something else and shaking the world up when its gotten stuck in a rut. This latter can be seen particularly by the division between the two trickster races - the brotherhood of Crow Lords get authority (and capitalisation) while the sisterhood of fox-girls have submission as one of their recognisable natural attributes; a display of extremes that illustrates the need for something a little more balanced if things are to move forward.

Our fox-girl protag makes for a heroine who is both charming and daring, as she gets herself into trouble then finangles her way out of it and the changes wrought in her wake promise interesting times ahead. While the Crow Lords are identikit ciphers, the human support, Yuki and Ani, have character enough to make you care about their divergent needs and fates.

Thief is set in a post-apocalyptic world but it has the kind of enchanting storytelling that can be found in the best Charles de Lint. Definitely a world to which the author should return to as I'd love to read more stories set here. All in all, a fantastic tale.

Found in Bewere the Night, ed. Ekaterina Sedia
Published in April 2011 by Prime books, $14.95 (or thereabouts) from assorted retailers.
More about A.C. Wise here.