Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
“The world conspires to take everything from us in the end.” Like most anthologies the junk outweighs the jewels, but in this case the good stories are very good: worth the price of the whole collection. I’ll ignore the garbage and review the gems. If there’s a theme to this collection, other than raising money for authors with medical bills, is that these are stories about story.“To cling to common wisdom, no matter the evidence right in front of one’s nose, was an affliction as old as love.”By...
Jury Duty ⭐⭐⭐
I struggle to see how a compendium can be given 5 stars, as there is always going to be variability in quality of short stories. I found this a long read, because it is hard to motivate to finish the crappier stories and sometimes hard to motivate beginning a new story in case it isn't very good. And then I'd find a good story and finish it in no time at all.I'll review the 5-star stories; the whose authors I now want to read:Stories are Gods, Peter Orullian - 5 stars - The main story focused on...
An assemblage of short stories liberated from the imaginations of great story tellersPerhaps it s a product of the busy age we live in that short story anthologies have become more appealing to my taste than before. Bite sized fiction for a world driven by sound-bites, and there are plenty of bites of different kinds in this riveting collection which Shawn Speakman has edited.Some of the authors I already knew and had read, others are names glimpsed on social media. Some of the stories have roo
The only story I read was "Jury Duty" by Jim Butcher and it had his trademark dry wit. The supernatural elements blended in well with the rest of the story. Harry Dresden to the rescue (again)!!! A fun read.
I thought this was pretty neat. I liked some more than others, but I thought the variety was great, and I was introduced to some authors I'd like to read more of. Worth the read!
I have tried not to give any spoilers and to just write about the stories in a general sense. If I have failed in that endeavor I apologize.Unbound3.27 ratingTwo of the stories were unappealing to me, so the entire book's average was lowered. However, there are many more great stories to cause the book to warrant the higher rating of 4 stars.Madwalls Rachel Caine4 starsSamarjit (Sammy) Cole is 16 and about to learn some of what being a watcher entails. Her father, Chatar Singh is the watcher for...
I want to read this in its entirety but for now have read just, All in a Night's Work by David Anthony Durham, a short story set in a solarpunk Egyptian universe which continues in his middle grade novel debut, The Shadow Prince. An excellent beginning combining elements of The Prince of Egypt, Aladdin, Harryhausen's Sinbad/Clash of the Titans/Jason and the Argonauts films, and Indiana Jones. Think Percy Jackson in a historical fiction setting of Egypt with a touch of Disney charm. 5 stars!
“You know who I am. You know what I can do. Let her go.”She rolled her eyes, and spun a finger through fine, straight black hair. “Why should I?”“Because you know what happened the last time some vampires abducted a little girl and I decided to take her back.”Her smile faltered slightly. As it should have. When bloodsucking Red Court vampires had taken my daughter, I took her back—and murdered every single one of them in the process. The entire species.I’m not a halfway kind of person.Wow, that
Unbound is a collection of short stories from various authors in the fantasy genre. Overall this is a good collection. The only thing I would have liked to see is at minimum a paragraph talking about what world these stories appear in because it's not clear where a reader should go if he or she wanted to read more about the characters and their world.I reviewed these stories not in the order they appear, but in the order I chose to read them. I didn't review all the short stories, these are just...
This was an amazing collection of short stories, each of them kept me engaged and entertained. Listening to this as an audiobook, I didn't get the opportunity to just bounce from story-to-story and am I glad of that. I was "forced" to listen to stories I might have otherwise just skipped.I won't take the time to review each story, that has been done many times already, but I will say that I LOVED the following: The Siege of Tilpur by Brian McClellan - I've been very hesitant to jump into the
Much like Blackguards this anthology hit the right note for me, with a wide variety of stories by a huge amount of very talented authors. There wasn't a story I didn't like amongst the lot really, the one thing I love about anthologies is finding a new author or authors on the basis of reading small amounts of work by them. Also when my minds is distracted or wondering only having to think from one story to the next as opposed to a whole plotline is excellent. In short I highly recommend this an...
As with most anthologies, I liked some, didn't like others, pretty average about the rest. This one was more depressing than I'd like, but I know that's a selling point for many people. I just think I'm done with nihilism in my fantasy, at least for a goodly while. The writing caliber of the stories is excellent, though. So while many just weren't my thing, it's a great anthology to see if you like the style of certain very popular writers. That's a great bonus for this package.
When an NPC from a popular and advanced MMORPG seems to gain sentience, things become complicated. Technology gaining sentience has been done before, but the setting here is unique as well as the questions of how we define existence. Cool story.
When I reviewed Unfettered, which is the first volume of this series of short stories, I think I mentioned that I came across this book from an entry in the blogs of David Anthony Durham and Jason Hough. Both are authors whose novels I have enjoyed a great deal, and both have a story in this particular volume.One of the problems with anthologies like Rogues or Crucified Dreams is that the stories are all of the same bent. After a while they tend to blur together and I can't remember what disting...
Short Stories are great. not committed to any stretch and can move on. Lots of great ones in here.
Got it for Jim Butcher; As said, got it for Jim Butcher. Rest was ok; readable; maybe a handful I enjoyed. Some stories weren't to my taste but that is expected in anthologies. One story stood out in the 'want to murder the supposed protagonist' sense but just that one.
NOTE: Only read "Jury Duty" by Jim Butcher.Another short story in the Dresden Files. This one shows that magic is so much a part of everyday life for Harry, that it even plays a role when summoned for Jury Duty. The story is simple: Harry gets called to serve, the trial has some inconsistency, he decides to investigate, finds that supernatural elements are involved (this case: White Court), and the case gets dismissed. Simple and straightforward. Very good read nonetheless.Recommend.
Here's a run-down of my experiences with this book:“Madwalls” by Rachel CaineI usually prefer familiar settings and characters and for that reason short stories aren't my cup of tea. In this case, however, I knew about 3 minutes into this story that I would like it. It sucks you in quickly and stays engaging and intriguing through the very end. A true original!“Stories Are Gods” by Peter OrullianThis is apparently part of a pre-existing universe. Nothing in the story pulled me in or interested m...
Almost everyone else seems to have adored this anthology. So I'm afraid that I'm going to be in the minority here. Only one story ("Jury Duty" by Jim Butcher, which involved preventing an innocent man from going to prison and saving a child's life) really pleased me. That story I would give 4.5 stars.Everything else, with the exception of one other story, involved the heroes trying to accomplish something and failing, losing (or, in some cases, failing to gain) power, freedom, sanity, their worl...