A solid anthology ranging from SciFi to AltHistory to good old fashioned dystopia, including an interesting biblical flood/Promethean punishment mashup. The whole thing is worth a read, but here are my favorites alphabetically by author;Rakka Surprise by Bey Deckard – SciFi. It’s all about the vibes, and the vibes on foreign planet Beto are about to make Captain Drayan’s eyes bleed and derail his emissary mission to deliver a diplomatic gift to the locals. His first mate Sitik, a Rakka, stays by...

I received a free copy of this book from the author for my honest review.Uncommon Lands is an anthology of 20 stories and continues the Uncommon books that have short stories by creative writers. In this group of tales we find prisoners who awaken to find themselves on top of incredibly high columns with no way off; farmers who do their work underwater with alligators lurking; stores that hide items from customers and proprietors until they know what they really want. It is filled with creative

I haven't read the entire collection yet, but I did read "Galileo's Dog" at the recommendation of a friend and enjoyed it very much. It made me cry. Not many stories make me cry. If it's representative of the quality of the rest of the stories (and based on the previous UnCommon titles, it probably is) this book is well worth the price.

If you want to take a journey to many different shores, "UnCommon Lands" is a great and fun read for you. The twenty short and sometimes not so short stories of this anthology take the reader to many strange and fascinating places - be they in the future, on other planets or in a parallel plane of existence. The stories are diverse - fast-paced or slow, condensed or detailed, story- or concept-driven, gritty or tongue-in-cheek. So not all will be to your liking, but you will probably find most o...

Hauntingly Wonderful5 starsI love the UnCommon anthologies because they never fail to have wildly imaginative Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Horror short stories. So far in this one, I have only read P.K. Tyler's "Ecumenical Outpost 732", a short story in her excellent Jakkattu series. This series shows a dystopic, post-apocalyptic future with vivid pespectives from people in various part and far-flung places in the society. This story is a brief 13-pages, but it is really deep. It is an eloquent, evocati...

A good anthology full of stories that were all a bit different from each other. Quite a few were new authors so this was a great way to try them all out. I was never quite sure what would happen or what I would get when I started each story and that was half the fun. Some made me laugh, some groan, and some made me think. Great book for lunch time reading as most were not too long and a quick read. Really liked that in the front was a quick blurb for each story so made it great to go back and re...

Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review, and I know one of the authors from a different anthology in which we both published a story. None of that influenced this review in any way, except maybe the fact that it exists.On average my rating would be 3,5 stars, so I'll be nice and round up. Most of the stories range from 3 to 5 stars, with my favourites being Rakka Surprise, Gators in Kansas and Ecumenical Outpost 732. There where only two stories that I couldn't enjoy at...

Looking for a way to escape from reality as you know it? Take the plunge into this vast collection of other worlds and dimensions full of imagination—concluding sometimes with a happy ending, or a little bit of mayhem. The beginning of the anthology includes a story summary, giving readers a sneak peek into what’s in store. Also, it allows you to pick and choose based on the types of tales that might tickle your fancy. I found it to be a welcome feature. Some stories that stood out for me: “The

Fiction offers a way to explore different worlds with humane viewpoints that respect and welcome difference. Uncommon Lands features 18 speculative stories by new and published writers bravely testing cultural boundaries.Each story challenges the common view of what is real and possible. “Gators in Kansas and Other Hazards of Modern Farming,” by Ralph Walker, describes a farm unlike any other. It's part aquaculture and part conventional farm, where the fertile bottomland is literally the bottom

If you enjoy speculative fiction short stories, this is a great collection. The stories are well-written, original, often surprising, and sometimes challenging. While I enjoyed some stories more than others, I appreciated the variety of settings, styles, and themes. One thing I would have preferred would be more optimistic stories. To be fair, it's not as though these stories are without hope or filled with overwhelming doom, gloom, and violence, but at the same time, there aren't too many laugh...

What an excellent set of stories in 'UnCommon Lands'. There was not one single tale that I disliked or found fault with. They were all very enjoyable, and so well written.They ranged from: the 'aah, warm and fuzzy' story, 'Anderson's Necessaries' by Jon Etter, so beautifully written that I totally forgot the chocolate I had been eating, and it had melted by the time I had finished the story. Nothing usually takes my attention away from chocolate;to the'wow, that was so different - but makes you

This is only a review for one of the stories of the anthology and the one that make me buy it, Rakka Surprise by Bey Deckard.It was such a lovely story. I loved it. The odd world they were into, which is the common element on the anthology, was very interesting. The plot was great and it was so nice to discover little things about the characters. I loved the interactions between Drayan and Lala, it was so fun at times. I also loved Sitik, he was a fantastic character even though I struggle a lot...

Overall this set gets 3.5 stars. There are various genres in this book including post-apocalypse, dystopian, and SciFi stories. The one thing they have in common is that they involve unusual lands whether here on Earth (some version of it) or elsewhere in the universe. Add in diverse writers and it gets even better. The variety of authors and storylines will keep you riveted for hours. I even found a couple of new authors (new to me anyways) that I want to read more from. All the stories are sho...

This is a review of CARCEREM by Daniel Arthur Smith.I love this short but captivation story.It takes place in a world which is full of different races of being, mortals being one of them. I love stories with different species living in the same world. Carcerem is a prison. A plane from which there is no escape...or so everyone is told. But a prisoner, who is an ex military officer, called Blitz, has the skills to fix a machine that can travel to between the planes. But only if he can fix it. The...

While I haven't finished all of the stories in the book as of this date, I'm reviewing based on the first story I've read in the collection: No Small Favors, a bittersweet gem that touches on such themes as forsaking the substance for grasping at the shadow and not being aware of the truly important things all around your everyday life.In short, a woman has the opportunity to live a magically-simulated year of a 'perfect' life. This is always a cost of course, and it seems so small at first. But...

UnCommon Lands is a anthology with 20 unique depictions of fantastic places and alien landscapes, spanning multiple genres. Today I would like to review the short story Rakka Surprise by the fabulous Bey Deckard. The story begins with Captain Drayan landing on a foreign planet on his mission to deliver a welcome present to the population of Beto. Unfortunately the planet messes with Drayan's 'primitive Earthling' sensory system and his visit is off to a bad start. Sitik, the big fuzzy Rakka, and...

UnCommon Lands is a collection with something for everybody. Fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, horror. Sweet, eerie, poignant, frightening, weird. Unfathomable heights, depths of all descriptions. Soldiers, mothers, swimmers, robots, suckers, demons, prisoners, gators, toons, and more.I read in most genres and found satisfaction for several of my tastes. I appreciate the strange places the collection took me to, fretted over the choices some characters had to make, and am glad I brought...

This is a review for Gators Kansas and Other Hazards of Modern Farming, by Ralph Walker.This short story follows a man named Sal as he works a near-future farm. What I appreciated most about this story was the interesting tidbits of farming thrown in throughout the narrative. They harvest certain foods at a rapid rate, which means that three people can cover a lot of land (and get a lot of food really quick). But flooding up the river wrecks their work, and the story gets a bit of action when a

Review of Ecumenical Outpost 732 by P.K. Tyler In this collection of stories that introduce different worlds from these twenty authors, and I’m reviewing Ecumenical Outpost 732 by P.K.Tyler. A story that functions as a prequel, of sorts, for her Jakkatu worlds introduced in The Jakkatu Vector. We meet T’se at age eleven, she’s a Mezna-human hybrid, with blue eyes, longing for adventures outside of the small window she spends her days at. Living with her mother, father and sister, she wants to fe...

UnCommon Lands is a collection of 20 short stories from 20 different authors, each featuring a fantastical place or alien landscape. This review is for the story "Ecumenical Outpost 732" by P. K. Tyler, a story set in the Jakkattu world.Eleven-year-old T’se is a blue-eyed Mezna-human hybrid who lives on Station Cassiopeia with her mother, father, and baby sister. She spends her days staring out her window for a glimpse of Peritha, the red planet below, where the Jakkatu prisoners work the mines....