I don't think Tolkien would have a very high opinion of this collection.

Three and a half stars. Kind of a mixed bag. Loved the story by Emma Bull andthe one by Judith Tarr. Didn’t care for the Greg Benford story. But most of them were pretty good.

Well. Some of the stories are very good, some are okay, and some are awful. worth reading: "Troll Bridge" (some profanity), "Faith" (death/violence), "The Fellowship of the Dragon," "Nine Threads of Gold," "The Conjure Man," "Silver or Gold," "Up the Side of the Air," "Winter's King" (mature content), "Death and the Lady" (some mature content)read with caution: "Reave the Just" (sexual content), "In the Season of the Dressing of the Wells" (sexual content, violence, strange religious content), "...

I could not finish this book which is something that rarely happens. Stories are of rather uneven quality and I couldn't actually grasp why some of them were in this anthology. Some are reminiscent of Tolkien's works in theme or setting but others does not to seem to have anything in common with them. Too little to keep me going till the end, unfortunately.

about 30% of the stories I liked.

Shhhh... Listen... Hear it?That's the sound of J. R. R. Tolkien spinning in his grave over the fact that this anthology is said to be in his honor.Please.None of the stories in this volume are Tolkienesque in the slightest. While one does mention Hobbits and another mentions Halflings and there are Goblins and Elves and a Troll, that's where the similarity ends.Granted, I've only read The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, but I don't recall Leprechauns and Sugar Plum Fairies. And

Not a winner. I've been reading this on and off, a story here or there, for the last 6 months. Despite the stellar list of authors, many of whom are long-time favourites of mine, it just didn't work for me. None of these stories were particularly fabulous examples of any of the authors work, and the attempts to imitate Tolkien's style fell flat. Tolkien, for good or worse, remains for me eminently friendly and readable, and often deeply humorous, whereas a lot of these stories just plodded.

I usually tend to skip books which have "Tolkien" flaunted on the cover, but are written by other authors. Terrible experiences to blame here. But this one is actually good. Not tolkienesque in the narrow sense of the term, no companies of heroes embarking on quests to defeat evil dark lords in this book. No fair haired elves walking on snow, no hobbits smoking and chatting over the freshly brewed ale, no wizards with pointy hats. Well, almost none. But certainly none of the cheep imitations whi...

This anthology is a tribute to J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, books which had a substantial impact on the fantasy genre. Thirty or so authors have contributed stories inspired by Tolkien. As with many such works, the quality of the writing here varies from story to story. Most are good to excellent, making it an enjoyable read.But let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. A few stories seem out of place in the volume. Gregory Benford's "Down the River R...

This is a decent, reasonably eclectic collection of fantasy stories, "in honor of J. R. R. Tolkien." However, in many cases, the Tolkien connection is difficult to discern, except insofar as one can argue that all modern fantasy can be traced, one way or another, to Tolkien's influence and achievements. Indeed, the two stories that most explicitly reference Tolkien (Mike Resnick's "Revolt of the Sugar Plum Fairies," which mentions hobbits, and Dennis L. McKiernan's "The Halfling House," which fe...

Some masters of the genre contribute to this book that honors J.R.R. Tolkien. Strong stories from Andre Norton, Patricia A. McKillip, Emma Bull and others. There are also the usual his and misses you find in any collection of short stories - some yawners, some clunkers. What the book misses is some explanations from the authors as to why they included or wrote a particular short story as a celebration of Tolkien, how did Tolkien’s life or work influence them? That could have tied this collection...

I'm rereading this book, and it's fascinating to me that the stories I loved the most when I first read this book now seem like some of the most unnuanced and formulaic, while the ones I used to think were "boring" are now among my favorites.The ones I used to think were creepy, though, apparently can still give me nightmares.

The title is very misleading. Several of the stories were very good but none of them seemed even remotely Tolkienesque. This just seems like an excuse for most of these authors to get a short story published either to see what the fan reception would be or to earn a few extra bucks.

An interesting collection of stories to honour J R R Tolkien. I loved the Terry Pratchett’s ‘Troll Bridge’ and John Brunner’s ‘In the season of the Dressing of the Wells. I liked all of the other stories, except for Gregory Benford’s ‘Down the River Road’ which I found difficult and confusing.

I’ve taken on another short story compilation today, against my better judgement. But on to After the King , a compilation of fantasy (and kinda sci-fi, and some vaguely supernatural) short stories dedicated to the father of high fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien. And it’s edited by my favorite editor, Martin H. Greenberg, who I swear has his fingers in everything.Reave the Just is not a name invoked lightly. Legends tell of his prowess in dispensing of the wicked of the world. His is a name with pow...

I've been reading this one and off for over a year and finally got to the end. It's quite a mix of stories, very few of which having an obvious connection to Tolkien's work, some even being science fiction at heart. I don't read a lot of fantasy (I bought this for the Terry Pratchett short story, "Troll Bridge") but there's a few authors here I might investigate further.

Lovely tribute to one of the best fantasy authors ever, JRR Tolkien. Don't miss Terry Prachett's entry about a troll family.

As a whole this is exactly what I was expecting from this anthology. For the most part I enjoyed the majority of the stories, with a few standouts and a few heavily missing the mark. For the whole though the bulk of the stories felt very Tolkien inspired to me, without feeling like they we copying or unoriginal. The detailed star rating of each individual story and my quick thoughts as well will be given below. Reave the Just: 1 star A short story with as many mentions of rape as this one was fa...

For the most part, I found the majority of these tales plodding and tedious and pointless. Truly, the best of the batch were Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge and Emma Bull’s Silver or Gold. The short story format felt cleanest in those tales.I enjoyed Karen Harber’s Up the Side of the Air, and and at least Yolen’s Winter King felt like a fairy tale. I know so many of the authors in the list and like them, I just...couldn’t get into this collection. It’s too uneven.

Took me nearly two years to finish this! As with most anthologies, I liked a few of the stories better and the ones I didn't like really slowed me down. My favourites were by Terry Pratchett, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Patricia A McKillip, Emma Bull, and Judith Tarr.