It was entertaining

I picked up this anthology because I'd heard about it from somewhere and thought it might be an interesting sampler for a collection of today's better urban fantasy authors. While I've heard of some of the authors, the only one I'd ever read anything of was Jim Butcher, so I came in here with no clue as to the nature of the worlds or the kind of storytelling I was expecting.

Unfortunately, many of these made poor short stories for the simple reason that they had to expound huge amounts of backstory for you to understand the world, or they didn't and you then didn't understand what was going on.

I kind of expected the best of the set to be Jim Butcher's, and I wasn't wrong. While there is a vast array of background in Harry Dresden's world, you didn't need to know much of it to get the story or the characters, and Butcher does not reveal it if you don't need to know. The story is pretty cool too.

I had heard good things about Simon R Green and I'm sorry to say that his story put me off his Darkside series entirely. I didn't like the characters or the storytelling.

Lori Handeland's "There Will be Demons" has the only decent sex scene in it. (If you're looking at that cover and title, and expecting something sexy, don't be fooled.) Beyond that, it appeared to make essentially no sense. Snow Job by Carole Nelson Douglas suffered badly from the author's desire to place the story within a series. If I heard "Post Millennium Revelation Vegas" one more time I might have shot something. Cherry Kisses by Erica Hayes and The Aracane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn were good enough, I enjoyed them, but they didn't make me want to hunt down more books, and the remaining tales were just basically filler, from my point of view.

Maybe, if you are enthused over the series these fall into, you would get more out of the stories. I would not say this was a complete loss, and it did keep me entertained to some degree, but it's nothing to write home about.

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4 people found this helpful

poorly narrated

Reading would be far better than this audio book. The voices overpower the stories vs narrating them. Terrible accents. Not written for audio so terrible when written in third person - lots of "he said". if the voices were well narrated you wouldn't need that. I'll stick to Will Patton.

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Great taster for a bunch of authors

Really enjoyed this and a good taste of a group of different authors. Different narrators is nice too.

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Anthology

Book's overall rating ★★★½ Stars
Really enjoyed ‘'Bigfoot on Campus'' by Jim Butcher, definitely the best story by far & in a total league of it’s own. In my opinion this story & ''Holly’s Balm'' by Rachel Caine saved the book from a far lower overall rating

''Retribution Clause" – Book 5.6 (Kate Daniels) by Ilona Andrews - ★★★½ Stars
''Bigfoot on Campus" – Book 11.9 (The Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher - ★★★★★
''Holly’s Balm'' – Part 2 (Holly & Andrew) by Rachel Caine - ★★★★
''Snow Job'"– Book 5.1 (Delilah Street) by Carole Nelson Douglas - ★ Star
''Outside the Box" – by P.N. Elrod - ★★★½ Stars
''How Do You Feel?"– Book 6.5 (Nightside) by Simon R. Green - ★★½ Stars
''There Will Be Demons"– Book 0.5 (Phoenix Chronicles) by Lori Handeland - ★ - Horrid ending
''Cherry Kisses"– Book 4.5 (The Shadowfae Chronicles) by Erica Hayes - ★★½ Stars

Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden Files - The Bigfoot Trilogy
Part 1 - ''Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron" – ''B is for Bigfoot" (Dresden Files Bk 2.5)
Part 2 - ''Blood Lite III: Aftertaste" – ''I was a Teenage Bigfoot'' (Dresden Files Bk 6.5)
Part 3 - ''Hex Appeal" – ''Bigfoot on Campus" (Dresden Files Bk 11.9)
(This trilogy has now been released altogether in ''Working for Bigfoot’')

(Holly & Andrew) by Rachel Caine
(Holly & Andrew Part 1) found in- ‘Strange Brew’- "Death Warmed Over"
(Holly & Andrew Part 2) found in- ‘Hex Appeal’- "Holly’s Balm"
(Holly & Andrew Part 3) found in- ‘Kicking It’- " Forked Tongues"
I would recommend reading 'Death Warmed Over' first so able to fully enjoy this really good series of short stories :)

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5 people found this helpful

Not a total loss

I picked up this anthology because I'd heard about it from somewhere and thought it might be an interesting sampler for a collection of today's better urban fantasy authors. While I've heard of some of the authors, the only one I'd ever read anything of was Jim Butcher, so I came in here with no clue as to the nature of the worlds or the kind of storytelling I was expecting.



Unfortunately, many of these made poor short stories for the simple reason that they had to expound huge amounts of backstory for you to understand the world, or they didn't and you then didn't understand what was going on.



I kind of expected the best of the set to be Jim Butcher's, and I wasn't wrong. While there is a vast array of background in Harry Dresden's world, you didn't need to know much of it to get the story or the characters, and Butcher does not reveal it if you don't need to know. The story is pretty cool too.



I had heard good things about Simon R Green and I'm sorry to say that his story put me off his Darkside series entirely. I didn't like the characters or the storytelling.



Lori Handeland's "There Will be Demons" has the only decent sex scene in it. (If you're looking at that cover and title, and expecting something sexy, don't be fooled.) Beyond that, it appeared to make essentially no sense. Snow Job by Carole Nelson Douglas suffered badly from the author's desire to place the story within a series. If I heard "Post Millennium Revelation Vegas" one more time I might have shot something. Cherry Kisses by Erica Hayes and The Aracane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn were good enough, I enjoyed them, but they didn't make me want to hunt down more books, and the remaining tales were just basically filler, from my point of view.



Maybe, if you are enthused over the series these fall into, you would get more out of the stories. I would not say this was a complete loss, and it did keep me entertained to some degree, but it's nothing to write home about.

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You reported this review!