I love anthologies. They’re one of the few kinds of books that I can pick up for a short period of time and put down and still feel like I’ve had a decent meal–from Once Upon a Time to Happy (or not so happy) Ending in the space of a lunch hour. The Fair Folk, editied by Marvin Kaye, is a wonderful example because every single story in it is like a delicious little meal all on it’s own. Six stories by seven relatively well known authors in the fantasy genre, bound by one thing they have in common: the fair folk. The book uses all kinds of words to describe them. In some stories the term refers to brownies, in some to Lord of the Rings-esque Elves, sometimes it means fairies, but never the small dainty kind with wings, and in one rather memorable tale, it means goblins and changelings.

“UOUS” by Tanith Lee is probably my favorite of the six. Her storytelling style always gets to me, sucks me in and won’t let me go till she’s done. In “UOUS” she gives us a standard fairy tale turned on it’s head: a Cinderella type girl, a wicked stepmother and two vain and selfish stepsisters, a Faerie King, and three wishes that do not come cheaply at all. Lois, the main character is smart mouthed and witty, but also observant, and I love her descriptions of things:

“Unmum bought the place, which was enormous, and she and the Boyfriend (Decrepit James) said they’d do it up. Because it was falling apart, the house. I mean literally. Slabs would detach from the ceilings and reallocate to the floors. Cracks ran busily up the walls, wanting to reach the ceilings before all of the ceilings had fallen down. Moss and mould appeared more regularly than the mail. Rain and birds came through the roof and mice, and nice big (disease carrying?) rats from the cellars. The wail: Ooh, there’s a rat in the shower/bed/wardrobe/fridge was an everyday feature…”

And the twist on the tale is nice and refreshing, far from the saccharine coated confections of Disney films.

Megan Lindholm, (aka Robin Hobb), writes a sometimes hilarious story of a slob who finds himself playing host to an overzealous brownie–that loves DIY shows and Martha Stewart with a passion. I found myself chuckling constantly throughout “Grace Notes” and marveling over what appears to be a fairly accurate portrayal of a male trying to fathom the intricacies of home decoration. When the brownie starts redoing his bedroom in a tropical theme and replacing his soap you know it’s going to get BAD. It’s also a fairly cute little love story, if you’re into those sorts of things.

“The Kelpie” by Patricia A. McKillip is another instant favorite. McKillip has always been a lover of the arts, and this time she turns to the artist’s studios of a pseudo-Victorian world to write a story about a love triangle between three artists: the Nice Guy, the Bad Boy, and the girl who is caught between them and Faerie in an very interesting way. I know I’m doing poor service trying to describe this one, but I very much enjoyed it. As an artist myself, it also proved to be a strong enough Muse to inspire me.

Kim Newman’s “The Gypsies in the Woods” started out slow, and I wasn’t sure at first if I was going to like it. In the end, however, it turned out to be the most engrossing of the six stories. A detective for a special branch of the government is caught up in a series of mysterious events, first in a small village in (Victorian?) England where a pair of children have inexplicably disappeared, and then, several years later, in London where fatal accidents are occurring at a Faerie themed tourist attraction. The events are linked, and the story also involves art in a very interesting way. If you can just get past the heavy beginning, the rest of the tale flows smoothly, until you’re as caught up in the events as the characters.

Strangely I found Craig Shaw Gardner’s “An Embarrassment of Elves” a little flat. It was the most obviously humorous of the stories, another of his Ebenezum tales. But the overabundance of characters who were all there seemingly so they could indulge in banter got a little annoying, and simply confused the already confusing plot. For a story that’s not meant to have much plot at all, that’s definitely a strike against. The style was good, however, and I think if I’d ever read any of his other stories in the same vein I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Similarly confusing, but somewhat more engaging and easier to follow is the joint story effort by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder. Narrated through letters between two exiled Faerie sisters, “Except the Queen” tells the story of the sisters as they adjust to life in our world, and discover there’s still some magic left here after all. This one is very much an urban fantasy and I adored that aspect of it, the two elderly sisters have very separate personalities and the plot develops rather quickly. I think the only thing that really bothered me about this was how cloying their relationship was and how convoluted the language. I love my own sister very much, but I sincerely doubt I’d spend every letter referring to her as “my dearest, sweetest sister” etc. And while I’m sure the archaic language was meant to convey how otherworldly and eternal the sisters are, it bogged the story down more often than not.

Overall, though, all six were very good tales (even the confusing ones), and I’d highly recommend this anthology to anyone who loves fairies and goblins and who knows that Faerie was never meant to be cloaked in sugar spun stories… these creatures are seldom kind, and even then not without a price.

Novel rating: Fireworks

Cover rating: Sizzling

I actually saw the cover for this book long before I found the book itself. The cover is by fantasy artist J.P. Targete and, in my opinion, is one of his best. You can buy prints of it through his deviant art store here: The Fair Folk (painting)

A race of aliens once lived on the future Earth colony called Harmony, leaving behind them the ruins of a vast, beautiful, and mysterious culture that is still protected by the psychic illusion traps and eerie ghosts that they created. Lydia Smith is an archaeologist who can resonate and dissolve the illusions, and those talents, combined with her lack of finances and questionable professional reputation, make her the obvious hire for Emmett London, who is trying to track down a lost antique and the nephew who stole it. Lydia’s first consulting job quickly turns dangerous, however, as corpses, ghosts, and illusion traps start popping up–not to mention the rather unprofessional electricity between her and her first client. -from Amazon.com Editorial Review

This is actually the second Krentz/Castle book I’ve read set in Harmony. A few months back I read Silver Master, and throughly enjoyed it. I wasn’t so sure if she’d pull that off again in After Dark, though.

I really liked the characters in this book. Lydia is really level-headed and determined, despite having been through some very rough spots in her life recently, but she never comes off as headstrong or reckless. I liked that. Usually you get these chick characters who insist that they have to accompany the hero into the Dark Scary Place because they’re trying to prove something, but whatever they have to offer is usually just excess baggage or a convenient excuse to get them in there so they can be the unwilling hostage or catalyst that causes the hero to fight harder or something. In this case, however, Lydia has a legitimate excuse for going to the Dark Scary Place and she turns out to be very necessary to the success of the hero. Nor does she turn into an unwilling hostage or victim by going. Hooray for strong heroines!

Also admirably, Emmett doesn’t really try hard to stop her. Hooray for level-headed heroes! Emmett is a great male lead, too. He’s strong and very controlled and focused, but not given to showboating or over-protectiveness. He doesn’t fight the fact that he’s attracted to Lydia, and unlike many male characters who find themselves unwittingly attracted to their co-worker or partner in crime, he doesn’t let it become an obsession or disrupt his focus. Instead of endlessly angsting over it, he just sort of thinks: okay, there’s a spark here, but I don’t really have time to dwell on it, more important things going on. That’s not to say that they don’t eventually hook up (c’mon its a romance, what’d you expect), but when they do it doesn’t become a major plot point.

The plot itself is sufficiently suspenseful and intriguing. Lots of dead bodies popping up, a couple of red herrings, interesting plot twists keep you immersed in the mystery, and I didn’t actually figure out who the culprit behind it was until right about the time everyone else did. The end got wrapped up pretty quick, but there were enough plot threads left dangling for a sequel, After Glow, which I now have to go find.

My only real complaint about this series, however, is how often the slang reflects the world’s peculiarities. Not sure if I’m making sense on this, but let me try to explain. For two hundred years or so the humans on Harmony have been able to psychically “resonate” with the stone amber. This has actually taken the place of electricity for many things (turning on computers, starting your car, “keying” open locked doors, etc.), but it also gives certain members of the populace with more than the normal amount of ability special powers (the ability to find and disarm illusion traps, or to call up “ghosts”, for example). Most of the slang in the story revolves around this ability “rezzing-up” is getting excited, rez-screens are like TVs, etc. but it creeps into all kinds of odd things. What, for example is “rez-tea” and why can’t it just be tea? I mean, if you live in a world day in and day out, and these abilities are common, wouldn’t they be more taken for granted? Aside from that, I don’t mind some of the exploration of how the planet came to be settled or some of the slightly technical explanations of how they do things.

Something I do like: the dustbunnies. Dustbunnies are apparently native to the planet Harmony. Small six-legged balls of fluff that move so quickly they almost seem to float, with two sets of eyes (normal ones and hunting eyes that only open when they’re agitated), and vicious fangs, they’re also absolutely adorable as pets. They were heavily featured in Silver Master, and one makes an appearance in After Dark. They’re adorable, and I want one… even if they are just figments of Krentz’s imagination.

Book rating: sizzles

Cover rating: confused…

Apparently I have an unusual copy of the book. The cover above is the cover shown on Amazon and Library Thing and in any Google searches I turned up. My cover, however, is gold, with a picture of the “hero” on it. Oddly, (or maybe not so), it’s the exact same model they used for the cover of Silver Master, and also on the cover of Ghost Hunter (another in the Harmony series). He’s even wearing the same clothes (leather pants, open leather vest over a bare chest)–which makes it even odder for him to be on the cover of After Dark because Emmett never wears anything aside from business suits or jeans and t-shirt. So I guess I’m kind of confused regarding this cover. I’d much rather have had the one shown in the image above.

Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father—the one responsible for ruining her mother’s life. Then she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.

In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner—are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn’t have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

I read Halfway to the Grave during my flight back from San Francisco yesterday. I picked it up in the airport bookshop, anticipating it to be a “quick” read. Happily, it wasn’t, since the flight was delayed a bit, and I ended up finishing it just as the plane landed at home.

I’ve been a little turned off by vampire novels recently, so this was sort of a last ditch buy, and at first, I’ll admit that I wasn’t impressed. Most of the vampire world in Ms. Frost’s novel seems to be lifted from Anne Rice’s with a liberal dash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer thrown in, and a vampire slayer heroine who calls herself “Cat Raven” is so cliche it makes my canines hurt. I also wasn’t initially impressed with the hero either. While her first two encounters with Bones are somewhat sexy, he comes off as almost goofy later on, sort of a British Vampire Yoda hyped up on too much sugar. His frequent use of old-school British slang seems more affected than natural, though thankfully it tapers off as the novel progresses. His bad boy side also reasserts itself often enough to redeem him for the cracked-out Yoda bit at the beginning.

The action is pretty intense. Cat makes no bones (haha) over the fact that she’s a killer, although it takes her a little while to understand that she’s not just exterminating evil pests but people who happen to not have a pulse. The author also delves into some pretty heavy issues now and then, including the white slave trade, date rape, genocide, and xenophobia. Strangely, for a book about evil vampires doing nasty things to people, it’s the people who I felt the least sympathy towards. Almost all of the human characters (with one exception) are, if not outright evil, mostly unsympathetic. Cat’s mother was my least favorite character: her blatant use of her daughter to get revenge on the vampire who attacked her tips fairly quickly over the line into contemptible.

Still, the novel manages to stay afloat thanks to the author playfully tossing us some very hot action in between the chunks of exposition. The romance that develops between Cat and Bones sizzles and the sex scenes steam, although I think they might have jumped to the L-word a little too fast. Admittedly, Bones is a few hundred years old and he’s seen enough that it’s not inconceivable that he’d recognize his soul-mate right off, but his admission, when it comes, seems a little anticlimactic. Thankfully, Cat holds out a bit longer. The fight scenes are believable and well paced; and the author manages to walk the fine line between keeping us in the dark enough to be suspenseful and giving us enough information so we know what’s going on (although sometimes the lumps of exposition are a bit too big to chew).

The ending has a bit of a cliffhanger, although I found myself a little confused by how it all played out right at the end. I’m hoping some of that will be resolved in book two. Overall, I liked it enough that I think I’ll add the sequel to my To-Be-Read list when it comes out in April.

Novel rating: Slow boil

Cover rating: Sizzling

This novel has one of the most beautiful photomanipulated covers I’ve seen to date. There’s nothing in it that screams “manipulated”, and the model is just lovely and very true to the character in the book. I’ll give the font choice a passing grade, though. Morpheus has been around long enough to be cliche.