Creature Fantastic

Rating:
Summary: A Great Mix of Mystical Creatures
Review: CREATURE FANTASTIC is an excellent mix of stories about mystical creatures, both the standard (dragons, unicorns, phoenixes) and some you aren't as likely to see elsewhere (the Questing Beast, for example, and a fairy dog). True; I'm biased--my story, "Yes, Virginia, there IS a Unicorn," allowed me to have some fun with the blitz of unicorn products out there and still, I hope, keep the ideal alive. But I thoroughly enjoyed the other stories in the anthology as well. Another "Fantastic" book!

Rating:
Summary: Dynamite anthology
Review: Forget those mighty wizards and unbeatable sorceresses, and ignore those Hobbits and Orks all of whom magically make the fantasy genre what it is. Instead this anthology concentrates on the mythological and the mundane animal kingdom that enables fantasy writers to make their worlds seem real. The stories are wonderful and quite surprising yet each one bewitches the reader. The tales include a trip to the mall to find unicorns, listen to a Kierkegaard quoting a familiar, an endangered species candidate - dragons not protected by the EPA, a Phoenix sick of the life and death cycle, and even cats and dogs. Regardless of the creature each tale is fantastic, as genre fans will agree that Yes, Virginia, there is animal magic in this collection.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Dynamite anthology
Review: Forget those mighty wizards and unbeatable sorceresses, and ignore those Hobbits and Orks all of whom magically make the fantasy genre what it is. Instead this anthology concentrates on the mythological and the mundane animal kingdom that enables fantasy writers to make their worlds seem real. The stories are wonderful and quite surprising yet each one bewitches the reader. The tales include a trip to the mall to find unicorns, listen to a Kierkegaard quoting a familiar, an endangered species candidate - dragons not protected by the EPA, a Phoenix sick of the life and death cycle, and even cats and dogs. Regardless of the creature each tale is fantastic, as genre fans will agree that Yes, Virginia, there is animal magic in this collection.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: 15 stories covering an assortment of beasts
Review: Good - excellent story content, indifferent copyediting.

Braunbeck, Gary: The narrator had never seen "The Fields, the Sky" until Theseus, leaving him for dead in the Labyrinth, failed to re-seal the secret entrance after his own escape. This interpretation of the Minotaur is more complex than the typical man-with-bull's-head. Imprisoned from birth for sins not his own, rejecting the gods whose erratic compassion failed to succor him, his bitter loneliness as the only one of his kind between the fields and the sky leads him to seek worship, however pathetic.

Edghill, India: "A Phoenix Too Frequent", as the one creature created to evade the rule that all things must die in their season, finds that immortality carries its own punishment.

Edghill, Rosemary: Despite his noted tightfistedness, after a particularly rich haul the raider Fadring makes "A Gift of Two Gray Horses" to the old woman and boy of Owl Farm, living in lonely poverty at the edge of human settlement. A cruel gift - they can barely keep their goats alive, let alone horses. Only one thing isn't explained by Fadring's cruelty: his fear...

Elrod, P.N.: Ellen's cardboard villain ex seeks to take away her one financial support - her tea room - while hiding his own assets, adding insult to injury with a smear campaign. However, one of her customers knows enough magic to call up "The Tea Room Beasts" - a matched quartet of elemental spirits who can achieve some 'balance' for Ellen. (Elrod pays lip service to the threefold rule of magical consequences only long enough to brush it aside, on the theory that Ellen's former pain can offset HUGE payback.)

Hightshoe, Carol: The narrator, an immortal werewolf whose curse drove him to despair long ago, has come to sing his "Midnight Song" at his wife's grave.

Jocks, Von: "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Unicorn", embodying an ideal. The story revolves around The Maiden and the Unicorn, an independent shop in a small mall protected by a *real* unicorn, whom few have eyes to see. The 3rd person viewpoint switches between the unicorn, on maiden patrol (e.g., petty thieves have a rough life here), and the two shop assistants, on the day their boss deals with yet another attempted buyout. *Not* sappy.

Luzier, Pamela: "The Dragon and the Maiden" Wenda saved herself for marriage, hoping to better her lot. Unfortunately, the knight who looked so promising turns out to have a jealous fiancee, so Wenda is left as an offering for the dragon who has just settled into the neighbourhood. But he, as it happens, is an exile from China. "I don't eat humans. What kind of people are you, anyway?"

Nye, Jody Lynn: "Father Noe's Bestiary" is his collection of *very* realistic monster paintings. He says he's a priest who turned wizard in the Middle Ages, and calls himself the first conservationist. The neighbourhood thinks he's a holy man, and crazy, and watches out for him. See also "Through the Needle's Eye" in Norton's _High Sorcery_.

Rabe, Jean: "In Quest of the Beast" A young SCA enthusiast and budding medieval scholar, being also an underfunded undergrad, finds herself pursued by Pellinore's Questing Beast - and *not* TH White's warm/fuzzy version.

Rodgers, Alan: When Cab Callolee, wandering storyteller, saw the hunting party returning with the corpse of a unicorn, he was shocked to the core that the prince plans to dine on "Unicorn Stew".

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn: "Destiny" The flip side of the opening incident from _The Fey: The Sacrifice_. The magical Fey, despite the name, are mortal; their king wants to rule as much of the world as possible before he dies. Newly-conquered Nye still hasn't grasped the situation; their unwariness around animals, particularly cats, gave Solanda, with her shapeshifter abilities, a tremendous advantage as a pampered pet by day and a deliverer of intelligence reports by night. In the peaceful post-conquest occupation, she finds that her feelings for the Nye family who don't know the truth about their "pet" are more complex than a desire for creature comforts.

Schmidt, Dennis A.: "A Nessy Mess" As in Hawke's _Wizard of 4th Street_ series, catastrophe has ushered magic into the world. The narrator's a former history professor turned free-lance wizard with a smart-aleck Rottweiler familiar. Their current job is to remove a Ness monster from Central Park's lake.

Sherman, Josepha: "Nothin' But a Hound Dog" Setting = urban fantasy, a la Lackey's _Knight of Ghosts and Shadows_. The narrator, a story-teller, adopts a scruffy green-eyed mutt who follows her home, to discover a white coat and red ears under all that dirt. But he seems to be just a very bright mutt...

Sizemore, Susan: "Coming to America" When Aril's father says he may be a changeling, he doesn't mean what you might expect. Aril's family are themselves of the Fair Folk, having emigrated from Ireland with a family who supplied the belief they needed. They're barely hanging on; only the mortals' eldest grandmother survived to reach the late 19th-century tenements of New York, and the American Dream has displaced other immigrants' old beliefs. But Aril has one mortal friend who believes in him enough to *see* him, although young Adolph doesn't know what he is. Through him, Aril's family may find a new way to survive in the New World. (Hint: If you don't recognize Adolph by the ending of the story, he changed his first name in 1938, and his given name was never his best known sobriquet anyhow.) :)

West, Michelle:"The Last Flight" A grandfather, who is much more than the ordinary mortal he seems, spends his last evening with his granddaughter in the park where he met her grandmother.