Flying Sorcerers : More Comic Tales of Fantasy (1997)

see http://www.sfsite.com/01a/sorc48.htm ( )

Not funny.

Ok well, it's slightly funny sometimes. But basically these are not the best offerings of any of the writers selected, many of whom are otherwise really well known for either their humour or the quality of their writing. Even the tery Pratchett story isn't funny. This is perhaps the key point, some of these are very good short stories but they aren't funny. Not even slightly comic. They are examples of fantasy and SF short stories broadly divided into Fantasy, Supernatural and SF. Each story is introduced by P Haining, a very brief bio of the author and some of their key works followed by an almost spoiler of the short story, adn then the story itself. Not one of Haining introductions was interesting, informative, funny or otherwise worth reading.

There are 24 stories in the book which ar 383 pages makes many of them quite short indeed. Some have appeared in other collections but many were totally new to me. And make a very good introduction into the works of some authors I didn't know, but will have to follow up. Of particular note:
The adventure of the Martian moons, a Sherlock holmes pastiche set on mars with a robo-sherlock; Specialist by Robert Sheckly on the variety of aliens; A good Shellacking by Stanislaw Lem - always a favourite author, this is a neat competition betwen two inventors; Possible to Rue by Piers Anthony - dictonary related puns.

Overall though, it fails in its tated purpose of being a collection of comic fantasy - at least half isn't fantasy at all, and probably less than half is actually comic. ( )

This is the second collection of short stories edited by Peter Haining. I enjoyed it very much - the stories themselves are great, but I enjoyed the brief introductory comments just as much. The editor gives us a lightning resume of the authors life and other works and the odd entertaining anecdote too. He also briefly puts the story into the context of the development of the genre.

A great way to broaden your list of "authors I buy".
I have now put the first of these books (The Wizards of Odd) on my wish list. ( )