As with any anthology of short stories, most people will have some stories that they favor, and some that they regret wasting time on, this anthology is no different. My personal favorites were "Fireflies" and "Wereotica," my least favorites were "Deja Vu" and "Secrete Identities." But I won't waste time critiquing such a varying array of stories, authors, and methods of tale-telling. No, instead I intend to critique the editors. The editors did an absolutely horrible job of doing their job. The book was littered with misspellings and I do not mean colloquial misspellings such as color v. colour, but honest misspellings such as ohone instead of phone...and no, the tail wasn't simply cut off the 'p' because the 'o' was perfectly rounded instead of being partially flattened as the 'p' is want to be. Other crimes against editing found were periods mid-sentence (and not the type used to add emphasis) as well as tense changing mid-sentence. The editing job done was really and truly lazy. ( )

Overall, the collection was entertaining enough, though only a few of the stories stood out for me. Among these are "Starless and Bible Black" by Gary A. Braunbeck, "Folk Lure" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, "Fixer-Upper" by Tim Waggoner, and "Déjà Vu" by Michelle West. I also enjoyed the urban wit of "Werotica" by Esther M. Friesner. Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Secret Identities" was excellent, as was Charles De Lint's "Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café," which was my favorite piece in the anthology. ( )