Sharyn November

A collection of short stories from authors with books published by Firebird, a YA fantasy imprint. YA fantasy spans a wide range of reader maturity, and that range is evident in this collection. Nancy Springer's sugar-coated, condescendingly stupid "Mariposa" (which I hated, if you can't tell) is apparently directed at five-year-olds, while Garth Nix's awesome, bloody "Hope Chest" wouldn't be out of place in an adult horror collection. With the obvious exception of the Springer story, most show more of the stories ranged from middling-good (Sherwood Smith's "Beauty") to awesomely great (Nix). I was familiar with most of the authors (which included Lloyd Alexander, Emma Bull, (illustrator) Charles Vess, Diana Wynne Jones, and Patricia A. McKillip), but the anthology has spurred me to find further books by two unfamiliar authors. Megan Whalen Turner's "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" manages to be funny and sweet without being cloying ("Mariposa," I am looking at you!), and Elizabeth E. Wein's "Chasing the Wind" is a charming story about a teenage girl's 1950 airplane flight across Africa. show less

Firebirds Rising was a lot like Firebirds - some stories I loved, some I liked a lot, most were interesting to read, some were odd, and a couple I didn't like very much at all.

I enjoyed Alison Goodman's "The Real Thing" as it follows on from one of my favourite novels, Singing the Dogstar Blues (although it wasn't as good as the latter), and loved both Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" and Sharon Shinn's "Wintermoon Wish". Other favourites were Ellen Klages "In the House of Seven show more Librarians" and Kara Dalkey's "Hives". Also, I was surprised I didn't mind Tanith Lee's short story, because the only novel by her I've tried to read was something I didn't finish, with very good reason. show less

Authors who have been published under the Firebird imprint are YA fantasy authors I either grew up reading or wish I'd grown up reading.

There's no theme to this collection, but a few trends became apparent as I read. One was of strong, female characters who don't need to get the guy at the end. This is a refreshing take on feminist fantasy, which often features strong female characters who still end up marrying their one true love at the end of a book or series. The first story in the show more anthology, Delia Sherman's "Cotillion," is a modern fairy tale, where at the end the guy says, "You saved me. I want to marry you," and the girl's response is, "I hardly know you." "Don't you love me?" he asks, and she answers, "I might. I just met you. I don't know." I was pleased and impressed. Similarly, the end of Sherwood Smith's tale, "Beauty," has her protagonist--who has learned more about being fair and just, and inner beauty, than about love--saying, "But I am not languishing at a window, or watching the northern road. Because I'll know he'll be back."

Another tale along those lines is "The Lady of the Ice Garden," a gorgeous retelling of "The Snow Queen." I loved the resetting of the story in the Heian Period of Japan; it was fitting in tone and imagery. And I appreciated Kara Dalkey's attempt to rejig the ending: instead of rescuing her childhood friend, the girl learns that the boy who hurt her is not worthy of her. I like where she's going with it, but it feels forced and abrupt in execution. A better feminist retelling of a classic story is Meredith Ann Pierce's "The Fall of Ys." (Michael Cadnum's "Medusa" is also a feminist retelling, but not nearly so well-done as Pierce's.)

Nancy Springer's "Mariposa" is a fun little tale about a young woman who has lost her soul--a quite common affliction, apparently. When she regains it, she realizes how unfulfilling her high-powered career and life were, and ditches her engagement ring (marking a relationship to another high-powered, soulless individual) with a "Lord in heaven! What was I thinking?" There are plenty of other stories in the anthology that are similarly fun and enjoyable, without having much depth: some I ate up like candy, while others didn't really impress me. There are simply too many stories, and I cannot touch upon them all!

Of course, they didn't all feature strong girls and women. Lloyd Alexander's "Max Mondrosch" was a surreal story of an everyman who can't find a job, which reminded me of the type of story I would try to write (and so I liked it quite a bit). "Little Dot," by Diana Wynn Jones, although containing some magical elements, was largely about a group of cats doing what cats do best: snubbing the woman who has taken their human's attention away from where it should be (which is doting on them). This is one of my favorites, as it perfectly depicts cats and their neuroticisms within the context of a fun good vs. evil story.

Perhaps my favorite of the collection was Megan Whalen Turner's "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box." It was simply a well-crafted little tale of a girl named Penny who grows up in the bank in which she was deposited as a baby, and there was much to laugh at throughout. The whole story was just charming, particularly the ending.

Aside from the stories, I really enjoyed the Author's Notes for each tale, which was a really neat addition. I think I most appreciated this for Garth Nix's "Hope Chest." I liked the story; it was another fun little story about an abandoned baby girl who grows into her destiny, but with Nix's familiar dark twist and tone. I just wasn't sure that I got it, or whether there was something I was supposed to 'get' from it. But Nix's author's note made it clear that he still had the same questions! show less

This is one of the better anthologies I've read. All anthologies are something of a mixed bag. The reader's taste very seldom meshes exactly with the editor's, or the editor has had to make some compromises along the way. Firebirds is substantially above average.

The book is helped, of course, by having some very big names in SFF - [a:Lloyd Alexander|8924|Lloyd Alexander|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1200328980p2/8924.jpg], [a:Patricia A. McKillip|25|Patricia A. show more McKillip|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1220752490p2/25.jpg], [a:Garth Nix|8347|Garth Nix|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1207583754p2/8347.jpg], to name a few. Aside from her first couple of books, I've never read anything by McKillip that wasn't terrific, and that's true here.

The value of anthologies is in introducing readers to new authors. Here, I read a story ("Beauty") by [a:Sherwood Smith|12350|Sherwood Smith|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1339177179p2/12350.jpg], an author I'd never heard of. I was struck by how well developed the world was for a short story. It turns out that's because it is a well developed world. But I nonetheless immediately went out and bought the related novel, [b:Crown Duel|21060|Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1-2)|Sherwood Smith|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309213505s/21060.jpg|4398231]. I'll be looking up [a:Nancy Farmer|8360|Nancy Farmer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1207168030p2/8360.jpg] as well. But this anthology also has some other surprises. "Max Mondrosch" was a startling departure from the Lloyd Alexander of the Chronicles of Prydain ([b:The Book of Three|24780|The Book of Three (The Chronicles of Prydain, #1)|Lloyd Alexander|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791689s/24780.jpg|1149593]), but no less good because of it.

The editor says she built the book around a graphic novel by [a:Emma Bull|22548|Emma Bull|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1220945364p2/22548.jpg] and [a:Charles Vess|10763|Charles Vess|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1273720560p2/10763.jpg], and I looked forward to it. I'm sorry to say that that story is by far the weakest in the book. Happily, almost all the other stories range from good to excellent.

In short, well worth picking up. show less