Sharyn November

This is the second anthology of fantasy and science fiction short stories from Firebirds, and I enjoyed it quite as much as I had the first.

The standouts here were Diana Wynne Jones's "I'll Give You My Word," about a boy who babbles (seemingly) nonsensical big words; Kara Dalkey's "Hives," about technology in the hands of teenage-girl cliques, with a dark ending with surprisingly complex themes; and Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil," about two kids and a city of wizards who never show show more themselves.

A couple stories did not work at all for me. "Blood Roses," by Francesca Lia Block, seemed like it was an unedited first draft of a story that would need several revisions. (The reason why was clear in the author's note--the entire story had been the author's dream, down to every detail. I mean... really!? No wonder it made no sense at all.) Ellen Klage's "In the House of the Seven Librarians" admittedly had its moments, but I couldn't help but compare this story of a girl growing up in a library after being deposited in the book return to "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" by Megan Whalen Turner, my favorite story from the first Firebirds anthology, about a girl growing up in a bank. And Turner just told a much better story. Klage's story was cute, but the ending left something to be desired.

The rest of the stories ranged from so-so to excellent. I appreciated the increase in sci fi in this collection, and, once again, the mixture of well-known names with less established authors. show less

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

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