Gabrielle Harbowy

This is the story of two companions, a gnome cleric/artificier and a human fighter. They travel to the city magically to go on a quest at the behest of an old ally - someone is killing off applicants to the church of Iomedae. Immediately upon magically arriving they are attacked. Was this whole thing a setup? They discover that someone has been ambushing followers of Iomedae that arrive in Absalom. After some time spent questioning, they eventually learn that a powerful evil artifact is show more missing and someone may be looking for it to attempt the test of the Starstone to become a deity! Along the way, Keren the knight decides that while she wants to be a follower of Iomedae, she hates following orders so poof! she's now an Inquisitor of Iomedae and must learn how to cast spells. Meanwhile, Zae the gnome meets a whole group of like-minded tinkerers and inventors and works with them to make clever things. Eventually they get dragged into the whole plot and must stop the artifact from being used.
Unfortunately, as this is a game world book, some aspects of the Pathfinder game have to find its way into the book. However, at times the author is great about making the game rules disappear when she's writing about the tinkerer, but then makes the process of the new inquisitor learning to cast spells a painful part of the novel. Sure, learning how to cast spells in a novel shouldn't be a simple process - but in game rules it is as simple as taking a level in a spell casting class, period. There's a few other awkward constructions not having to do with the game rules that made this a little hard to read at times. Not horrible, not that great either. show less

Amazing anthology of wildly different tales about the aftermaths or epilogues of heroes' stories.

I'll confess my favorites were by colleagues and friends (Steve Bornstein, Brian Cortijo, Erik Scott de Bie, Gabrielle Harbowy, Jim Hines, Rosemary Jones, and Ed Greenwood) though a few of these stories made me really want to sit down and share some beers with other authors.