Jean Rabe (1957–2026)

In Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, the character of Blanche Dubois says, “I don’t want realism. I want magic!”–a quote that aptly describes this collection of tales related by their relationship to their cities. Many of the exploits and adventures within the stories could have mundane explanations. Maybe the mother really did kill her daughter in Michael A Stackpole’s “The Devil Within,” or maybe the character was imagining the sounds coming from beneath show more her bed in Judi Rohrig’s ”Falls the Shadow.” But who wants to read about that when there could be something truly extraordinary about the circumstances?

Admittedly, not all the stories were to my liking, but on the other hand I found several new authors I wanted to try out. There were also returning favorites from whom I was delighted to read more. As seems usual for anthologies, there were so-so stories and then there were more intriguing stories. Of the thirteen stories contained, eight of them were interesting, but not attention-grabbing, while the five I enjoyed the most held a little something extra.

“The Devil Within” by Michael A. Stackpole: This is a story set within the universe he created for his character Trick Molloy, who’s pulling time as a private investigator for this story. Stackpole gives new meaning to the phrase “religious fervor.” I was pleasantly surprised by Trick’s cynicism; there’s nothing I like more than a character who’s an unrepentant cynic. Stackpole does a good job of laying the foundation for the world without bogging the story down with too much exposition. I found it intriguing that for a person to tap into their magical ability, they had to have a “trip”–a catalyst, really.

“Falls the Shadow” by Judi Rohrig: This is my first experience with this writer, though she appears to have several stories in anthologies waiting on my TBR pile, so I’ll have to read those, as well. This is the classic case of things that go bump in the night but with a twist on what those critters are. I freely admit I don’t understand this story completely; parts of the action jumbled themselves together, and the explanations were confusing, but the idea of it intrigued me and kept me reading. I would definitely love to see the idea expanded into a novel, or given a few more stories to flesh it out a bit.

“We Burgled It, We Sure Did” by Mickey Zucker Reichart: Leprechauns! This is a story about what happens when people believe a little too much in some of the old tales. Following the Leprechauns’ speech pattern is a little mind-bending, but the resolution to their problem makes a whole lot more sense than you’d believe from the premise alone.

“Disarmed and Dangerous” by Tim Waggoner: This is a short story featuring Waggoner’s zombie PI, Matthew Richter. I love the Matthew Richter books (Nekropolis and Dead Streets, both from Angry Robot Books), but even for someone without prior knowledge, Waggoner sets forth the background details well. Humor, a little bit of horror, and action abound, and it was also nice to see Matthew’s friendship with Papa Chatha deepen.

“‘Twas the Happy Hour After Christmas” by Robert Wenzlaff: Santa walks into Thor’s bar, and the two of them share stories about what it’s like having mythologies that keep changing on a mortal’s whim. Poor Santa is sick of the commercialism of the holiday ruining his life and just wants a vacation. Meanwhile Thor, who’s had his own share of publicity problems, comes up with a solution. This was a short, amusing, and intriguing piece full of incidents such as what happened to Odin and how he got his eye back.

In the end, the anthology stood out for one reason to me–each story captured some of the magic and uniqueness that can only be found if you live in a city. Amid the constant lights, streams of traffic, and seeming sleeplessness, a city holds a powerful magnetism for ordinary and paranormal folks alike. This collection spotlighted the best of those feelings. show less

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Title: Red Magic
Series: Forgotten Realms: The Harpers #3
Author: Jean Rabe
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Format: Digital Scan



Synopsis:
Maligor, a Red Wizard of Thay, has plans, big plans. show more He’s built himself up an army of gnolls and has let it be known that a newly established young red wizard has built his tower on some land that Maligor wants. In secret, Maligor has been building an army of darkenbeasts out of cute wittle woodland animals and is planning on taking over the gold mines for his own personal enrichment.

The city of Aglarond, which is close to Thay, is worried about all the activity going on and they hire some Harpers to investigate. Galvin the druid and his friend Wynter the pacifist minotaur. Aglarond sends it own representative in the form of Brenna Greycloak, a small time politician and enchantress.

In the process of infiltrating Thay, the Harpers are captured by Szass Tam, lich wizard and main character in other future books. Szass Tam has them lead an attack on the mine to stop Maligor. They succeed, skedaddle out of Thay and go their separate ways.



My Thoughts:

I enjoy stories about the Red Wizards of Thay and about Szass Tam, so I was hoping this book was going to hit the spot, kind of like a good chili dog. Sadly, this chili dog had been left on the counter for a week then overcooked in the microwave for 10minutes.

The interactions between ANY of the characters, whether with other main characters or side characters, was complete cardboard. Galvin and Brenna fall in love for the adventure but then realize their separate life goals aren’t compatible at the end, so they amicably go their separate ways. Wynter the minotaur. THAT should have been awesome. But partway through he gets “magic’d” and acts like a child for some time. And don’t get me started on Maligor and his assistant Asp. I got whiplash from how they interacted. It was completely dictated by the plot instead of the other way around.

Then all the harping (hahahaha) about what a great strategic genius Maligor is because he’s using a public gnoll army to distract everyone while doing his real business with the darkenbeasts? It was bogus. I’m no military genius and even I would have been smarter than Maligor. I would have gathered in some other Red Wizards as “allies” and then betrayed them all like a Good Red Wizard is supposed to. Use their forces for my ends, weaken them and my other enemies and then crush them all in the end, using yet another set of “allies”. Szass Tam did this, Maligor, not so much.

Honestly, this whole book felt like the author hadn’t written any fantasy before, didn’t know how to make use of her characters, hadn’t ever watched one war movie and had no idea how to write a battle scene. “Meh” probably accurately sums up this whole book.

And this is what I got to read last week when I was super busy and doing lots of stuff outside of work as well. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

★★☆☆☆ show less

The Dead of Night by Jean Rabe has two stellar things going for it, well developed characters that I will be visiting again and multiple mysteries that Sheriff Blackwell and her small department must solve. This is a community that you can tell the police department feels protective of, even if some of them are considered to be a conspiracy theorist or a few fries short in their Happy Meal.

The Dead of Night picks up right after the first book in the Piper Blackwell Mysteries, The Dead of show more Winter. Rabe gives us enough background information about what happened in the first book that the reader isn’t lost. Sheriff Blackwell caught a serial killer in the first book while running for sheriff and being a 23 year old just out of the military. I don’t often go back to previous books in a series if I start it on a later book, but I am so intrigued by the premise of the first book and enjoyed the main cast of characters so much that I do want to go back and read The Dead of Winter.

While one of the two main mysteries was pretty easy for me to figure out what was going on early in the book, the second one had me guessing until the end. The way Rabe interweaved the two mysteries and how the cops were going about solving them was very well done. I enjoyed the dynamic between the Sheriff and her Chief Deputy, and am interested to see how the Chief Deputy’s granddaughter fits into upcoming books.

If you are looking for a series with well developed characters and a mystery with lots of suspects, you’ll want to check out the Piper Blackwell Mysteries. show less

Overall, this was a solid collection of stories based (sometimes very loosely) on fairy tales and folktales. There were of course some that I did not enjoy as much as the rest, but there were no clear misses for me. I think my favorite stories were "Once They Were Seven" by Chris Pierson, "Three Wishes" by Kelly Swails, and "Capricious Animistic Tempter" by Mickey Zucker Reichert.