Child of an Ancient City

I love Tad Williams. Well, at least his writing. Let's not get too overboard here. This is a pretty awesome but short story in a Scherezade mold, where a sultan is called upon during a drunken revel to tell a story. His tale is one where he is much younger, in a group of soldiers accompanying a caravan from Araby into the Caucasus mountains. They are attacked by some brigands, and the few survivors try to escape back to the desert. However, the vampyr stalking them has other ideas. They know from a young lad that they apprehend that the vampyr must stop to listen to any stories told to it, and that this is their only chance to survive. So this is what they do, until the vampyr walks up to their fire and declares his boredom. It show more challenges them to a contest of sad tales. If the wanderers win, they are free to go, but if the vampyr wins, he gets to eat one of their members.
Vampyr tales are always so grim and foreboding that I usually don't like them, but if Tad Williams writes one, I might as well try it. He uses the best metaphors (or are they similies?), like 'The vampyr's laugh sounded like bark being ripped from a rotting tree.' Or, from his Otherland series, 'Getting him to do anything was like pushing butter through a stone.' Great stories, great characters, even in a book as short as this one, but he does push the boundary of too much data. Within sight of the border, but not too close. Anything by Mr. Williams is to be immediately read, at least until you run out of books, then you have to make do with his mutterings on his website. The only things by him that I haven't read yet is his debut Tailchaser's Song, because I really dislike cats, and his multiple new series that are as yet incomplete. And the 8 or so issues of Aquaman that he wrote a few years ago. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is, in my opinion, the best modern fantasy story out there, just for sake of saying. show less

An interesting collection of short stories, narrated by a man at a dinner party, the story of a tale that requires travelers to tell stories. These are all Middle-Eastern in tone. Not great but well done.

A tale fit for the 1001 Nights themselves. A traveling band of Muslim men encounter several issues during a long-ago trip, not the least of which is the death of several members of their caravan. A young man and woman, siblings, know the area much better as it is their home, and tell tales of a vampyre living in the woods. Eventually, the group encounters this legendary being. He makes them a deal, that one of them might go free if they tell the saddest tale. What follows are tales of woe, broken hearts, jealousy, magic, misheard words, and the theft of innocence.

I was on the lookout for this book because I adore Hoffman's writings. While hers is not the dominant voice here, I do get the sense of her throughout the tale.

A reread last week, and I still would recommend it.

Williams has a way with words.

Besides this book isn't as much a behemoth as the Dragonbone trilogy ("Sorrow, Memory and Thorn").

Engaging young adult campfire horror story -- a page turner.

A beautifully written story within a story.