Harvest Moon

I like Mercedes Lackey's story, A Tangled Web, quite a lot. Leopold has grown since The Sleeping Beauty, and so has Brunnhilde - we're told about her growth, since we didn't see much of her in the previous book. Persephone and Hades are also interesting. This myth - Tradition - I'm quite familiar with, and it was interesting to see how new depths appeared without changing the story I know. Fun. I've had Michelle Sagara's Elantra series recommended several times, but there's so much on my TBR pile...still, after reading Hunter's Moon, I think it will have to move up the list. Kaylin reminds me a lot of Beka Cooper - her drive, and to some extent her circumstances. The third story I don't like at all - I don't enjoy mobster stories, and show more Domino is annoying with her surface approach to the magic. I like people who want to find things out, not just accept the basic view. And hard-boiled stories, whether from the detective's POV or, as in this case, the criminal's, are uninteresting to me. So one excellent, one makes me want to read more, and one is uninteresting. show less

Three stories set in different worlds The first is set in Mercedes Lackey's Five Thousand Kingdoms and a quest by Prince Leopold and Brunnhilde searching for a solution to their prospective life lengths in a greek-style kingdom where they become involved in a Persepone and Hades story which is done well and interestingly. Persepone has more agency in this story than usually.
Cast in Moonlight, my favourite, which tells the early story of how Kaylin and the Hawks first intersected and it made me want to re-read and read anew the series. It's a story that made me want to know more and read on, even if I have read several of the stories.
Retribution by Cameron Haley is an urban fantasy featuring mobs run by magic where Domino Riley takes out show more an opponent who curses her and then she has to work out how to defeat this curse, while also discovering that the reasons for killing her victim aren't as obvious as first seen.
Good read but the middle story makes it a keeper. show less

I enjoyed the novella by Lackey ~ which was a wacky retelling of the rape of Persephone (remember, in the context of the ancients, "rape" meant kidnapping more than, you know, what it means now. In fact, "rape" in either context is very far from the way it happened in "A Tangled Web." In fact, Hades was a perfect gentleman, and Persephone was perfectly willing, but that's all the spoilers you'll get from me. Into this tale blunders Leopold and Brunnhilde (yes, *that* Brunnhilde), who are on a kind of extended honeymoon cum heroic quest. Anyway, "A Tangled Web" was a fun romp, but could not seem to get into the other two novellas ("Cast in Moonlight" by Michelle Sagara and "Retribution" by Cameron Haley), neither of which authors' works show more I know. I may try to get back to it and read the other two, in which case I'll update this review. show less

This anthology has three stories in it. I loved the first two.

"A Tangled Web" by Mercedes Lackey, a Five Hundred Kingdoms story, with a couple of side characters from Sleeping Beauty. It was interesting to see how she explained Greek mythology wandering through the Five Hundred Kingdoms. Makes you wonder what else is going to wander through.

"Cast In Moonlight" by Michelle Sagara is a prequel story to a series that she writes, Chronicles of Elantra. I had never read any of those books so I came on this story cold. It so impressed me that I have ordered the first three books in the series and am looking forward to reading them.

"Retribution" by Cameron Haley. This story is the reason for the low star rating for this book as a whole. I show more tried, I really tried, to read it. I couldn't even get through it because it turned me off so badly. I apologize to those who enjoy this series, but I just don't. show less

This book contains three novellas; they are each very different from the others.

The first is Mercedes Lackey's A Tangled Web, which is a retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone. It's an amusingly writting light fantasy tale, following on from her 500 Kingdoms novel The Sleeping Beauty. It's best, although not essential, to have read Sleeping Beauty so that you understand where two of the main characters arrived where they are. Knowing your Greek myths also helps. Although I do like Lackey's books, hers was actually my least favourite of the three, because for me it lacked depth. It was a pleasant enough way to pass an hour, but not a story I'd set aside time to read again. Although I might read it again if I had time and nothing else show more with which to fill it.

The second is Michelle Sagara's Cast in Moonlight. It's the prequel to her 'Cast' series and tells the story of how Kaylin Neya joined the Hawks (police force) at the age of thirteen. Like the series that spawned it, it's a relatively dark tale - this one dealing with the kidnapping torture, and murder of children. Hard for it to be light with that subject matter. But the characters are lively and engaging, and there is enough humour to offset the grim plot. For this reason, the story works well, and it's definitely one to re-read, especially if you have also read, or are planning to read, Sagara's 'Cast' books. Which I highly recommend.

The third story was by Cameron Haley, who was an author new to me. 'Retribution' is the story of a gangster sorceress who executes someone who attempted to kill her - just doing business - and ends up trying to avoid his death curse. As a gangster, the main character, Domino Riley, is hardly whiter-than-white. In fact, of the three stories, this is the one with the grubbiest protagonist by a long way. But she's interesting, because it's clear that she has her own morality that she sticks to and she's willing to take risks to uphold. There's a little too much gangster-speak (do they really talk like that? I doubt it, but hey, presumably the author's having fun and in a short story it didn't have time to get too irritating) but for all that, I enjoyed the story, and might well go and find something else by this author.

All in all, worth reading, although the final two stories make up most of the 'weight' and hence the satisfaction. show less

I won this book through Goodreads and I'm quite pleased that I did.

There are three stories included in this collection. The first, A Tangled Web by Mercedes Lackey is basically a retelling of the Persephone myth. It really wasn't to my taste and hit several of my pet peeve buttons.

Cast in Moonlight by Michelle Sagara is the second story in this book. I liked it more than the first, but still wasn't overly impressed. I had a lot of difficulty envisoning several of the characters and spent a great deal of time and energy on that which meant that at no point was my disbelief suspended. However, I thought the magical system within the story was interesting and had a lot of potential.

The final story in this collection is Retribution by show more Cameron Haley, and I really enjoyed it. It's a gritty noir-ish urban fantasy that has great three dimensional characters and a believable plot. I loved that the main character wasn't what might traditionally be called a 'nice person' but we like her just the same. The 'bad guys' as well, aren't cookie-cutter characters, but fully-developed characters that have depth and are interesting. I fully intend to look for more of Ms. Haley's work in the future. show less

I wanted to read this book for the first story by Mercedes Lackey, since I am a fan of the Five Hundred Kingdom series. This story featured Leopold and Brunnhilde in a setting straight out of Greek mythology. In short, I loved it. It weaves Leopold's quest for immortality in with the tale of Persephone and her union with Hades. The perspective is different from the usual story of a victimized Persephone, and turns her into a strong, young woman who will stop at nothing to be with the man she loves. To make Greek mythology fit in with the rest of the series, Lackey explains that the Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus are half-Fae who have forgotten their origins thanks to the power of The Tradition.
I am not familiar with the second show more author, Michelle Sagara. This short story is a prequel to her Chronicles of Elantra series and introduces the reader to the character of Kaylin Neya. I was a little lost when I began this story because of the variety of characters that I was introduced to at the very beginning. I actually was not even sure who the story was about at first. The story seemed a bit bogged down with details and descriptions, and Kaylin seemed to get lost in the mayhem of Sagara's attempt to introduce the reader to the world of Elantra in such a short tale. I stuck with it, though, and by the end of the story I was intrigued enough to want to continue on with the series in Cast in Shadow (The Chronicles of Elantra, Book 1).
The third story, written by Caleron Haley, is meant to be a prequel to Mob Rules (Luna Books). I am not familiar with this author either, and when I began this story I realized immediately that this story was heavily-flavored with gangster-style speak and vocabulary, even more so than the urban fantasy elements. I really tried to adjust to the language used in the story, but the lack of explanation to accompany such terms as "juice" and "outfit", as well as the overabundance of foul-mouthed language and typical gangster lingo like "capping" someone mad me lose interest in the actual plot of the short story halfway through. I am sure there are other readers that enjoy this style of story-telling, but I am not one of them. show less