Customer Reviews

Fiddler Fair

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Both the title and the cover of the book are misleading. It is a collection of 12 short stories, only one of which is about the free bards. The others range from the humorous ("Aliens Ate My Pickup") to the somewhat dark ("Dumb Feast). Two of the stories are about the mage Martis ("Balance" and "Dragon's Teeth"). Not everyone will like all the stories, but most readers will like some of them. I personally liked "Once and Future" which points out that some people will not touch fame with a stick. Overall, it is a good collection.

The stories herein don't overlap OATHBLOOD or WEREHUNTER. Only the title story concerns the Free Bards (see below). For each story I've noted the anthology in which it originally appeared.

"Aliens Ate My Pickup" (didn't appear in Esther Friesner's ALIEN PREGNANT BY ELVIS, so is the only story "original" to this collection). Written in 1st-person dialect by an Oklahoma native, we only see his responses to his questioner, not the questions themselves, and he continually strays off topic, talking about stocking his bass pond, and how his hayfield's been messed up by the crop circle. :)

"Balance" and "Dragon's Teeth" (SPELL SINGERS; these two stories have no connection with Lackey's Free Bards to date). They're designed to be read back-to-back, concerning the developing relationship between middle-aged Masterclass sorceress Martis and her newly assigned bodyguard Lyran, and opening with a reversal of the usual pattern: *she* makes an insulting snap judgement of *his* professional ability, since he looks and dresses more like a dancer than a swordsman. (Martis, however, isn't at her best, having been assigned to deal with a much-loved student gone bad, and generally being hard to please anyway.) The first story explores Lyran's Way of Balance as Martis gets to know him. In their second outing, the two have evolved a partnership rather than a mage/bodyguard relationship.

"The Cup and the Caldron" [sic] (GRAILS OF LIGHT). In Arthur's reign, a young nun and a healer of the Old Religion are called to the same quest, although one sees the Grail and the other Cerridwen's Cauldron.

"Dance Track" (Mike Resnick's ALTERNATE HEROES) combines Dixon's passion for cars and Lackey's for dance. One point of departure is that James Dean, surviving a car wreck and given the choice of tearing up his contract or quitting his hobby of racing, stuffed the pieces into a studio exec's pipe and signed on with Bugatti's Grand Prix team as a driver. Another (making for a nice story, but going beyond the pale historically) is that the dancer Isadora Duncan has been made a generation younger. (Her involvement with the Bugatti team - as their previous driver, WWII having left them short a few years ago - is OK by me, though, given her history as I know it.)

"Dumb Feast" (Mike Resnick's CHRISTMAS GHOSTS). Wealthy Victorian lawyer Aaron Brubaker initially seems very sympathetic; he misses his late wife so much that he's casting the spell of a "dumb feast" to summon Elizabeth's spirit on Christmas Eve. But Elizabeth, in death, no longer has to fit the mold he forced her into during their marriage...

"The Enemy of My Enemy" (Robert Adams' anthology FRIENDS OF THE HORSECLANS). Set in the post-holocaust Horseclans world, wherein the survivors were far from major cities, e.g. the people of the western reservations in the U.S. Lackey chose to focus on another group: the Rom (gypsies). The viewpoint alternates between the town smith and the horse-trading Lowara, who at present are being mannerly visitors, but didn't see fit to enlighten the Gaje about *all* Rom customs. Their devotion to their horses' wellbeing reminds me of Mayhar's HOW THE GODS WOVE IN KYRANNON.

"Fiddler Fair" was written for MAGIC IN ITHKAR 3, and when that shared world anthology series died (a shame, I thought), Lackey reycled the story to drop the incident into a world of her own making, revising the Ithkar-specific references to geography, religion, and so on. ("Fiddler Fair" corresponds to chapter 13 of THE LARK AND THE WREN, which shifted the scene to the Midsummer Faire at Kingsford, even the Ithkar tagline that all the world comes there.)

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" An original essay addressing some FAQs about Lackey's career.

"Jihad" (Mike Resnick's ALTERNATE WARRIORS) picks up with Lawrence of Arabia just as his captors at Deraa heave him out to die after torturing him. (WARNING: Lackey doesn't gloss over it the way the excellent 1960s film adaptation had to.) Lawrence in our timeline never completely got over Deraa; in "Jihad", he copes differently, turning history into another track. [I admit I had a qualm at one point, wondering if Lackey were about to give him a Companion.]

"Last Rights" (Greenberg's DINOSAUR FANTASTIC). See Lackey's introduction to WEREHUNTER for details of her adventures in rehabilitating raptors - from teaching fledglings to hunt to avoiding injury. Consequently, in this story of a Jurassic-Park-type reconstructed dinosaurs lab, you just *know* the 3 yoyos breaking in to "liberate" the dinosaurs are going to pay for not doing their research, in their unshakeable belief that there's no such thing as a dangerous animal. After all, brontosaurs are vegetarians, right? :>

"Once and Future" (Greenberg's EXCALIBUR) Michael O'Murphy, waking with an awful hangover, vaguely remembers getting drunk in the woods with his friends, but he thought seeing an arm come out of the lake was just a dream - until he realizes that really *is* a talking sword in his bed this morning.

"Small Print" (Mike Resnick's DEALS WITH THE DEVIL). Lester Parker, a small-time "preacher", rescues a televangelist who takes sick while patronizing the same brothel. Brother Lee, in exchange, offers Lester a referral to "Mr. Lightman". Lester, of course, thinks he can take care of himself even in *that* kind of contract, and seems to have a foolproof plan.

IRRELEVANT NOTE: I think Clyde Caldwell missed the point in his cover painting; his Rune *couldn't* pass for a boy, and Sweet did a better job with the Skull Hill Ghost for the cover of THE FREE BARDS, although the figures are posed similarly in both paintings.

Although the cover and title are deceptive (hey, she's an author, trying to SELL books, and freely admits it), this is a set of short stories, and only one of them falls into the Bardic Voices series. But the stories are great! As I noticed somebody else mention in another review, "Enemy of My Enemy" was also my favorite. It is a story set in the world of Robert Adams' "Horseclans" series, and originally appeared in a "Friends of the Horseclans" anthology. I also have to say that the drawl in "Aliens Ate My Pickup" was not distressing to me. When you're telling a story from the 1st person point of view of an Oklahoma farmer, it just isn't going to be RIGHT without the drawl. Even Mark Twain used that tactic to put people IN the story.

This was a good collection of short stories, and didn't have the annoying tendency of 'Oathblood' to include two stories I'd already read elsewhere for each new one. That having been said, it doesn't compare in my mind to Misty's better work (Vanyel and Bardic Voices pop to mind). Still, it's worth a read, especially if you are munching your way through Lackey's collected works. I DO agree that Larry Dixon should have gotten credit for the work as well.

This book can read a bit slowly at times, but most of the stories are interesting and entertaining. It's a great book to get if you want to put the finishing touch on your Lackey collection, and it gives you some nice background on both Lackey and Dixon. I especially liked the story about the animal rights activists....it was very funny.

I think that this series of short stories is great. It contains everything from some beautiful straight sci-fi stories to hitorical ghost stories to alternate histories. It was a great collection with a wide range. This is the frist book I read by Mercedes Lackey, but I liked it so much that it won't be the last.

The title and cover art is deceptive- it is not another work in Bardic Voices, but a collection of all kinds of Mercedes Lackey's short stories (previously published). If you like all of her series, then you will probably enjoy this book. You may want to check it out of the library before deciding to add it to your personal collection.

This is a collection of various stories Misty has had published over the years. It includes some familiars stories (like Rune's audition for the Bardic Guild), and some stories I've never seen before. None of the material is new, but it is still a "must-have" for Lackey fan's collections.

It was obvious that Mercedes Lackey just threw together a pile of previous works. I am a big fan, but was sorely disappointed with this. Usually her work is full of adventure and relationships with so much more to make it an enjoyable release from reality. Sorry- this was not worth it.

The title of this work is not very appropriate. The story " Fiddler Fair" is not even the most outstanding or interesting story in this Anthology. And, if Mr Dixon helped with all of the stories, then shouldn't he get some credit? I enjoyed the story, "The Enemy of my Enemy" best. I think that "Aliens ate my Pickup" is very hard to make out, because of the narrator's drawl. The concept is fascinating! One last thing: LAwrence of Arabia was a Moslem?!