Customer Reviews

Mystery Date

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
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These twenty short stories focus on a first date with either one or both partners coming from a fantasy DNA or the location somewhat out of the mundane realm. Each of the tales is lighthearted amusing fun with no clinkers. However, there is apparently a limitation to how far one can go one a first date so about half way through the contributions begin to have a déjà vu feel to them. This reviewer enjoyed all, but especially learning what to expect while dating a shapeshifter ("Choop" by Nancy Springer) and Jean Rabe's "Anne of the One Gable" whose double blind date won an Oscar for the Philadelphia Story. The writers seem to have fun with the theme and the audience will appreciate their efforts; however to truly savor suggest spreading the read over a few weeks so each date remains fresh.

Harriet Klausner

Book is cute. There are good stories and most are just ok. Not great. If you've nothing else to read and just want to burn some pages, you can burn through this book.

I'm a general fan of collections of this sort (particularly this general series) of science fiction and fantasy stories and I had high hopes that this one would be enjoyable.

Unfortunately not so much. There are a few stories that are definitely well written and witty (the first one, Mystery Date, is particularly good) but after that I found myself skimming several. For the most part I think I simply felt the others were either forced or just didn't belong in this collection. I think that if the premise of the book had in fact been to write stories based on the old board game Mystery Date (as the first story was) it might have been a more compelling collection.

Not a bad book if you're building a collection, but I wouldn't recommend it over any number of others.