Quicksilver & Shadow: Collected Early Stories, Vol. 2: Contempory, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction Stories. [Hardcover]

Charles de Lint (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The second installment of Canadian author de Lint's collected early stories opens powerfully with haunting tales from his contemporary and dark fantasy period. "The Soft Whisper of Midnight Snow," "Scars," "We Are Dead Together" and others typify Charles Grant's "quiet horror" approach. All deal with grief and even rage at the loss of loved ones and the importance of recovery. The next section features contributions to Terri Windling's shared world Bordertown anthology series, the best of which, "May This Be Your Last Sorrow," focuses on a lonely and endearing street urchin. Closing the book is a quaint if sometimes awkward selection of what de Lint describes as "science fantasy" that comes off as pulpish, but still manages to include two brilliant jewels, "A Tattoo on Her Heart," about the importance of totems, and "Raven Sings a Medicine Way, Coyote Steals the Pollen," a retelling of a traditional Blackfoot Trickster tale. The first collection, Handful of Copper (2003), showcased heroic fantasy's influence on de Lint; this sequel highlights the Newford magician to come, who likes to "juxtapose old mythic matter with the modern world."
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From Booklist

The successor to A Handful of Coppers [BKL F 1 03] contains more of de Lint's earliest stories. He provides a succinct, informative introduction about these stories' geneses and what they led to in his later fiction. Since he demonstrated extraordinary command of the language very early, the stories speak for themselves as to readability, though many now have rather a historical flavor. Like its predecessor, this collection appeals primarily to de Lint's fandom, especially the completists among them. Fantasy fans of a scholarly bent, interested in the development of one of the genre's most influential writers during the past two decades, may add their numbers to de Lint's fan base. Especially noteworthy to pleased readers of de Lint's many Newhaven (a fantasy avatar of Ottawa, Canada) stories and novels will be the stories here about Bordertown, where reality meets legend. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 357 pages
• Publisher: Subterranean Press; 1st edition (April 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596060034
• ISBN-13: 978-1596060036
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shows remarkable growth, May 6, 2005

By 

Tom Knapp "Rambles.NET editor" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Quicksilver & Shadow: Collected Early Stories, Vol. 2: Contempory, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction Stories. (Hardcover)

Subterranean Press continues to reveal the early writings of Charles de Lint in this, the publisher's second collection of short stories from the early days of the writer's career. And, while the stories contained in Quicksilver & Shadow are nowhere as detailed or deep as his later works, de Lint shows remarkable growth from the style (and, let's face it, genre choices) exhibited in the previous collection, A Handful of Coppers.

This volume, containing 17 brief tales, focuses on contemporary and dark fantasy, science fiction and children's stories. The best-known among them are doubtlessly the three from Terri Windling's much-lamented Bordertown anthologies: "Stick," "Berlin" and "May This Be Your Last Sorrow." Like many of de Lint's fiction, these tales dig deeply into social issues such as drug use, gang violence and prejudice while retaining a touching personal relationship with the characters involved -- and, at the same time, providing plenty of gripping suspense among spurts of fast-paced action.

Once again, de Lint has opened his past to those of us who weren't lucky enough to be along for the ride from the start. While he has certainly exceeded this level of writing many times over with more recent works, it's fascinating to get a closer look at this chapter in his development in the craft. De Lint fans will want this collection without question; newcomers to his work would enjoy some stories, certainly, but would be wise to begin exploring his worlds elsewhere.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quicksilver & Shadows, August 28, 2005

By 

Nancy Caroll (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quicksilver & Shadow: Collected Early Stories, Vol. 2: Contempory, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction Stories. (Hardcover)

This is the second volume in a collection of short stories. The majority of these short stories are either dark fantasy or science fiction. Some are about the Borderlands from Newford. Anyone who collects De Lint should have this, if only to see the progression of his writing talent and how all these different efforts color and shape his later writings. All of De Lint's characters represent each of us, the choices we make when dreams are mislaid, and whether we have the courage to pursue them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another De Lint Delight, September 8, 2009

By 

Jo Schram "Ongoing Artist" - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quicksilver & Shadow: Collected Early Stories, Vol. 2: Contempory, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction Stories. (Hardcover)

De Lint is great and greater still in compliling short stories that we may or may not have seen in a book for all.

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