Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (Paperback)

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor)
Key Phrases: green kimono, butterfly people, Betty Lynn, Big Jim, Mister Jessup (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this all-original anthology, the editors, longtime partners in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, bring together mostly new fantasy writers, most of them contributors to previous Datlow/Windling books and perhaps forming a distinct "school." Call it American magic realism. In most stories, a departure from (usually) contemporary reality is taken for granted, with no one asking questions or expressing wonder. In Jeffrey Ford's "The Night Whiskey," a small town holds a lottery to see who gets to drink magic wine made from a bush that only grows in corpses. The drunken winners are then ritually knocked out of the trees into which they climb while communing with ancestral ghosts. Why? It merely is. While Ford can make this approach work, the book's weakness is that many of the stories are poetic at the expense of sense. There is, however, an outstanding opener by Delia Sherman, plus good work by Peter S. Beagle, Lucius Shepard, Catherynne Valente and Paul Di Filippo. (Dec.)
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From Booklist
The organizing conceit of this story anthology, which is as concerned with style as with plot, is that it presents a circle of like-minded writers similar to a nineteenth-century Parisian literary salon's habitues. The notion proves accidentally apt, for, like a little magazine devoted to writers who agree with its stance, the book is variable in readability more than quality. The contribution deliberately fraught with Shakespearean coinages and obsolete words, for example, is more show-off than showpiece. Most of the rest are more concerned with plot and characterization. Fortunately, the best comes first: Delia Sherman's "La Fee Verte," reporting a young prostitute's encounters with an older one who is clairvoyant; set in Paris around the Franco-Prussian War, it is solid historical fiction and superb realistic fantasy with a touch of glistening grunge. Peter S. Beagle's old salt's tale "Chandail," Gregory Maguire's delirious World War I death scene "Nottamun Town," Lucius Shepard's West Indian ghost story "The Lepidopterist," and Paul Di Filippo's post-Katrina natural-disaster scenario "Femaville 29" all pleasingly blend stylization and substance. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Running Press; 1 edition (September 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560258330
• ISBN-13: 978-1560258339
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #513,640 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sophisticated fantasy for the sophisticated mind, February 6, 2008

By	David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Salon Fantastique is a collection of fifteen original fantasy stories written by some of the greats in today's fantasy field and edited by esteemed editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It has an eclectic mix of stories, though most of them take place on our own planet, rather than some other fantasy setting. The styles are varied and the authors have written some very good stuff. The stories seem to fit the title of the anthology (which is always a good thing), as all of them seem a bit more sophisticated than your average fantasy story. I could almost picture these stories being passed among patrons of literary salons everywhere. On the other hand, the sophistication is a strike against some of the stories, as I couldn't make much sense of them. That may be a personal failing, but it did affect my enjoyment of the book.

The best stories in the book come from some of the more familiar names (at least to me), with "Femaville," by Paul Di Filippo being my favorite. In this story, a tsunami hits the east coast of the United States (it's not detailed where exactly), and the survivors are herded into camps until they either voluntarily re-settle or the government forces them out. Parrish Hedges is a cop with a problem; during the disaster, he tried to stop the looting, but the stress of this put him on edge. He was so tense that he ended up accidentally shooting a twelve-year-old boy with a water pistol. Now, he's one of the refugees. He meets up with a young woman and her daughter, and becomes the woman's lover. The daughter, along with most of the other kids in the camp, is creating a city out of mud, dirt, and whatever else they can put together. While the adults look upon this as children at play, being resilient through the worst tragedies, there may be something more to all of this. Will Parrish be able to put his past behind him to take the opportunity presented to him by this girl? This is an excellent story with a wonderful relationship between Parrish and the young girl. He's not of much use right now, so he becomes the guardian of the children as they work diligently, and he begins to believe that there may be something to what they're doing. None of the characterization is that deep (except for Parrish's, of course), but we get enough that none of the events in the story feel forced. The ending is actually a little unpredictable, and not the happiest, which is nice to see.

The rest of the stories are fairly good, though again some of them I had trouble getting through. I hesitate to name them when it could very well be just my thought processes not connecting with what the author is saying. Suffice to say that there's enough variety in here to satisfy almost anyone.

Overall, Salon Fantastique is a quality collection of fantasy stories. Most of them have at least some redeeming characteristics, and there is definitely some strong stuff in there. I listed my favourite story, but you also can't go wrong with stories by Delia Sherman and Lucius Shepard or the interesting weirdness of Lavie Tidhar's "My Travels with Al-Qaeda" (a sort of love story about a man and a woman who unfortunately keep ending up in hot spots in the Middle East at just the wrong times). Give this one a try, and maybe you can fathom some of the stories that I couldn't.

David Roy

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Great Reads In Here, December 16, 2007

By	Kenneth R. Austin (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What a great collection!

The opening story, "La Fée Verte" by Delia Sherman, is worth the price of the book alone. I started reading it in a restaurant and was glued to the booth until I finished it.

I enthusiastically recommend "To Measure The Earth" by Jedidiah Berry, "The Guardian of the Egg" by Christopher Barzac, and "The Night Whiskey" by Jeffery Ford. Fans of Algernon Blackwood, Charles de Lint, and Stephen King will find those tales to their liking, I believe. And I appreciated the wink to Lovecraft fans in "The Mask of '67" by David Prill.

I don't know why they chose to include the stories "My Travels With Al-Qaeda" by Lavie Tidhar and "Nottamun Town" by Gregory MacGuire in the collection. In my layman's opinion, they lacked any fantasy elements (and they were bleak, to boot). I have a great respect for the work of Datlow and Windling; I know their concept of fantasy is more fully formed and sophisticated than mine, so I'm sure I missed something in those stories that their experienced eyes found. However, I didn't enjoy either one, and they seemed out of place.

Oh, and "Down The Hall" by Greer Gilman was a delightful challenge to read. It was almost like trying to read Clockwork Orange without the glossary in the back. Make sure you're in a quiet environment when you work through that story. You have to take your time on that one, but it's worth it.

Congratulations on the award!

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Salon Fantastique wins World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 2006, October 25, 2006

By	Ellen Datlow (NYC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Salon Fantastique won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 2006, given out November 4, 2007 at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY.