Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers [Paperback]

Ellen Datlow (Author), Terri Windling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 1998

Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have worked with almost every major author in the fantasy field and between them have won 10 World Fantasy Awards for their editing. Together, they have edited the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and five volumes of the Snow White, Blood Red adult fairy tale series. Now in Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers they again pool their considerable talents to create the first major collection of sensuous tales of magic and mystery from the top names in the field, among them Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Pat Murphy, Michael Swanwick, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Obsessions, lust, passion, and ecstacy are the subjects of this excellent anthology edited by the talented, award-winning, and prolific team of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. With uninhibited stories from heavy-hitters such as Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Pat Murphy, Jane Yolen, and Michael Swanwick, Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers won't fail to capture your attention and hold it. These authors and many more take readers on a journey to the boundaries of love and sex, jumping freely into the abyss of magical fascination and strange desire. Highlights include Oates's Oedipal story of a teenage sex object, Kelley Eskridge's tale of a wanderer who only finds release and love in the heart of violence, and Tanith Lee's look inside Little Red Riding Hood's secret fantasies.

About the Author

Ellen Datlow was the Fiction Editor of Omni Internet for seventeen years. In both forums, she published award-winning writers ranging from Joyce Carol Oates, T. Coraghessan Boyle, William Burroughs, and Jonathan Carroll to Dan Simmons, William Gibson, Stephen King, Peter Straub, and URsula K. Le Guin. Datlow has also edited or co-edited numerous original and reprint anthologies, including Little Deaths and Lethal Kisses, winning five Worlds Fantasy Awards. Her overview of the horror field in the annual The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror is used as a reference throughout the genre.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; 1St Edition edition (September 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061053724
• ISBN-13: 978-0061053726
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,486,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great collection of erotic stories, January 7, 2000

By 

David F. (Lynn, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers (Paperback)

Definitely a worthwhile book to read if you enjoy both SF/fantasy and erotica. I thought the stories were well written and posed some interesting scenarios. I think the editors did an excellent job putting together this collection of sexy stories. My favorite story was "The Eye of the Storm" by Kelley Eskridge and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future. In many ways I felt that this was the most original story in the book and I find myself going back to reread it often.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE EVER READ, March 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers (Paperback)

I stumbled across this book by chance, and I'm SO glady I did. It's extraordinary, sensual, and a completely wonderful read from start to finish. There's not a bad story in the book, and all of them are of the highest literary quality -- so much so that it's a shame this was published as "fantasy" and may not reach a wider mainstream audience. Whether you love fine literary fantasy or fine mainstream literature of an Angela Carter or Joyce Carol Oates calibre (Oates actually has a great new tale in the book), I can't recommend this one highly enough.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical and sexy!, October 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers (Paperback)

This is a gorgeous--magical--erotic--highly literary collection -- as one would expect from Ms. Datlow and Ms. Windling. I've never read anything like it before -- and I ended the book wanting more (I hope there's a sequel). The fascinating introduction by Terri Windling about eroticism and mythology is worth the price of the book alone -- but add stories by Ellen Kushner, Joyce Carol Oates and other luminaries and this becomes a book to treasure. I was almost put off by the cover --for some strange reason there are dead-looking women on the cover and I thought this was yet another sex-and-blood horror collection-- but when I saw the names of the editors I knew I was in good hands. Some of the stories are dark, but not so dark as Horror fiction, more like Angela Carter's dark fantasy. And other stories are as bright as day -- like Delia Sherman's scrumptiously bawdy Elizabethan fairy tale for instance. So ignore the cover -- or paste a romantically sexy picture of your own over it -- and enjoy this wonderful WONDERFUL book! Datlow and Windling have done it again.