Customer Reviews

The Solaris Book of New Fantasy

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a lover of short SF and Fantasy, something I've missed over the past several years has been a regular series of unthemed original anthologies, so I've been very happy to see a few new such books in 2007, including two from Solaris, edited by George Mann.

That's the good news. The letdown, at least in the case of this book, is that it is somewhat disappointing. For one thing, I thought several stories did not work independent of their various series novels. In the case of Hal Duncan's "The Prince of End Times", related to his novels Vellum and Ink, at least the reader can fall back on Duncan's quite remarkable prosodic inventiveness, but the story as a story didn't mean anything to me. Janny Wurts's "Reins of Destiny" is weaker still -- nothing that happens (and not much in the way of a resolved story does happen) means anything at all to someone who hasn't read the series of which it is a part. Much better is Juliet McKenna's "The Wizard's Coming," which seems probably to feature characters who have appeared in other stories, but which is a complete story, and a good one, on its own: about a small country threatened by raiders who hire a wizard for protection. Likewise, T.A. Pratt's "Grander than the Sea" is a good story set in the world of his novel Blood Engines, but you needn't have read the novel to follow this tale of Marla Mason dealing with an insane sorcerer who is about to try to raise a dark god from the sea.

I called the book disappointing, but that is relative to my hopes, perhaps. There aren't really any knockout stories here, and there are a couple quite weak stories, but there are plenty of entertaining ones. Mark Chadbourn's "Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast" is set in an alternate fantastical Elizabethan England, an England at war with Faerie, and spy Will Swyfte has been dispatched to Warwickshire to deal with a problem caused by Edmund Spenser and his love affair with a denizen of Faerie. Nice stuff. Chris Roberson's "And Such Small Deer" sends Abraham van Helsing to the East Indies where he encounters a strange man with the initials F.A.M. (another well-known fictional character -- but I'll leave the secret for readers of the story to suss out) and some terrible mutilations among the native staff. The protagonist of Jay Lake's "A Man Falls" is the son of an influential man in a society living underground, but he gets in a lot of trouble when he foolishly ventures to the surface, and encounters another society of humans -- and huge birds. Jeff VanderMeer's "King Tales" consists of three short "fairy tales" of sorts -- but quite matter of factly different tales. Intelligent and amusing at once. And perhaps the best piece is "Lt. Privet's Love Song", by Scott Thomas, in which a sailor spending some time in a coastal city while his ship undergoes repairs gets in some trouble when a love potion he intended for a pretty barmaid ends up in another man's wife's drink instead. At the same time his kingdom is undergoing a succession crisis, as the old king is dying, and his two twin sons are about to take over. Things work out rather intricately, and pleasantly -- it's a fun and somewhat refreshing work.

This is a thick book, and there is plenty of variety here. I have suggested I was disappointed -- and as I said, I was, relative to expectations. But I worry I'm being unfair -- this may not be as good a book as I hoped for, but there is a lot to like here, and certainly it offers good value for money.

Mann's collection is a follow-up to last year's New Science Fiction collection from Solaris, and like that book, the fantasy collection provides a good overview of what's happening in the field today. Several of the stories are good, with a few exceptional pieces, especially Lucius Shepard's "Chinandega", which brought to mind Marquez's "Innocent Erendira", and Scott Thomas's "Lt. Privet's Love Song", which I went into suspecting an Eliot allusion, but which pleasantly surprised me with its unique and lightly written world (I say "lightly" not to mean "slight," but to indicate Thomas's deft hand in presenting a world just different enough from ours to still be familiar, without hitting his readers over the head with the fantastic).

Several of the stories read either as chapters from a longer piece (Janny Wurts' "Reins of Destiny"), or continue a series with familiar characters (Mike Resnick's "Shell Game", which is another in the Mallory supernatural detective stories). This can be a bit off-putting to someone who isn't up-to-date on the current trends in fantasy, but that said, it works as a good introduction to those very trends, and a foot in the door to discovering new authors and series the fantasy reader might want to explore.

The collection runs the gamut from straight swords and sorcery, through slipstream to an almost purely stream-of-consciousness experiment in Hal Duncan's "The Prince of End Times". Does it work? For this reader, yes. The key is to accept that fantasy in the 21st century isn't your father's fantasy anymore, although there will always be room for a touch of Howard-esque tales (Juliet E. McKenna's "The Wizard's Coming") mixed in with modern urban fantasy such as Conrad Williams' "O Caritas", which reads as a psychologically darker vision of Gaiman's London as seen in "Neverwhere".

Overall, I unreservedly recommend this anthology.

Within this cover are sixteen stories by sixteen Solaris Fantasy authors. Yes, SIXTEEN! You will not be able to simply pick up this book and read it in one sitting. As I began each story, I never knew what magical realm I was stepping into. Readers need to have an open mind with each and every tale. There are stories set in what looks to be our present day on Earth, yet sorcery is normal. (They even have special prisons for the insane ones.) There are stories with fae folk, with dragons at the top of the food chain and humans are like bugs, and some stories are too wild for me to even begin to describe

**** Like all anthologies, some stories are boring (to me), some are good, and some are just fantastic. I wrote down a few author names to keep an eye out for their future titles, if any. There is no doubt in my mind that any fantasy fan will enjoy this thick novel. If you read this review before the December holidays, I recommend this book as a present for anyone you know that enjoys stories that outside the normal box. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I am very impressed with this anthology. I liked 13 out of 16 stories - which is as good a number as I ever get from an anthology. What's more - I understood and applauded the reason for the inclusion of the three I wasn't wowed by. What George has done, and what makes this anthology so useful to me personally, is to take a very comprehensive, catholic view of the fantasy field. Rather than produce a book entirely composed of traditional fantasy or entirely composed of literary/slipstream fantasy, he's put out an anthology showcasing a broad range of fantasy offerings. As such, this makes the anthology a wonderful overview of the current state of the field (perhaps even a more accurate one than a Year's Best collection might present, with its understandable slant towards literary works) - and a whole lot easier for this busy editor to read than trying to sample a score of tome-sized fantasy novels would be. Looking at the TOC, I really liked 11 of the stories quite a lot, enjoyed 2 more, and, as I said, appreciated the inclusion of the three I didn't like for the education in what's out there they've afforded me. Stand out stories in my opinion are: Mark Chadbourn's "Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast," Jeff Vandermeer's "King Tales," Christopher Barzak's "In Between Dreams," Mike Resnick's "Shell Game," Jay Lake's, "A Man Falls," Scott Thomas' "Lt. Privet's Love Song," and Lucius Shepherd's "Chinandega." Yes, that's a lot of stand out stories. And the others are close behind. I liked the book that much. And I'm very glad to see it doing well, as it's made my yearly required reading list.

I've spent the last week reading The Solaris book of New Fantasy. This is an anthology of 2007 short stories in the Fantasy genre that range from more traditional epic fantasy to urban fantasy to the realy weird stuff.

Contributors:
Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast - Mark Chadbourn
Reins of Destiny - Janny Wurts
Tornado of Sparks - James Maxey
Grander than the Sea - T. A. Pratt
The Prince of End Times - Hal Duncan
King Takes - Jeff VanderMeer
In Between Dreams - Christopher Barzak
And Such Small Deer - Chris Roberson
The Wizard's Coming - Juliet E. McKenna
Shell Game - Mike Resnick
The Song Her Heart Sang - Steven Savile
A Man Falls - Jay Lake
O Caritas - Conrad Williams
Lt. Privet's Love Song - Scott Thomas
Chinandega - Lucius Shepard
Quashie Trapp Blacklight - Steven Erikson

Review

Excellent stories: None
Good stories by: Chadbourn & Savile.

For the rest:

Wurts: The same as her books really, very longwinded and self-indulgent. She will always use 10 words when one will do. Very poor.

Maxey: Ridiculous. He has a story set in the same world as his Bitterwood book. This is a world in which dragons have human intelligence, behave and talk like humans, and it is just too silly for words.

Pratt: Offers up a tale of a female private investigator/ sorceress which bored me out of my mind.

Vandermeer: Vandermeer's little fairy tale tryptych is a bit better than these others, but it is just so slight, it leaves no impression on me. Does not inspire me to pick up one of his books.

Roberson: Tedious little story that reads like historical fiction, about some guy in East India during the age of piracy and high commerce. Couldn't even finish it so boring.

Duncan: Unreadable. Just unreadable. In the same vein as his terrible Vellum effort. Pretentious, focused mainly on ( very) baroque prose. Reading even one sentence takes great effort. Characters and setting were completely impossible to identify with. Would have been whe worst offering of them all had the premise of Maxey's story ( and novel) not been so excessively silly.

Barzak: This seemed to actually become interesting. Starts out with a woman who is taking care of an apartment, and there is a door there that hides a chamber in which a man lies moaning all day. She goes to visit that man and finds that he is moaning and dreaming all day, with eyes open. One would think an interesting story lies behind that. Well, I thought not, and it ends totally inconclusively ( she decides to save him after 20 pages of soul searching and then the story ends).

McKenna: McKenna's short story was one I was looking forward to because she writes epic Fantasy and this would be a sampler of a possible new author in that vein. Unfortunately the story is very generic and does not stand out in any way.

Resnick: Another of the supernatural detective stories that have become so popular in recent years. I wish I had enjoyed it because Resnick has two Justin Mallory novels coming out from PYR next year. But compared to for instance the Jim Butcher book I was taking a peek in the other day ( and bought afterwards, it was Storm Front), this just seemed weak. There are many attempts at humour but I didn't find myself laughing. I know Robert at Fantasy Book Critic really loved this one though, so obviously it works for some.

Savile: This one was actually ok, and rates as the second best after the Chadbourn. Story of a man named Lukas who is deeply in love with a blind woman called Lily. But the blind woman is healed by a Witch of sorts, and Lukas feels she will not love him anymore because he saw the expression on her face when she finally saw him for the first time. He goes on a quest to find her a gem, and in the process discovers more about himself. It ends poignantly.

I thought it has a very interesting premise ( because I'm always interested in relationships in which one of the two people is blind, I just bought Lauchlin of the Bad Heart for instance, a Canadian novel about that sort of relationship), then it sagged off in the middle with the quest which made this more of a horror story than Fantasy, and then it ends really rather surprising.

I also just finished the final stories by Lake, Williams, Shepard, Thomas and Erikson and honestly I seriously disliked all of them.

Williams, Thomas and Shepard I had not read anything of before and won't in the future. Lake's Trial of Flowers was actually quite interesting. As for Erikson, this is more of his truly zany side that you see a lot of in his rather incoherent Malazan saga as well. Just plain weirdness a la the Devil Delivered. I can't but acknowledge the man is just an average writer.

Overall conclusion: Terribly poor collection. 2/10 stars. Reading this you will not find yourself wondering why some authors still have to have a dayjob next to their writing.