Customer Reviews

Stories for an Enchanted Afternoon

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As the editor of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's first short fiction collection, STORIES FOR AN ENCHANTED AFTERNOON, I'm a bit too biased to actually rate this book. But I did want all of Kris's readers to know that one of the stories contained in this collection, "Millennium Babies," has recently won the 2001 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. In fact, you might be interested to know that the title for this collection was originally MILLENNIUM BABIES: A SHORT STORY COLLECTION! This was the title Kris chose when she submitted the manuscript to Golden Gryphon Press. However, our distributor was hesitant to accept a book with "Millennium" in the title because so many other such books had already been published and the "Millennium" was now, of course, passé. So we agreed to make a title change. If only we had known . . .

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has authored more than fifty novels, won numerous awards, and is an effective, talented, and experienced storyteller. Stories For An Enchanted Afternoon showcases her best short fiction in the field of science fiction and will serve to introduce her to a whole new generation of readers. The stories comprising this outstanding anthology include: Skin Deep; Echea; Coolhunting; Going Native; Millennium Babies; Harvest; Strange Creatures; Monuments to the Dead; Spirit Guides; Burial Detail; and The Gallery of His Dreams. Augmented with a foreword by science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson, Kristine Rusch's Stories For An Enchanted Afternoon truly lives up to its title!

I have to confess that I was looking for this collection of short stories before I knew it existed. Two of the stories featured in this book, Echea and Coolhunting, have haunted me since I first read them in the last 90's, leaving me to ponder them years later.
The first story mentioned, Echea, tells of a young refugee adopted by a well-off family. The refugee, Echea, is a small girl from a lunar colony from a future where the Moon is a war-zone. She is adopted into a family that has planned for everything, except for Echea.

The second story is Coolhunting, which is about Steffi, a woman who hunts fashions for a living and her sister KD, whose body is frozen in time but her mind hasn't. KD wishes to finally become an adult in more than just mind, and takes drastic measures to ensure Steffi will help her.

There are other stories as well, all worth mentioning, all, in their own way, alone worth the price of the book. The stories are not set in the far future, but a future a little too close for comfort. The characters drive the stories, well fleshed and, at times, resembling those closest to you. The only problem I have with this collection is that it is out of print.

Whether set in a grim future, or fantastical realm, Rusch has an eye for detail that lends her characters a voice that's nearly poetic in quality, and stories filled with a touch of horror, humor, caution, wonder, and awe. Stories that enchant anytime... Gary S. Potter Author/Poet.