Down These Strange Streets [Hardcover]

George R. R. Martin (Editor), Gardner Dozois (Editor)

Book Description

Release date: October 4, 2011

All new strange cases of death and magic in the city by some of the biggest names in urban fantasy.

In this all-new collection of urban fantasy stories, editors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois explore the places where mystery waits at the end of every alley and where the things that go bump in the night have something to fear...

Includes stories by New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Diana Gabaldon, Simon R. Green, S. M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn, as well as tales by Glen Cook, Bradley Denton, M.L.N. Hanover, Conn Iggulden, Laurie R. King, Joe R. Lansdale, John Maddox Roberts, Steven Saylor, Melinda Snodgrass, and Lisa Tuttle.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Some of the top names in urban fantasy are joined by some of today’s best historical mystery writers in this top-notch anthology.”—Publishers Weekly

“Urban fantasy in a nourish vein…This is a pretty strong collection.”—Locus

 

“There’s lots [of stories], some in the past, some in the future, and all entertaining as you get to read old favorite characters or are introduced to new ones. I always enjoy anthologies for the variety in the stories and this one provides plenty, but all with a paranormal detective bent.”—News and Sentinel

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

George R.R. Martin's books have been on bestseller lists around the world. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Gardner Dozois has won fifteen Hugo Awards and twenty-eight Locus Awards for editing, plus two Nebula Awards for writing. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (October 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441020747
• ISBN-13: 978-0441020744
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Most stories are competent but superficial October 10, 2011

By A. J Terry VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I recently realized one thing I've been liking about multiple-author short-story collections: Most of the contents stand alone. I always appreciate new fantasy and SF set in worlds I've come to love. However, I find it increasingly exhausting to embark on authors who are new to me. I can't just pick up a book any more. When I look up potential purchases on the basis of a review or ad, almost all turn out to be part of some interminable series, so that I'd have to buy umpteen additional books to fully comprehend one. Because I want to read an ongoing story line all at once, I end up setting aside books for years till the author finally completes the series.

Unfortunately, many of the 16 stories in Down These Strange Streets are outtakes from different huge series that I've never heard of. And many of these spend so much room introducing whiz-bang characters and concepts from their world, and feeding new readers bits of backstory, that little room is left for actually telling this story. Plots tend to be thin and character development nonexistent. You can't sympathize with any character when you're constantly trying to get up to speed on exactly how many kinds of supernatural entities exist in this world and what magical gizmos they use. The worst offender is Glen Cook's "Shadow Thieves."

Notable exceptions are: First, Joe Lansdale's "The Bleeding Shadow," a harrowing tale of a Depression-era blues musician seeking supernatural aid for his art. The difficult relationship between the musician's sister and her sometime boyfriend (who have teamed to intervene) has real emotional depth. "Styx and Stones" is an overly cute title that has little to do with the story. It's a competent and well-researched historical mystery by Steven Saylor, set in ancient Rome. I've previously encountered his characters Gordianus and Antipater in an SF magazine and was almost intrigued enough to embark on the series, but decided not when I discovered there are already at least 11 books and more to come. Bradley Denton's "The Adakian Eagle" uses Dashiell Hammett as an important character. If you're not familiar with his real-life bio, it helps to read a short one online. This is the best story in the book. The narrator is a resentful, but still likeable, young soldier stationed in Alaska during World War 2. He is trying to balance military duty with human morals, to discover who and who not to trust, and to control his own destructive impulses, among events that will determine the rest of his life. Character development? Plot? You bet.

Down These Strange Streets probably has a winning commercial formula, a carefully chosen mix of authors and worlds that markets something to every potential reader. It's just that most of the stories are, at best, workmanlike.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly Surprised October 15, 2011

By S. Ludick

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a book that grew on me as I read. I initially ordered it (Kindle) just because there were several authors I know and read. A couple of those (S. M. Stirling and Diana Gabaldon) were not quite what I would have expected in this book, but as it turned out, they were both enjoyable reads. Those two individuals have an unfortunate habit of writing very long novels that can drone on and on - a short story format precluded that. Some of the stories did seem more like samples/snippets from a longer book - that is; the ending was abrupt and unresolved. Another reviewer mentioned that some of these are outtakes of longer series - it's a challenge to write a short story that can stand on its own and still be meaningful to followers of the series. It CAN be done; one such story in another book drew me into Kat Richardson's Greywalker series. Unfortunately that was not always the case in the stories contained here.

But even those less than satisfying attempts were, overall, better than I was expecting. Some of the worlds introduced were enjoyable enough for a short story but not ones that I would be interested in reading a series about. And some of the story twists were unexpected, veering away from the all-to-common vampire/werewolf "formula." I'll give this book high marks for that.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars mixed bag October 16, 2011

By Samdog

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this for the Diane Gabaldon story, but thoroughly enjoyed the whole book. The stories don't have a linking theme other than their otherwordly-ness, and yet all were enjoyable.