Yeah, i enjoyed this when all's said and done. The first section of the book(mythic fiction) very much let down the second and third sections which really would have lifted this book into the 5 star realms had they been the whole of the book. Still, very good on the whole. In any anthology there are nearly always stories that aren't as good as the rest or simply don't seem to belong and this was certainly the case here too, but all things considered it deserves a 4 star rating in my opinion and a few of the stories easily rank 5 stars.

I've always enjoyed short stories. I think they're a wonderful device to display a specific little part of life, like if you were to slice a neat little chunk out of life with a scalpel and place it under a spotlight. I like that.

Anyway, 4 stars, would have been 5 but for the woeful first section.
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Read Patricia Briggs story first. I've read it in another anthology before. It was good. Read Kelley Armstrong's ghost story next. Had suspense. Read Carrie Vaughn's Kitty story next it was pretty good. Older storyline before her and Ben. ( )

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:
www.allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com

This is my first experience with this type of broad, category driven anthology, and I find myself as enamored with the physical organization of the book as I was with it’s contents. Opening with Charles de Lint’s exploration of Urban Fantasy and it’s more precise sub-categories, the book itself is divided into “Mythic Fiction”, “Paranormal Romance”, and “Noir Fantasy”. Each section begins with an essay that explores the origins and characterizations of this genre so much of us enjoy, and while the stories in each section don’t actually match the content from de Lint, Guran, or Lansdale’s essays, they do have an interesting relationship to one another that makes this anthology as thought provoking as it was enjoyable.

De Lint’s essay opens the Mythic Fiction section and sets the stage for stories with a mood of wonder and uncertainty. The magical threads in this section dip and weave underneath reality and bring to life the myths of older worlds, gods and unicorns and Fae. My favorite stories of the mythic fantasy section were Neil Gaiman’s The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories and Peter S. Beagle’s Julie’s Unicorn. Gaiman mixes the gilt of Hollywood with the everyday magic of reverence in a way that creates a quiet pool of the extraordinary that I know I will return to. Julie’s Unicorn explores the real world consequences of magic, but without letting camp overcome a sense of infinite possibilities. My least favorite story in this section, Jeffrey Ford’s On the Road to New Egypt, reminded me of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS with magic in place of either as the drug of choice. Chaotic and arbitrary, if this story was reaching for greater significant or religious meaning, it missed the target with me.

While the stories in Mythic Fiction completely fit my concept of that sub-genre, the Paranormal Romance selections seem out of sync with their heading. Rather than the highly sexual, magic driven Happily-Ever-Afters that I associate with this sub-genre (and that Guran references in her essay), the Paranormal Romance section of this anthology serves only as a bridge between the wonder of Mythic Fiction to the less upfront portrayals of common paranormal creatures in the Noir Fantasy section. For the purpose of this anthology, “Paranormal Romance” means stories where both readers and characters recognize the magic they’re dealing with: vampires and zombies, ghosts and werewolves. There is little more than references to sex and other than Patricia Brigg’s Seeing Eye and Bruce McAllister’s Hit, none of these stories have anything close to a romantic happily ever after. However, once I adjusted my expectations, I found some things to enjoy. This was my second experience with ( )