Bill Fawcett, editor
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Anthology
***
We Three Dragons Trio of Dragon Tales
We Three Dragons
Bill Fawcett, editor
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Anthology
***
We Three Dragons Trio of Dragon Tales
DESCRIPTION: Christmas is a time for miracles and magic - so what better place to find a dragon? Three holiday stories featuring dragons are collected here:
The Knight, Before Christmas (Jeff Grubb) – In a fantastic parallel to “A Visit from St. Nicholas” comes the story of a holiday truce between a knight and a dragon.
The Christmas Dragon (James M. Ward) – The town of Ding, known for its golden bells, unwittingly wakens the wrath of the fire dragon Lava with its incessant holiday
cheer.
Wrathclaw’s Wyrmtide (Ed Greenwood) – Wrathclaw, the most feared dragon of the land, finds his winter’s rest interrupted by magical visions of his long past, lonely
present, and grim future.
REVIEW: Once again, I guess I'm just not a huge fan of anthologies. In its favor, at least all three of these are actually about dragons, not metaphors or misrepresented alternate beasts (unlike some dragon story collections I've read.) Otherwise, all three suffer from the same problem, in that they're mostly thin retellings of other stories or overworked holiday themes rather than their own, original tales. The first read like an excuse for Grubb to rewrite the popular Christmas poem with a dragon-and-knight motif, ending with a very obvious "twist." The second had a tedious setup and ran far too long once it was clear where the story was going; a good chunk of that length was Ward reprinting Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Bells" in large, distracting chunks throughout the text. The third... well, it should be obvious which holiday classic Greenwood based Wrathclaw's long winter night upon, though of the three I thought it showed the most originality in retelling its tale and creating a dragon culture in which to tell it. None of the stories are horrible, though The Christmas Dragon tried my patience more than once. In any event, I found it at a deep discount, so I suppose I got my money's worth in that respect.
You might also enjoy:
Bruce Coville's Book Of... anthologies (Bruce Coville, editor, YA Fiction - Themed anthologies)
The Dragon Book (Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, editors, Fiction - 19 dragon tales by modern writers)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, Fiction - A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas in the classic holiday fable)
Dragons: The Greatest Stories (Martin H. Greenberg, editor, Fiction - Stories about dragons)
Flights of Fantasy (Mercedes Lackey, editor, Fiction - Sci-fi and fantasy stories of raptors)
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen, YA Fiction - A dragon-themed anthology)
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Cats in Space
Brian Fawcett, editor
Baen
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Anthology
**
Cats in Space and Other Places
DESCRIPTION: Cats have been with us since the dawn of civilization... would they not follow us to the distant stars? This is an anthology of cat-related classic science fiction stories.
REVIEW: I guess I just suck at picking good anthologies. Most of these stories have no point, and I questioned why a couple of them were in a feline-based collection. My favorite was the novelette The Man Who Would Be Kzin by Greg Bear and S. M. Stirling, which was odd because the one other book of the Man-Kzin War series which I've read wasn't exactly my cup of cocoa (I despise tea.) I also liked The Game of Rat and Dragon, by Cordwainer Smith, but I'd already read it in another anthology, so this one doesn't get any credit for introducing me to it. On a personal-griping note, the "classic" Space-Time for Springers by Fritz Leiber was once more reprinted. I've never liked it, and putting it in just about every cat story collection ever printed won't make me like it any more. If this is the best cats can do in sci-fi circles, I think they'd be better off staying here on Earth.
You might also enjoy:
Cat-a-Lyst (Alan Dean Foster, Fiction - An actor's cat knows more than she lets on about a portal to an alternate world)
Cat Scratch Fever (Tara K. Harper, Fiction - In the far future on a colony world, a woman forms a forbidden bond with the planet's wild cats)
Ringworld (Larry Niven, Fiction - Two humans, a catlike kzin warrior, and another alien explore a vast habitable ring built around a star)
Catfantastic I - IV (Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Fiction - Sci-fi and fantasy stories about cats)
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