The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm

A rare thing--an anthology with NO weak stories (at least I enjoyed every one)! ( )

A very nice collection of short stories by authors I'm already following and some I intend to! ( )

"The Boys of Goose Hill" by Charles de Lint: Fun sort of folk-song. 4/5.
"Catnyp" by Delia Sherman: About a changeling in “New York Between” and mostly set in the library. PERFECTION. 5/5.
"Elvenbrood" by Tanith Lee: Pretty standard changeling sort of story. I liked the family dynamics in this one. 4/5.
"The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link: The ending of this one made me go ARRRRGGGHHH and it felt like it took advantage of my extreme interest during the rest of the story. 3/5.
"The Price of Glamour" by Steve Berman: Faery thieves in Victorian London. Lots of thievery and an interesting partnership. 4/5
"The Night Market" by Holly Black: 4/5
"The Faery Reel" by Neil Gaiman: Creepy and the perfect faery reel, to be honest. 5/5.
"How to Find Faery" by Nan Fry: Another great closing poem. 4/5.
( )

"The Boys of Goose Hill" by Charles de Lint: Fun sort of folk-song. 4/5.
"Catnyp" by Delia Sherman: About a changeling in “New York Between” and mostly set in the library. PERFECTION. 5/5.
"Elvenbrood" by Tanith Lee: Pretty standard changeling sort of story. I liked the family dynamics in this one. 4/5.
"The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link: The ending of this one made me go ARRRRGGGHHH and it felt like it took advantage of my extreme interest during the rest of the story. 3/5.
"The Price of Glamour" by Steve Berman: Faery thieves in Victorian London. Lots of thievery and an interesting partnership. 4/5
"The Night Market" by Holly Black: 4/5
"The Faery Reel" by Neil Gaiman: Creepy and the perfect faery reel, to be honest. 5/5.
"How to Find Faery" by Nan Fry: Another great closing poem. 4/5.
( )

· 1 • Preface • Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

· 5 Introduction: The Faeries • Terri Windling

· 33 • The Boys of Goose Hill • Charles de Lint - poem

· 37 • Catnyp • Delia Sherman
Entertaining but very YA story about a human changeling who lives in "New York Between" – the parallel, faery version of NYC. She meets a very attractive young man who wishes nothing more than to get to the "real" NYC – but, through an adventure at the midtown public library, has to make some decisions about what she herself wants.

· 68 • Elvenbrood • Tanith Lee
Another story, this one more traditional, yet contemporary, on the changeling theme. After a bad divorce, a British mother and her two children move to a rural town – but for some reason, the teenage son, Jack feels uncomfortable with the place. And he is strangely unnerved when a homeless-looking man starts giving his sister warnings. In tone, this reminded me a lot of Mary Gentle's "A Hawk in Silver."

· 97 • Your Garnet Eyes • Katherine Vaz
Although the author says she has never been to Brazil, I found the Brazilian atmosphere of this story very convincing. (Of course, I haven't been either). Either way, I really liked this story of a daughter who tries to use magic to help her father forget the fairy wife who left him, leaving him with no enthusiasm for life...

· 115 • Tengu Mountain • Gregory Frost
I liked this story, but it was so similar to the traditional Japanese stories that it was influenced by that I was like, hmm.. is this actually original at all? I kept feeling I'd read it before. A young man goes to visit his aunt in a remote mountain area. He meets a monk who warns him of tengu, or demons in the mountains – but his strangely alluring aunt convinces the young man that the monk himself is probably a demon in disguise...

· 146 • The Faery Handbag • Kelly Link
I loved this story. It's seemingly, at first, very light and contemporary, as a young woman talks about thrift shopping and reminisces about her eccentric, story-telling aunt.... But as we learn that not all the stories may have been only stories, the enormity of what has been lost hits us... Really great.

· 175 • The Price of Glamour • Steve Berman
This story definitely seems like the introduction to a novel or a series. Set in 19th century England, it sets up an intriguing situation where a human urchin and one of the Folk agree to become partners in crime.

· 198 • The Night Market • Holly Black
I just bet Holly Black at FaerieCon! She is awesome! And this story is very good too! Set in the Phillippine and drawing on local myth, this tells of a young woman who tries to protect her sister from the fae who has made her ill... folklore has it that such illness is caused by the love of such a magical being... but in this case, the truth may be more complicated...

· 219 • Never Never • Bruce Glassco
A new take on Peter Pan – and what exactly Captain Hook's place and role in this drama is.

· 249 • Screaming for Faeries • Ellen Steiber
Another very very YA story. I like the message, but it's a little bit TOO message-y, at the same time. A babysitter meets a couple of sensual faeries who basically tell her it's important to be honest, and OK to have sex with her boyfriend if she really wants to and they're really in love.

· 292 • Immersed in Matter • Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Set in your basic faux-medieval fantasy milieu. The court of the fae is rife with prejudice against mixed-blood and changelings – but yet, more Fae, at this point, have mixed blood. One such is a shapechanger who loves horses – and dares to change into human to be able to be around them. His experiences allow him to bring a bit of tolerance back with him...

· 329 • Undine • Patricia A. McKillip
Sirens usually entrap human men a drag them under the waves... but when this one encounters an environmentalist fisherman, somehow things don't go as planned... and next thing she knows, she's out of water, and somehow being dragged around to a series of rallies for clean water, unable to find the unsullied place she needs...

· 341 • The Oakthing • Gregory Maguire
In a wartorn French countryside, accidentally left behind by her fleeing family, an eldery grandmother finds herself in her cottage with a fey oakthing, whom she feels the need to help... and a wounded German soldier, whom she says she plans on killing... well done, complex and interesting...

· 367 • Foxwife • Hiromi Goto
A story of a poor fisherwoman, lost in the mists, who, unknowing, finds herself helping a kitsune, or fox spirit, against its vicious kin. Very atmospheric, very well done. I really liked this better than the book I read recently on the theme of the kitsune. (Kij Johnson's Fox Woman).

· 402 • The Dream Eaters • A. M. Dellamonica
Weird, sci-fi-esque story that's like an attempt to blend Faerie with Cyberpunk. Hallucinatory and nightmarish, I can't say I unreservedly loved this – but it was definitely interesting, with fairies that suck away people's dreams, and a mask invented by a cutting-edge fashion designer that can prevent this..

· 435 • The Faery Reel • Neil Gaiman
I think Neil Gaiman has some kind of rule that he will ONLY give poems to anthologies, never short stories.

· 439 • The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole • Bill Congreve
A young man in Australia has been hired by the government to shoot invasive species of birds to protect indigenous ones. But he accidentally shoots something ELSE altogether... and drives off with it- or her – in his trunk, distraught both about this and the recent death of his father...

· 471 • The Annals of Eelin-Ok • Jeffrey Ford
The diary of a tiny fairy whose life span is less than a day, who inhabits sand castles left on the beach for the tide to erode...

· 497 • De La Tierra • Emma Bull
Effective, well-done piece which gives us a hit man hired by faeries to kill other faeries... he's believed what he's been told, and think he's been doing the ‘right thing.' But even when doubts come into his mind – what choice does he have? Parallels currents arguments over illegal immigration, but not in an overly overt way.

· 521 • How to Find Faery • Nan Fyr
And one last poem, to conclude...

Really a great anthology! ( )