A review and art, what else?

Today I thought I would comment on a short story from Bitten by Cupid. This anthology only had three tales in it but they were good ones.

The story I am reviewing from this collection is Vampire Valentine by Lynsay Sands. Another story in her Argeneau stories. In this one we meet Mirabeau and Tiny. Mirabeau is a female hunter who lost her family at the tender of of 17 and Tiny is a human who works for the family. Together they are in charge of taking Stephanie to safety. This story is almost up her usual well written tales. As always she gives us rich characters with back stories that make you want lots more. In fact that problem is is that she did not quite finish the story. Two or three more pages would have made this novella go from great to amazing. It is obvious to me that Ms Sands is not quite used to writing in the shorter form. As a writer of short stories I can understand how hard it is to work in that form. She is a really great author and I plan on reading as many of those books as I can.

Now how about some lovely fantasy art from the past?

A short story review and of course art again

Well this week I decided I needed to review one of the tales from the anthology, The Solaris book of New Fantasy. Now just so you know I did review the whole book over on Booklikes and this is not one of my favorite anthologies because it tries to be something it is not. But having said that there was one tale that touched my heart and made it worth the money I had paid for the book.

That tale is The Song Her Heart Sang by Steven Savile. This tale is a type of love story written in fantasy. As someone who has done a few fantasy romances in the past year, I have come to really understand how hard it is to mix the two genres. .

This tale has a man who goes to a lost city to find something to help his love see for the first time. His travails are what you would expect of a man who is not an adventurer heading into danger but his motivation is what makes this tale both heartwarming and strong. Of all the tales in this book, this one is the best.

Now for some pretty pictures right?

This week I didn't go for a specific artist because I just wanted something pretty and of course faeries, dragons and unicorns are some of the prettiest things I have.

Blasts from the past or story reviews and art images

Well a new thing I planned on for this blog was to showcase both art from the past masters from my personal image collection and reviews of the stories that stick out to me in an anthology.

Anthologies are of course a collection of short stories. The difference between say the collection I am putting out this week, Mythos of Love, and the anthology Space Opera is a very basic one. A collection is just that, a collection of tales written by the SAME author. An anthology is a collection of short stories written by many authors.

The anthology, Space Opera is in fact a collection of twenty stories written by twenty different authors. This collection from 1996 has some of the very best authors from science fiction and fantasy. Masters of the genres who, in some cases, have already passed over the rainbow bridge to the next life. From Anne McCaffrey to Marion Zimmer Bradley these tales are what I want in an anthology. Unlike the book I just reviewed over on my Booklikes.com blog, this collection is well worth the read.

Now as to the story that touched me the most.Calling them Home by Jody Lynn Nye just stuck with me. A fifteen page tale, yet it had everything I love in fiction. A character who is different, for a science fiction character that is.

The story is about a woman who works alone at a beacon station. Basically like a lighthouse in space, she runs the place and helps keep traffic moving in the great deepness of space. When systems go down she has to figure out some way to help those out there who might get lost and damaged by a space storm (okay there was a better name for it but I don't remember that part) She uses her own voice and the songs she has collected to guide ships home. A truly interesting take on the lighthouse keeper in my mind and one that rests inside my memory.

It doesn't look like she has released any of her short stories as singles but if you are interested in getting some of her work, she is on Amazon just like me!

Jody Lynn Nye Amazon author page

And like last week I thought I would put up some art from my massive collection of images. All rights of course belong to the original artist and not me. This week I thought I would put up some of Wayne Andersoon's work. This amazing artist has a very unearthly flair to the pieces I have seen. With faeries what else could a fan of fantasy want?