Under Cover of Darkness, edited by Julie E. Czernada and Jana Paniccia (DAW, 2007)

Who doesn’t love secret societies, conspiracies, and mysterious organizations? Their goals unclear, their methods inscrutable, and their influence uncertain, they’re the perfect explanations and scapegoats for everything that has ever seemed off-kilter throughout the course of human civilization. From the … Continue reading

Children of Magic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes (DAW, 2006)

What happens when the magic rests in the hands of children, and the power of life and death is held by those too young or inexperienced to know the right path? That’s what these eighteen authors try to puzzle out. … Continue reading

Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy, edited by Denise Little (DAW, 2006)

Mythology and fantasy are full of “bad girls,” as suggested by the title of this collection. Everyone has their favorite or most feared, from the Greek Harpies to the apocryphal Lilith, from Cinderella’s wicked stepmother to the Gaelic Black Annis. … Continue reading

Lady With An Alien, by Mike Resnick (Watson-Guptill Publications, 2005)

Legendary genius and the original (and literal) Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci, struggles with a painting commissioned by his current patron, the Regent of Milan. The problem is, the subject of the painting is an empty-headed, vacuous woman whose only … Continue reading

Millenium 3001, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis (DAW, 2006)

A thousand years from now, the world will undoubtedly be a very different place, possibly even completely unrecognizable. Despite this, fourteen authors have taken it upon themselves to try and depict an Earth of the far future. Will humanity even … Continue reading

Novel Ideas: Fantasy/Novel Ideas: Science Fiction, edited by Brian Thomsen (DAW, 2006)

These two books are best looked at as a pair, since they look at the two sides of the same coin. Every so often, it seems, a story or novella comes along which is just so good, so powerful, or … Continue reading

Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide To The Fantastical World Around You, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (Simon and Schuster, 2005)

This is the long-awaited capstone to the bestselling, highly popular Spiderwick Chronicles, and is actually a replica of the book which carries much of the story’s plot. In the books, the three Grace children find their uncle’s Field Guide to … Continue reading