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A review by sarrie
Magic City: Recent Spells by Holly Black, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher
3.0
As posted on The Bibliophile's Diary
It’s really hard to review a collection of short stories, with no concrete plot or repeating characters it’s difficult to look for and find big flaws that exist within it as a whole. The closest you typically get with short story collections is a theme or idea linking all the stories together. In this case we had urban fantasy, or fantasy that takes place in a city setting. There were a lot of great big name writers in this particular volume and really enjoyed a lot of what was brought to the table. I think overall I have to say the bulk of it seemed long, very long. I read an eBook edition so it was hard to tell the density of it till I actually looked it up. I was shocked it was only 480 pages, it seemed to drag by very slowly.
Overall I enjoyed all of the stories present. Most had great ideas and premises,urban fantasy and it's like are definitely one of my favorite subgenres I spent a bit of time searching out the authors of particular stories for more in those worlds. That is the reason I love anthologies, it gives me a chance to sample and try a new author without committing to an entire novel. In this case I found a few that I will move up my TBR pile and few I’d like to pick up at some point.
A few of my favorites included Spell Caster 2.0 by Jonathan Maberry, In the Stacks by Scott Lynch, The Arcane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn, The Land of Heart’s Desire by Holly Black, Snake Charmer by Amanda Downum, The Slaughtered Lamb by Elizabeth Bear, and of course Curses by Jim Butcher.
I’ve picked up Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn and Holly Black before, so their stories were no surprise. Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch both hold places on in my TBR jar already, so I was looking forward to seeing what they had in the anthology. I love Elizabeth Bear’s, in fact I think she may have been one of my top three picks. The story of Edie meeting Matthew (from the Promethean Age series) was exciting and I loved the main character, likely my favorite of all the stories I read. Scott Lynch’s was a great story about returning library books to a magical library that has become its own protector. If you enjoy library stories I would definitely pick that up.
As always my biggest complaint out of short stories is that I always want much more. Snake Charmer by Amanda Downum is the perfect example of this. I loved this one, and it ended with such a great opening. I tried to find out more about her series but as of yet I cannot tell if the story is tied into something she’s published or something she’s working on. I would pick it up in a heartbeat if I could find it though!
Overall it was an interesting anthology, I had fun in just about every single story even though as a whole it felt like a slow read. I’ll definitely be picking up a few more authors the next time I have a book day thanks to this volume.
It’s really hard to review a collection of short stories, with no concrete plot or repeating characters it’s difficult to look for and find big flaws that exist within it as a whole. The closest you typically get with short story collections is a theme or idea linking all the stories together. In this case we had urban fantasy, or fantasy that takes place in a city setting. There were a lot of great big name writers in this particular volume and really enjoyed a lot of what was brought to the table. I think overall I have to say the bulk of it seemed long, very long. I read an eBook edition so it was hard to tell the density of it till I actually looked it up. I was shocked it was only 480 pages, it seemed to drag by very slowly.
Overall I enjoyed all of the stories present. Most had great ideas and premises,urban fantasy and it's like are definitely one of my favorite subgenres I spent a bit of time searching out the authors of particular stories for more in those worlds. That is the reason I love anthologies, it gives me a chance to sample and try a new author without committing to an entire novel. In this case I found a few that I will move up my TBR pile and few I’d like to pick up at some point.
A few of my favorites included Spell Caster 2.0 by Jonathan Maberry, In the Stacks by Scott Lynch, The Arcane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn, The Land of Heart’s Desire by Holly Black, Snake Charmer by Amanda Downum, The Slaughtered Lamb by Elizabeth Bear, and of course Curses by Jim Butcher.
I’ve picked up Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn and Holly Black before, so their stories were no surprise. Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch both hold places on in my TBR jar already, so I was looking forward to seeing what they had in the anthology. I love Elizabeth Bear’s, in fact I think she may have been one of my top three picks. The story of Edie meeting Matthew (from the Promethean Age series) was exciting and I loved the main character, likely my favorite of all the stories I read. Scott Lynch’s was a great story about returning library books to a magical library that has become its own protector. If you enjoy library stories I would definitely pick that up.
As always my biggest complaint out of short stories is that I always want much more. Snake Charmer by Amanda Downum is the perfect example of this. I loved this one, and it ended with such a great opening. I tried to find out more about her series but as of yet I cannot tell if the story is tied into something she’s published or something she’s working on. I would pick it up in a heartbeat if I could find it though!
Overall it was an interesting anthology, I had fun in just about every single story even though as a whole it felt like a slow read. I’ll definitely be picking up a few more authors the next time I have a book day thanks to this volume.