Sunday, March 02, 2008

Book Review: Year's Best Fantasy 5

It scares me when I think I bought this book 3 years ago and only got around to reading it this year. Yup folks, the year's best fantasy stories in question are for 2004 (the book was published in 2005) and if these stories are the best, I'd hate to see the worst! Most of these stories weren't even published in magazines, but other fantasy story anthologies, so I think the whole book is a bit of a con to get the editor's pals stories published. I hadn't heard of most of the authors apart from Neil Gaimen, whose story is particularly poor (both in writing and in taste). There were one of two stories I liked, several I am surprised qualified as fantasy and the majority I am amazed even got published in the first place. If these are examples of good short stories, then I am even further off the mark than I thought I was with my own writing. I give this collection 4/10

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you waited 3 years to read this, maybe that was telling you something anyway- like why bother- sell it on ebay quickly

Inkpot said...

true anon, must put it up on ebay

Anonymous said...

It's lovely having a pile of books always waiting for you to dive into - but a three year pile must be huge!!