Theme anthology, 14 stories, includes an introduction by the editors, and information on each writer. Published by Peggy Bright Books in May. Available in print or e-book. Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

This is quite simply a very nice job. Presentation is excellent, (attractive  cover by Lewis P. Morley) layout very good, and it’s a great mix of stories that exemplify the theme. The first tale, Charlotte’s Nash’s Dellinger, hooked me in from the start, a new and well-written take on the creation of cyber-people. The next story, The Blue Djinn’s Wish by Leife Shallcross was a gentle story of a djinn and a young girl granted the traditional three wishes. However what comes of that is far from traditional – and a terrific riff on an old tale. M. Darusha Wehm’s Home Sick isn’t all that far from reality, it’s a sad little story of what is not unlikely to be the lives of some of us in a decade or two – with a bitter sting in the tale.

Always falling Up by Grant Stone is back to exploring the possibilities of created people, and how the ability can be abused along with the people. Again, I found this an all-too possible future given the basic assumptions, and cogently written. Claire McKenna’s Yard is an unpleasant story, clever, believable, and spooky. I liked it. As I liked Lyn McConchie’s Fetch Me Down My Gun. A story of sacrifice and cross-species understanding that, as sometimes happens with what Lyn calls her ‘awww’ stories, brought a tear to my eye. The final story exemplifies the type of  best last story for an anthology, keep it short and funny. Dirk Flinthart’s The Eighth Day left me with a broad grin.

All in all this is a good anthology, it has that feeling of progression, as if each story flows into the next, something in which a goodly number of major anthologies fail. It isn’t enough to pick good stories, they need to blend so that as the reader advances, there isn’t the feeling that they are reading a bunch of unconnected works, but something in which many parts have made a whole. Congratulations to the editors, they’ve succeeded.

Hardcover published Orbit 2014.

I admit to being slightly worried how this series would go when Mercy and Adam married, (River Marked) but it hasn’t slipped a bit. This is the 8^th in the Mercy Thompson series and again, it’s an excellent read and a keeper. A portion of the plot is familiar this time, Adam’s ex-wife, Christy, has turned up on the doorstep asking for help and protection. Her last boyfriend brutalized her and she has the bruises to prove it, he’s made threats that he’s coming after her, and it looks as if he is. Mercy doesn’t like Christy, who is a sneaky manipulator, but how can she say no without looking unfair and unkind? So Christy moves in – and starts moving in on Adam as well, while every move that Mercy makes, has her appearing to be mean and spiteful. It doesn’t help that Jesse, Christy’s daughter, who lives with Mercy and Adam, is torn too. She loves her mother, but doesn’t really like or trust her, whereas she does like and trust Mercy, and the worsening trouble between Mercy and Christy is both distressing and stressing Jesse. This book was a very well-written reminder that supernatural/paranormal you may be, it won’t exempt you from the realities of life, it merely adds a few new angles to things that can go wrong.

Medea, Mercy’s cat makes an appearance too, Medea always makes my day, she’s a cat that likes anyone prepared to provide a lap and stroking hands. Vampires, werewolves, and the fae. All of whom, any cat with a normal sense of self-preservation, would avoid like the plague. Not Medea, there she is, stropping against calves, hopping into laps, and you get a feeling that those she approaches like it because most cats run from them, and if you were or are a cat-lover it must be upsetting, so it’s pleasant to find that one cat at least is happy to be cuddled even if your fangs are bigger than hers. I wonder when I read about her, if like my own feline friend, she isn’t an Ocicat, because when next door’s pitbull was a puppy and wanted to be friends, Thunder wasn’t at all bothered by that. And his own attitude, that an offered lap and cuddles renders any intelligence acceptable, is very much Medea’s attitude as well.

This is another solid work from Patricia Briggs, I recommend it, and pretty much anything at all that she’s written. My only complaint is that I wish she’d write a third Hurog book, and a sequel to When Demons Walk. I loved the characters in those and would really enjoy seeing them return. But then you can’t have everything and with her books, you’re getting excellent writing, characters, and plots. I’ll settle for that any day.

large size softcover, 102 pages. Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

As always I enjoyed most of this anthology. The editor has a knack of picking good authors and the work that I wasn’t crazy about isn’t because of poor quality, but over personal preferences. I didn’t much enjoy the opening story Paradigm Lost simply because it’s a serial and I dislike being left in mid-air. The characters in Underhanded didn’t grab me, and the same for The Martian Menace of 1897. Red River was very well-written and I liked it, although I know that Lyn found it a bit dark, as did Glenda. However I loved The Evolutionizer, there was a solid touch of steampunk to it as well as Weird/SF western, and the characters were great. Working the Salt Mine was quite simply terrific. Excellent plot, characters, and the last line knocked me out. Such a Cute Puppy was, well, cute and again the last lines blew me away – on this case on a tide of groans and guffaws. Lyn can think up such peculiar plots and her puns are horrific. All in all a very good issue yet again, and a tip of the hat to the half dozen short-short gunslinger tales too. I found them all well worth reading. The article at the end was interesting, I remember the series discussed which was well done, and the movie – which I thought wasn’t. So, another good issue and as I understand that Lyn has work in the forthcoming steampunk anthology from the same venue, I look forward to reading and reviewing that soon too.