Not all of these tales were my cup of tea, or should I say not my cup of Unicorn Brew...But it was still an enjoyable collection from new and old/known authors. There were a few stories I would have enjoyed more reading material for.

This collection has something for everyone: good unicorns, villainous unicorns, giant unicorns, sex, hunting, death, blood, fantasy, and other non children appropriate topics. Yes, you read that correct. This is not a collection for children who have read all the unicorn books in the kids department.


And even though the book has already been published: thanks NetGalley and Publisher for giving me an advanced read of this book...even if I did slack on reading it pre-pub!

2.5/5, rounded up because there were a couple really good stories in here, and they don't deserve to get a ton of hate for the less-than-stellar ones surrounding them.

I hate to be the one to say it, but The Unicorn Anthology simply does not do justice to the mythological awesomeness of the unicorn. I'm not saying that all the stories in it were bad--there were actually a few that were truly awesome--but as a whole, the quality was uneven, which significantly dampened the book's enjoyability.

I don't want to go analyze this story by story here, so instead, here are some quick notes:

THE GOOD:
- "Survivor" by David Smed completely blew my mind. Unlike most of the collection, which had more or less positive endings, this piece takes unicorn lore to a traumatized Vietnam vet and turns a "blessing" into something out of a horror story.
- Garth Nix's "The Highest Justice" is an elegantly simple fusion of unicorns and zombies in a more or less medieval setting, and it feels like both a complete story and a precursor to something greater--wholly satisfying on its own, but also sitting as a nice setup for future work, should he choose to revisit this world.
- In "The Transfigured Hart," Jane Yolen brings a truly childlike delight to the topic of unicorns, with characters that are kids who actually feel like kids. It is magical and heartwarming and I really wish the collection had more stories with actual kids in them...
- Of course, Peter S. Beagle's contribution to the collection is a good deal of fun...but he deliberately focuses on beastly unicorns by another name, in a non-European country, resulting in a clever inversion of the typical unicorn tropes

THE BAD
*Note: I'm not going to name specific stories here, since some of these are spoilers
- So many stories are preoccupied with virginity. I get that it's an integral part of unicorn mythos, but in a contemporary collection, there is so much room to explore what that does or doesn't mean (since, after all, virginity is a social construct)...and this collection fell flat, looking mostly at classic definitions. In fact, one story suggests that lesbian sex doesn't count as losing one's virginity, which has some unpleasant implications, I think (though the characters themselves were very concerned, saying that it mattered a lot to them and it should to a unicorn as well).
- The writing was kind of...unimpressive in several of the stories. They read like something out of an early fiction workshop, with poor development of characters and/or plots that make exactly zero sense.

THE UGLY:
- A girl falls in love with a man who literally bought her as a child so he could use her virginity to catch unicorns. He's so much older, and he freaking OWNS HER. That is beyond messed up.
- "A Thousand Flowers." The story had such potential--a unicorn rapes a princess (inversion of tropes? Okay, I'll bite...), and an innocent man is framed for it--but the rest of the story just falls apart. It switches perspectives so many times, the ending makes no sense, and it is honestly a hot mess.
- A dildo made out of a unicorn horn. Yes, that is literally a crucial part of one of the stories, and I kind of (by which I mean very much) hate it. And then, one woman uses it as a strap-on to rape another woman. What the actual fuck??

Overall, an unimpressive collection, but with a few gems hidden in the rubble. If you're a fan of dark, gritty fantasy, you might enjoy this more than I did, and if nothing else, fantasy fans should definitely check out the few stories I mentioned under "The Good." But as a whole, I feel really let down; there are so many big themes to explore with unicorns (innocence, righteousness, beauty, hidden danger...), but The Unicorn Anthology just didn't deliver.

TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS: rape, sexual assault, violence toward children and animals, Stockholm Syndrome

I was provided with an eARC of this book by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This has not impacted my review in any way.

Really solid collection of unicorn stories! Review to come!

I'll have a full review coming soon and an average rating once I've gone back over the stories individually.

ARC received via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

As with any short story collection, there are hits and misses. For me the hits far outweighed the misses, where I felt unsatisfied by the endings, such as “The Unicorn Triangle”. The hits were exactly what draws me to this genre: inventive reimagining of timeless lore and myth. Some dark, some sweet, some odd beyond my imagining, and others striking a balance of all of that. At least one left me jealous I didn’t think of the idea first (and I don’t typically enjoy noir)!

If you want a book of fluffy unicorn tales (and that’s fine if that’s what you want), this is not for you. If you want to see a theme and variation on magical beings and are willing to take a series of different journeys, then please give this a try.

Rating anthologies is always hard. **The Unicorn Anthology**, fittingly edited by *Peter S. Beagle* contained stories that touched me, and stories that just passed some time. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. Most stories tended to be dark and tragic, unsurprisingly enough. There are a couple of very good stories in there, so if the whole mythical realism thing interests you, check it out. (An ARC in exchange for a review was provided by the publisher via NetGalley.)

Rating each of these stories by how cool the unicorn is:

The Properties of Unicorn Ivory: 3/5
- Unicorns are extradimensional creatures from another parallel world who have slipped into ours due to scientific meddling with the fabric of reality. Cool as shit, but they aren't magical, so losing a point for that.

The Brew: 1/5
There is no unicorn in this one, just the remains of horn dust laced in whiskey. Disappointing.

Falling Off the Unicorn: 1/5
Unicorns are mundane creatures used in dressage type contests, however you can't ride them if you've ever had sex, or even kissed someone: except, for some reason, if that sex was lesbian sex, in which case it doesn't count? The implications are annoying. Story could have been about horses and it wouldn't have made a difference.

A Hunter's Ode to His Bait: 2/5
Unicorns are ancient magical beings but they're easily killed if you have a virgin to lure them in. Boring.

Ghost Town: 2/5
The unicorn doesn't even show up until the end and it's just there to show how magical the world has turned for a moment. The story would have worked just as well about anything other than a unicorn so it felt extraneous.

A Thousand Flowers: 3/5
The unicorn isn't awful and is very cool when you see it first but then it's like...weird. Did the unicorn try to frame a human being on purpose or was that just bad luck on the part of the first narrator? It would have been a better story to read from the princess's POV. I wanna know more about this girl who wants to have a carnal relationship with a unicorn.

The Maltese Unicorn: -50/5
There is no unicorn in this one. There's just a unicorn horn that has been carved into a dildo.

Stampede of Light: 0/5
There aren't any actual unicorns in this one. The weird evil lady just embroiders them to steal kids. She genuinely could have embroidered any creature, dragons, ducks, whatever, and it wouldn't have changed the story. Why is this in a unicorn anthology.

The Highest Justice: 5/5
Oh this unicorn is COOL. Silent but has character and is also both magical and ancient but well woven into the world. Very good.

The Lion and the Unicorn: 2/5
There is a half-human half-unicorn boy in this one and also there's a lot in it that I wish I had been trigger warned for.

Survivor: 1/5
There's no unicorn in this one there's just a unicorn tattoo that has magic powers I guess.

Homeward Bound: 3/5
Perfectly acceptable magical, ethereal unicorn. Half the story is human though.

Unicorn Triangle: 3/5
Another unicorn turned human, but the unicorn is very lyrically written. Loses points because the story itself just, straight up ends before the most interesting stuff actually happens.

My Son Heydari and the Karkadann: 3/5
I'm not the biggest fan of violent unicorns, but I think this one is decently interesting and cool.

The Transfigured Hart: 1/5
This is not a unicorn, this is an albino deer that seems to maybe become a unicorn for like, two pages for some reason.

Unicorn Series: 2/5
These are poems and the unicorn is a metaphor.

Overall: 2/5. I'm gonna be honest, when I pick up a book called "The Unicorn Anthology" I really expect it to have, you know, actual unicorns in it.

I've been on a run with anthologies lately, which is great because I usually LOVE anthologies. When the opportunity arose to review The Unicorn Anthology, I was excited! I guess I expected you know, shiny, white, magical, unicorns. Instead, this was quite the dark anthology with rape, suicide, and death. A lot of death. Which is typically fine when I'm expecting a lot of death like a horror anthology, but this just smacked me upside the head.

Most of the stories fell under three major themes: the way outdated and overdone, "unicorns only like virgins", a transformation of some sort, and innocence or righteousness. I tended to like the last category, feel meh about the middle, and LOATHE the first. The stories also vary in how the unicorn is interpreted and how in the forefront it is, which means just barely in some of these interpretations.

There are spoilers involved so read on at your own peril.

Read more at Read more at Cats Luv Coffee

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This book is available now.

When I was in second grade, my school class would go to the school library once a week. There was collection of short stories about unicorns that myself and another girl would race to check out first. If she got to it before me, I’d give her a good -natured scowl. But if someone from another class checked the collection out before either of us, we were both united in our thirst for revenge.

So, I was waxing nostalgic when I started this anthology, full of hope that it would be as enjoyable as the other one was. Sadly, it was not. It was ten types of terrible. The stories ranged from forgettable and a bit disappointing, to flat-out disturbing. There was one in particular that had an icky Stockholm Syndrome story line, which was incredibly upsetting.

I felt that these stories were all written with the intent to be edgy and dark. Gone was the sense of wonder and fun that I expect in anything involving unicorns. It was all death, doom, and destruction, with a bit of boredom thrown in for good measure.

While the mechanics of the stories were all solid, I was ultimately very disappointed by what the authors chose to write. I read this book and discussed it with Beth from Before We Go. Check her post out! And, maybe skip this book and look for something less disappointing.

I enjoyed a couple of the stories but many just weren't for me. I know lots of my unicorn loving pals have REALLY enjoyed this however, so give it a try! :)