Occasionally, in the middle of meandering through one's to-read list, one comes across short recommendations by authors for which one has the utmost respect and then realize that the stories said authors are recommending have been on one's radar for ages and one has entirely forgotten to get around to them.
Also, Zen Cho's incredibly fun and delightful style of writing apparently rubs off on one. Historical romance is not exactly a vice (if only because my actual vices are so much worse that this is practically a virtue), but it's certainly something that falls into the mental category that I think of as cake-like books - not exactly healthy, but delicious and with far more substance than candy. This novella is definitely cake-like and an incredibly fun, short read.
But part of why it transcends what I think of as "just fun" (which, make no mistake, is a vital category) lies in how it engages with questions of race and female autonomy and desire in a way that it evocative of, but not exactly in line with either early 20th century writers or romance novelists. Cho isn't afraid to push the boundaries for what is allowed to happen to a romantic heroine OR who is allowed to be the romantic heroine. Jade is a fantastic character and I enjoyed the 20,000 or so words I spent in her diary. We need more women like her in our books and I can't wait to explore what else Cho has written.

I want to say something more intelligent about this book then "Well, that happened, "though I'm not sure if I can manage it at this moment. There's this sense that comes from finishing a story, especially if it spanned more than one book, of satiation. The feeling that you can finally let go of a story and it can return home.
This was one of those books that refused to leave you alone even when you weren't reading it. It distracted you. It was, in its own way, difficult to read and to put down. You wanted to read just a few stories at a time, but like King Sharyar, you couldn't bear to wait another night to find out what happens.
I've raved about Valente before (seriously, in like every review) and this book is no different. It is reassuring to me that the genre and style of magical fairy tales told in the 19th century have survived and are being practiced by such a deft pen and clear eye. Sometimes, you just find an author who understands you and writes the words you need to read. Valente is one of them, for me.

This is billed as Gaiman's first adult book in nearly a decade, which is not, I think, strictly true. It's not a children's book because it doesn't seem possible to write it as a children's book, except it's written in a way that is, more than anything else, evocative of Diana Wynne Jones's books for children. Partially, this is because Gaiman writes his seven year protagonist as a child and not as an adult's idea of a child. He writes like a children's author, at least insofar as he writers a character that is meant to be relatable to children. The boy at the heart of this novel feels like a child's idea of a child, not an adult's. This is a good thing.
Additionally, I had this sense while reading the novel that...everything was going to be okay. Or okay enough. That the bad things that were happening were the bad things that happen in fairy tales and that, to paraphrase G K Chesterton, can be defeated. I spent the novel trusting Gaiman as an author in a way that I don't usually trust authors when they ostensibly write for adults.
Still, content wise, this was not a book that adults would really feel comfortable reading to children. (The fact that it felt more like Coraline than any of his other books says more about the author than the book, I think). It was a deeply immersive and almost painfully compelling story, one that taps into the part of our psyche that feeds off of fairy tales and memories of childhood. It feels true, even if not a factual representation of a childhood that happened. And it was beautiful in the way that stark prose can be beautiful.
If you've ever read Diana Wynne Jones's Time of the Ghost, then you will be familiar with this genre where the author mines his or her own childhood to create a sense of the fantastic and a feel for the things we may or may not dare to believe as children. If you haven't, I highly recommend that as well.

I enjoyed this sequel to the first Dirge for Prester John though not as much as I liked the first (or either of the Orphan Tales). I might be suffering from Valente fatigue (I can't imagine why), which is just what happens when you find a new author and devour read their books. (Given the fate of poor Hiob, I'll probably not devour books any time soon.
Overall, this book was good, though it did suffer a bit from sequelitis, which is that it doesn't really do any of the exciting stuff that the first book did, because you're no longer getting to know the world and discovering it, but it also doesn't really have a sense of conclusion. It's "The Two Towers" of the series, I suppose. Still, I really enjoyed it and, overall, think that Valente's take on the Prester John story is brilliant.

As is the way with most anthologies, the stories by authors I enjoy I enjoyed and the stories by authors I had never heard of didn't exactly inspire me to check them out. Anthologies are like that and, I admit, I'm really bad at reading through them. They are better encountered a story at a time, but I can't read that way and books need to go back to the library sooner or later.
I picked this one up because of the topic and because a bunch of the authors were familiar to me and I knew I liked them. And, as expected, when it was good it was very good and when it was bad it was boring.
Overall, I preferred the stories that riffed on known characters/historical personages over those that were simply set in a gaslamp setting. And I far preferred those with likable main characters over those that, for whatever reason, chose to focus on evil characters and magic as a manipulative force that selfish people use to get their way. It just falls into my brain-category of "Why would I want to read about that?"
And the stories I liked were, as I said, often authors I already knew (with a few exceptions) and the stories I enjoyed seemed to be weighted towards more well-known writers.
That being said, this book was worth picking up for Terri Windling's introduction alone.

So, if you're me (or like me), and you're wondering which authors are worth reading in this anthology, here are my picks:
Delia Sherman
Kathe Koja
Elizabeth Bear
Kaaron Warren (It's the one story that fits into the aforementioned category that I still thought was worth reading)
Veronica Schanoes
Catherynne M. Valente
Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer
Jane Yolen
Gregory Maguire
Tanith Lee
Theodora Goss

This book was...solidly three stars. Definitely not-bad and almost reaching good at certain points.
Wow, I don't think I meant to damn it with faint praise quite that much. I had been interested in this book for the past few months, mostly because the premise intrigued me and I appreciate a good premise. Overall, the book delivers a interesting plot and some pretty good characters, but it falls down in three very specific ways.

1) The writing is...adequate (I nearly said tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me). It gets the story out, it conveys emotions. Sometimes, in the fight scenes especially, it rises to the level of really good, but most of the time, it's just kinda there. I got the sense that Jackson was putting together this book like a puzzle rather than, say, with the skill and attention to detail that a craftsman would use on a carving - this piece of exposition fits in here and this conversation about the past goes there. I noticed him doing it and found myself thinking "No one thinks about their past this conveniently for the reader".

2) Elements of the mystery worked because the main character held the Idiot Ball for too long (see the TV Tropes entry on Idiot Ball for more details). He should have figured certain things out faster. He should have remembered things sooner. The first half of the book consisted of him barking up the wrong tree because he was not using the information he had. There are ways to write the slow reveals of the mystery novel and it requires a bit more finesse than was shown here.

Speaking of barking, I forgive you for the dog, but I nearly put the book down then until I realized that Ethan Kaille was grieving as well

3) I am disappointed in any alternative universe that includes magic and works as hard as possible to make sure that the world is exactly the way it was otherwise (Harry Potter gets a pass because of how it creates a world within worlds). If there are "conjurers" and actual witchcraft, witch-hunting would have happened differently. It might be a small point, but it annoyed me to no end. Alternate history means taking into account the repercussions of your changes, not trying to make everything happen just as would have otherwise.

I'm not sure if I liked it enough to actively seek out the next book in the series, though I might pick it up if I come across it. A lot of what this book suffers from is first novel syndrome (even though it's not a first novel, it's the first for this author in this genre) and if Jackson has managed to find his voice and style by the second, I could definitely see myself enjoying it far more.

I really enjoyed this book.
Oddly enough. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I heard less about the premise before picking it up. Realistically, I would have ready it for the author's name alone and I think that I might have liked puzzling out the premise on my own and being surprised by what she was doing.
Because this is still something of a mystery book, not in the whodunit sense, but in the "what's going on?" sense and many of the reviews felt the need to explain the strange, speculative elements of it rather than allow it to be experienced. And Atkinson sets it up so well, its almost a shame to know what she is doing the first time around.
Having said all of that, this book was brilliant. All the characters were incredibly well done (part of why I love Atkinson) and she is just one of those writers whose ability to evoke scenes is unparalleled. And the story is, of course, great.

One of the trickiest moments in this book, and I'm still torn between whether it was amazing or deeply frustrating, was the way she dealt with the "Let's Kill Hitler" elements of the story, mostly by not making it about killing hitler. It was about getting things "right", making everything or everyone "okay". Sometimes more, sometimes less. And I think I love it, and Atkinson, more for leaving me so conflicted.

I don't often wish that I was younger when reading a book, though I almost wish I had discovered Malinda Lo right around when I started reading Robin McKinley. Of course, Lo had not starting writing then, so it's a moot point, but I think I would have put this book into my reread early and often rotation. I wish I had time to reread books.
Anyway, Lo does a wonderful job retelling Cinderella (which, I should note, is the reason this is 4 rather than 5 stars. I don't like Cinderella. The book was more than worth it, though) and creating an intriguing fantasy world where, among other things, the fairies in fairy tale are taken seriously as the Sidhe. She writes somewhere in between the fae and the pragmatic - what she accomplishes reminds me of Robin McKinley but her voice is all her own. And what she does with this story is wonderful - she made Cinderella a story I could believe in.

This book was almost nothing like Ash, which was surprising, given that they are set in the same world, but not entirely a bad thing. I found some of the changes to the world itself slightly odd and, while I could see what Lo was going for and I, like many, have a tendency to discount the amount of change that a place goes through over the course of several centuries, it still seemed a bit much. In some ways, it might have made more sense to me to just set it in another world entirely and just let the similarities with the idea of the Huntress be.
The story itself, however, was wonderful.

Everything that I said about the first book holds true for this one as well. Aliette de Bodard is very good at what she does and the world she evokes/mythology she draws on remains one of the most compelling, though far from the only intriguing, part of this series.