Faerie Tales

Faerie Tales edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis. New York: Daw Books, 2004.

Here we have a collection of modern faerie tales, not fairy tales. There is a difference. Faerie is that alternate world “where elves and pixies dance among dryad groves” to quote the editor. All of the stories are based on some aspect or other of the traditional mythology of “faerie,” that other world, just a magical step or two away from ours.

The book is worth reading just for the first story alone, one of Charles de Lint's Newford stories. Of course, I'm sure it shows up (or will) in one of his own story collections as well, but it was new to me. And who can't love a story with a title like “He Said, Sidhe Said”? That one's by Tanya Huff. And many more, most by authors I'm unfamiliar with. The “changeling” myth is at the basis of more than one of the stories. It's even the title of one. And there's a dragon, or rather, a wyvern. And fauns and dryads. There's even a science fiction story! Turns out elves and their more base-born cousins, the orcs, are able to fly ships faster than light, because they, after all, aren't subject to the laws of relativity!

Recommended for anyone who enjoys this sort of thing.