Thought I’d get the photo out of the way before I start gushing. I was sent this book by Solaris Publishing with the expectation I would scribble a few words about it, they never expected me to enjoy it quite so much.

Let me deal with the negatives first. The first one is is irrelevant to you as you’ll get a real book and not an uncorrected proof ebook. The second negative which caused me to take such a long time to complete the book was the stories themselves THEY ARE ALL AWESOME and I had trouble separating myself from the previous one in order to keep reading so I had to have one or more days between each story and as you can see from the list I’ve given you below there’s a lot of stories, I should have finished this at least a month and a half ago but only finished a few days ago. It’s one of those times when you’re so involved in a book you can’t move on and read the next except the next was in the same book. I was definitely challenged.

So many things to love about this collection of short stories. Each one is beautifully crafted and better than the previous one (except for one but I don’t recall which one broke the mold), bear in mind Neil Gaiman wrote the fifth story and he is just brilliant so you should get some idea of the standard of writing.

One of the things I love about this anthology is how varied they are in their settings. There are some set in fairy tales, others in the Middle East while others are set in Mars. Authors from all sorts of backgrounds have shared their skills and their backgrounds with us, it’s been such a pleasure to read each and every one of them.

I very much enjoyed reading Jonathan Strahan’s introduction. It’s a brief run down on the history of anthologies in The Best of Science Fiction series. There have been many different Best Of series of books and I have some on my shelf. I almost wish I’d accepted a print copy of this book so it could grace my shelves but they’re overfull as it is.

The editor, Jonathan Strahan has kindly agreed to answer a few questions. I have far too many for him as I’ve always wanted to talk to an anthology editor but if you have any burning your brain just leave them below and I’ll send them onto him. You have one week…go!

These stories will live with me forever, make sure you get your copy so you can see why. You can buy them here.

Some Desperado, Joe Abercrombie
Zero for Conduct, Greg Egan
Effigy Nights, Yoon Ha Lee
Rosary and Goldenstar, Geoff Ryman
The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman
Cave and Julia, M. John Harrison
The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest, M. Bennardo
Water, Ramez Naam
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, Ted Chiang
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls, Richard Parks
Rag and Bone, Priya Sharma
The Book Seller, Lavie Tidhar
The Sun and I, K J Parker
The Promise of Space, James Patrick Kelly
The Master Conjurer, Charlie Jane Anders
The Pilgrim and the Angel, E. Lily Yu
Entangled, Ian R Macleod
Fade to Gold, Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Selkie Stories Are for Losers, Sofia Samatar
In Metal, In Bone, An Owomoyela
Kormak the Lucky, Eleanor Arnason
Sing, Karin Tidbeck
Social Services, Madeline Ashby
The Road of Needles, Caitlín R Kiernan
Mystic Falls, Robert Reed
The Queen of Night’s Aria, Ian McDonald
The Irish Astronaut, Val Nolan