Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Strange Brew by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, and more

Today’s hottest urban fantasy authors come together in this delicious brew that crackles and boils over with tales of powerful witches and dark magic!

In Charlaine Harris’ “Bacon,” a beautiful vampire joins forces with a witch from an ancient line to find out who killed her beloved husband. In “Seeing Eye” by Patricia Briggs, a blind witch helps sexy werewolf Tom Franklin find his missing brother—and helps him in more ways than either of them ever suspected. And in Jim Butcher’s “Last Call,” wizard Harry Dresden takes on the darkest of dark powers—the ones who dare to mess with this favorite beer.

For anyone who’s ever wondered what lies beyond the limits of reality, who’s imagined the secret spaces where witches wield fearsome magic, come and drink deep. Let yourself fall under the spell of this bewitching collection!

This collection was pretty decent - though I decided in the end it wasn't decent enough for me to keep. There were just so many authors that the worst happened: even the best authors didn't have enough room to create a great story. Most came out just a good one, and the rest were mediocre at the best. The 3 big authors, Harris, Butcher, and Briggs, each brought their own considerable skill to this anthology with me calling a tie between Butcher and Briggs for the best story. Butcher always writes a good short story (though I liked the one in Mean Streets better) and Harry is a character beloved by many a reader (and Murphy plays a heavy role in this story too - yay!). Briggs writes an interesting one in this anthology, mostly unexpected because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with her hit Mercy Thompson series. Despite of that she writes a quickie, entertaining and interesting, though it really just leaves me wanting to read what happens next.

Overall Feeling - This one gets an eh. Pretty decent, but would check it out from the library and save yourself the price of trade paperback.

Series - The anthology collects stories from a few different series, so read at your own risk!