A review by ladyofways
In Celebration of Lammas Night by S.M. Stirling, Victoria Lisi-Poyser, Ardath Mayhar, Doranna Durgin, Stephanie D. Shaver, Mercedes Lackey, Mark A. Garland, Ru Emerson, Elisabeth Waters, Josepha Sherman, Jason Henderson, Mark Shepherd, Diana L. Paxson, Gael Baudino, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Laura Anne Gilman, Jan Stirling, Christie Golden, Susan Shwartz, Jody Lynn Nye
3.0
I'm giving this a 3 because I've been trying to find it for a long time and it's got a bunch of Lackey-nostalgia built in. Also, it's really weird to give a star rating to an anthology - as per usual, some of the stories are great, some of them are meh, and some of them are utterly uninspired.
What was weird about this anthology was the way the editor decided to order them. I have to imagine it's intentional. The first few are the most similar to the original song (even to the point of one being just "the same story from the spirit's POV"), then they start to stray more and more until the last handful are linked only by a single line, or the general idea of a character making a choice. (Which, lest that sound dismissive: that last story about the choice was actually really fucking good despite being in the style of Faulkner, who I absolutely despise.)
There were some pretty cool ideas sprinkled throughout, but overall I wish there was a little more uniqueness in the way the stories were handled. For the most part, the spirit was both good and bad (or there were two spirits), and way too many of them ended with him dying nobly and the wizard being sad and looking forward to meeting him again in death. Like, half of them were this. I wish there was at least one where the spirit was straight-up evil and her choice was wrong, but they seemed afraid to make her a dubious or flawed character.
Anyway, it was fun and gave me an excuse to listen to a lot of Lackey's music for a week while getting ready in the morning!
What was weird about this anthology was the way the editor decided to order them. I have to imagine it's intentional. The first few are the most similar to the original song (even to the point of one being just "the same story from the spirit's POV"), then they start to stray more and more until the last handful are linked only by a single line, or the general idea of a character making a choice. (Which, lest that sound dismissive: that last story about the choice was actually really fucking good despite being in the style of Faulkner, who I absolutely despise.)
There were some pretty cool ideas sprinkled throughout, but overall I wish there was a little more uniqueness in the way the stories were handled. For the most part, the spirit was both good and bad (or there were two spirits), and way too many of them ended with him dying nobly and the wizard being sad and looking forward to meeting him again in death. Like, half of them were this. I wish there was at least one where the spirit was straight-up evil and her choice was wrong, but they seemed afraid to make her a dubious or flawed character.
Anyway, it was fun and gave me an excuse to listen to a lot of Lackey's music for a week while getting ready in the morning!