Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.59 (578 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0979624606 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 271 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-03-11 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This anthology of 21 original fantasy stories explores humanity’s most dynamic and forceful creationthe city. Valente, Jay Lake, and Barth Anderson, the collection whisks readers from dizzying rooftop perches down to the underpasses, gutters, and the sinister secrets therein. Mutilated warrior women, dead boys, mechanical dogs, and escape artists are just some of the wonders and horrors explored in this bizarre assembly of works from voices new and old.. Featuring tales from fantasy heavyweights such as Hal Duncan, Catherynne M
The nameless narrator's account of her group's attempts to survive is both matter-of-fact and mysterious. As Jess Nevins points out in his excellent introduction, urban fantasy is a mode of storytelling rather than a subgenre, and as such accommodates a variety of themes and approaches. At times, too restrictive themes have tended to create a sense of sameness. Forrest Aguirre's Andretto Walks the King's Way, a forced march of a story illuminating different aspects of a feudal-era society, is an honest effort that never really comes to life. All rights reserved. Not so with urban fantasy. The editor also might have been better served excluding a couple of ill-advised short-shorts like Vylar Kaftan's workplace fantasy, Godivy. Valente and Cat Sparks, Paper Cities is a delightful and absorbing read. Hal Duncan
A Great Collection Paper Cities had been sitting on my to read shelf staring at me forlornly for many months and since it was recently nominated as one of the Best Anthologies of the Year for the World Fantasy Award I thought it was high time I got to it. I always find anthologies to be a very mixed bag. I read them occasionally either because a couple of my favorite authors contribute or because I like the theme of the anthology as with Ann & Jeff VanderMeer's wonderful Steampunk also nominated this year. In general most anthologies don't have a consistent level of writing throughout, but Paper Cities goes against that. Fantastic cities Paper Cities is an eclectic collection of fantastic stories that are about, obviously enough, cities. While that makes them urban fantasy, these stories don't fall within that part of the genre most recently popularized by writers like Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison or Kelley Armstrong. Instead, they use a broader definition of the term that results in some wildly different settings and a variety of writing styles.There are outstanding stories from some of my favorite writers, such as Jay Lake's "Promises: A Tale of the City Imperishable" (a story set in the City Imperishable from his novel Trial of Flower. "Not exactly what I expected, but that wasn't a bad thing" according to Steven Warfield. I guess my expectation of 'urban fantasy' was different than what was actually presented; I was under the impression that it was a more modern genre, not merely focusing on a particular location. Learn something new every day.As such, many of the stories in the book fell outside what I would describe as a 'fantastic modern' setting, and that wasn't really all that bad.The second story - "The Tower of Morning's Bones" - was the only one that completely escaped me; I thought that I had a glimmer of an idea of what the author was talking about toward the end of the 'story' (a term I use very loosely here