I am fortunate to be able to read more than one book at a time — not to say simultaneously (but wouldn’t that be cool?) — as long as they are from sufficiently different genres. At the moment, I’m still slowly making my way through How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland but also enjoying The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 5 edited by Lin Carter. This is a collection of stories from 1978 and 1979 by T.H. White, Tanith Lee, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Evangeline Walton, Marvin Kaye, Grail Undwin, Robert E. Howard, Pat McIntosh, Craig Shaw Gardner, David Mallory, Adrian Cole and Janet Fox.
Some of these are older, pulp stories and were being published for the first time in this anthology. The dating on these stories is obvious and some of the racial attitudes may seem crude to us these days, but I’m a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others of his time, so I do understand. Geez, not everything has to be politically correct for me to enjoy it!
Unfortunately, the book was bound incorrectly and several of the later stories are replaced by a few chapters from another book altogether (“The Avengers of Carrig”). Bummer.
Favorite story? I’m leaning toward Tanith Lee’s “In The Balance” — short but sweet.
© Jan McClintock of We Need More Shelves
