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zeezeemama11's review
2.0
I liked the Mercedes Lackey part, song and story. I'm not a fan of anthologies and this one was all the same story retold by different people. A great collection of variations and views but not my thing and I would not recommend it as a good sample of any of their works. Although it was a great gift idea from those authors to Mercedes Lackey as a commemoration of a song she had written.
serena_dawn's review
3.0
You may or may not know that Lammas Night is a song which [a:Mercedes Lackey|8685|Mercedes Lackey|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1215643156p2/8685.jpg] wrote. In the book the lyrics are the base for a anthology of various writers to share the story which the song inspired them to write. In reading it is key to remember that although as a reader you find many similar beginnings and endings, it is the story's journey in the end that we take away, for better or worse.
ladyofways's review
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!
authrcatlabadie's review
1.0
I definitely thought this was a book of short stories about Lammas lore. Who wants to read a book with the same story told over and over every chapter? What a disappointment.
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