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A review by reanne
Urban Enemies by Caitlin Kittredge, Jonathan Maberry, Craig Schaefer, Faith Hunter, Kevin Hearne, Jon F. Merz, Carrie Vaughn, Kelley Armstrong, Sam Witt, Jeff Somers, Seanan McGuire, Steven Savile, Lilith Saintcrow, Joseph Nassise, Diana Pharaoh Francis, Domino Finn, Jim Butcher
3.0
I got a free copy of this from NetGalley. I was mostly excited for a new Dresden Files short story, and after all, they do put Butcher's name first and biggest on the cover. Except as I read it, it seemed awfully familiar. Guess what, it's a reprint of a several-years-old short story from a different anthology.
Guys, you can't have your headliner story be a reprint that most fans who'd be drawn by it have already read. Especially when none of the blurbs/promo material make clear it's a reprint of a story we've already read, and when those don't have a list of the titles of the story so we can check for ourselves. This struck me as intentionally misleading.
Also, since this is called "Urban Enemies", I hoped it would be a follow-up to "Urban Allies", which was where well-known urban fantasy authors got together and wrote new stories as collaborations between two authors, so you got fun team-ups of UF characters. This wasn't that at all, so I was further disappointed.
Overall, I feel that this book misrepresents what it is in order to sell itself to unwitting readers who are being led to expect something much cooler than what it is.
ETA: Okay, I went back and finished it, and I'm raising the ranking from two stars to three, because there were several I did enjoy. Especially the Toys story, because I love Toys. There was one, though, that made me kind of angry. The glass world one or whatever it was, because it wasn't even UF, it was horror, and just depressing.
Guys, you can't have your headliner story be a reprint that most fans who'd be drawn by it have already read. Especially when none of the blurbs/promo material make clear it's a reprint of a story we've already read, and when those don't have a list of the titles of the story so we can check for ourselves. This struck me as intentionally misleading.
Also, since this is called "Urban Enemies", I hoped it would be a follow-up to "Urban Allies", which was where well-known urban fantasy authors got together and wrote new stories as collaborations between two authors, so you got fun team-ups of UF characters. This wasn't that at all, so I was further disappointed.
Overall, I feel that this book misrepresents what it is in order to sell itself to unwitting readers who are being led to expect something much cooler than what it is.
ETA: Okay, I went back and finished it, and I'm raising the ranking from two stars to three, because there were several I did enjoy. Especially the Toys story, because I love Toys. There was one, though, that made me kind of angry. The glass world one or whatever it was, because it wasn't even UF, it was horror, and just depressing.