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A review by phee
The Book of Swords by Gardner Dozois
4.0
Overall a good anthology of stories about Sword and sorcery. There are some big names in here. Robin Hobb, Scott Lynch, K.J Parker, GRRM and plenty more.
Some stories are better than others as one would expect from this sort of book. I’m not going to rate each one individually or review each one. Ultimately an anthology is put together for a reason, everyone is going to have a different opinion on each story.
And some of them I didn’t feel strongly about either way.
Obviously I really enjoyed Robin Hobb’s story. It wasn’t the best and I think that the Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince was 10x better. But I enjoyed seeing my Fitzy again, especially as when that story takes place, Fitz brushes over most of the detail.
The standout story for me was actually the first one in the book and that was ‘The Best Man Wins’ by K.J. Parker. I really enjoyed it and loved the writing style. It made me even more excited to start the book of his that I already own.
I’d recommend this book to you if you are a fan of fantasy or short fiction as you get some big names for your money here. But also if you are new to ‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy you may like this as a way to dip your toes into some of the genres greats without having to commit to massive series.
Some stories are better than others as one would expect from this sort of book. I’m not going to rate each one individually or review each one. Ultimately an anthology is put together for a reason, everyone is going to have a different opinion on each story.
And some of them I didn’t feel strongly about either way.
Obviously I really enjoyed Robin Hobb’s story. It wasn’t the best and I think that the Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince was 10x better. But I enjoyed seeing my Fitzy again, especially as when that story takes place, Fitz brushes over most of the detail.
The standout story for me was actually the first one in the book and that was ‘The Best Man Wins’ by K.J. Parker. I really enjoyed it and loved the writing style. It made me even more excited to start the book of his that I already own.
I’d recommend this book to you if you are a fan of fantasy or short fiction as you get some big names for your money here. But also if you are new to ‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy you may like this as a way to dip your toes into some of the genres greats without having to commit to massive series.