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A review by burhan
Best of British Fantasy 2019 by Lavie Tidhar, Natalia Theodoridou
3.0
Trying to give an average rating for an anthology is a tricky thing. The editor’s view of “best of” will not always align with that of the readers’ and that’s definitely the case for me. It was a mixed bag. Looking back over the anthology, my favourite story was “No Children”. Some others I enjoyed were “Why Aren't Millennials Continuing Traditional Worship Of The Elder Dark”, “Sin Eater” and “Canst Thou Draw Out The Leviathan”. Some didn’t work for me at all, like “The Redemption of Billy Zane”.
Despite the dragon on the cover, there was not a hint of high fantasy in any of the stories. I say this not as a positive or a negative, but merely an observation for anyone that would judge the book by its cover. All of the stories had a broad interpretation of “fantasy” which was really interesting and on occasion thought provoking. Though some stories really stretched the definition to the point of being incredibly tenuous.
I read this with a book club and so that adds a layer of scrutiny and analysis that you might not normally have when reading a story collection. We read a story every two weeks, so my memories of a lot of the stories are quite vague now!
Overall I would recommend it though as there are some real gems in there.
Despite the dragon on the cover, there was not a hint of high fantasy in any of the stories. I say this not as a positive or a negative, but merely an observation for anyone that would judge the book by its cover. All of the stories had a broad interpretation of “fantasy” which was really interesting and on occasion thought provoking. Though some stories really stretched the definition to the point of being incredibly tenuous.
I read this with a book club and so that adds a layer of scrutiny and analysis that you might not normally have when reading a story collection. We read a story every two weeks, so my memories of a lot of the stories are quite vague now!
Overall I would recommend it though as there are some real gems in there.