A review by chramies
Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep by Elizabeth Bear, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Neil Gaiman

4.0

A good and varied selection of treatments of this theme. I can think of a couple of approaches which didn't come up and which might be worth a punt for the second volume if there is one; however the stories that stuck most for me were the ones where the theme was treated most obliquely. As someone else has said it is unfortunate that the overall tenor of the book is rather downbeat; perhaps that is the nature of merfolk, that they are tragic creatures at least when they try to interact with humans or humans try to have dealings with them. Neither creatures of land nor fully of sea they are forever stuck at low tide. Two stories take that classic TS Eliot line "I have heard the mermaids singing each to each" for a title either in whole or in part and the elegiac nature of that poem ("The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock") is appropriate (even if "I have seen them riding seaward on the waves" never quite made sense to me).