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A collection of short stories by Mercedes Lackey. The stories are a mix of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. However the quality is mixed to say the least.
The collection:
Werehunter: Girl is alone and hungry in the big city and is magically transported to another planet where she can shapeshift. Then she gets a stalker who turns out to be another shapefshifter who intends to love her forever. Unintentionally creepy.
SKitty / A Tail of Two SKitties / Scat / A Better Mousetrap: 4 tales set in the far future where all spaceships have genetically modified spacecats on board. This is the tale of Dick White and his spacecat SKitty and their many sappy adventures. It's a twee sugary-sap overdose as Dick and his growing collection of cute kitties have adventures in space. Insulin shock inducing tweeness.
The Last Of The Season: A predator becomes the prey in this creepy tale of a human monster.
Satanic, Versus: Diane Tregarde (star of Lackey's books 'Burning Water', 'Children of the Night' and 'Jinx High') is at a Romance Writers convention when a fat, bitter divorcee writer summons up a monster and Diane who is slim, super-successful and a wonder witch saves the day. It's a good story brought down a little by Diane's smug attitude.
Nightside: The 1st ever Diane Tregarde story (that appeared before any of the books) where she takes on a vampire stalking the city. Okay.
Wet Wings: A once famous fantasy writer broods on how jealous hater readers of her books who couldn't write like her or do magic like her have turned the country into a PC mad state. Now the PC State goons are coming for her. If you can overlook the Mary-Sue/fan insulting subtext, this is an okay story.
Stolen Silver: A leader of an army uses his hidden magical powers to protect people but when his secret is exposed. He learns he has far more in common with the supposedly enemy land of witches he has taught to fear all his life. Very good.
Roadkill: A piece of trash blows across the road. But it's not just a piece of trash, it's alive and malevolent. Very, very good.
Operation Desert Fox: A man and his AI tank protect a colony world. Not great.
Grey: An urchin in Victorian London receives food handouts from the staff of a small, select boarding school. When the urchin is threatened she learns there is something special about her and the school. Very good even if Lackey insists on phonetically spelling out the cockney dialect.
Grey's Ghost: Nan, the former street urchin, is now a pupil at the boarding school for children of expatriate Englishmen. Now she, the headmistress, Nan's best friend Sarah and Sarah's pet parrot Gray take on a medium who is exploiting the grief stricken. Another good tale, however I doubt any Victorians living in India during the Raj ate curries.
'Werehunter' is worth buying for the 2 Grey stories, the 'Stolen Silver' story, the 'Roadkill' tale and the 2 Diane Tregarde tales.
P-Con VI March 27th/28th/29th 2009
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