The Fair Folk: Edited by Marvin Kaye

Collections of tales are often looked at with both a glance of dismay and another of sheer exhilaration. There are those who purchase a collection of stories for one particular author that we know is within those tales with the added benefit of exposing ourselves to new authors that we would otherwise not have read. Of course there is always the chance, in this case, where none of the authors would have been able to publish a short story alone, much less with others.

The Fair Folk is labeled as a mixture of stories that pull from all facets of the fae whether it is the faerie, the brownie, the gypsy, the troll or other supernatural fantastic characters. Tanith Lee tries desperately, and fails just as miserably, to make a point at what would otherwise be termed a want-to-be children's tale in her Uous tale. Megan Lindholm attempts the same in her story of an eager brownie's revenge and though I did allow myself a bit of a chuckle when the villain did get her way, it was still a very hard read.

Newman's The Gypsies in the Wood leaves the reader wondering about which drug-induced state the author was in when they wrote it. The story twists and turns causing extreme headaches and finally when you think that you have found some sort of meaning, you admit to yourself that no, and it was a fluke. This is a very horrible piece that I would not want to bestow upon any enemy of mine.

The Kelpie is no better however it is easier to read then most of the stories in this collection. This would be your typical knight on a white horse type story though of course all does not go as planned. It is a romance of low proportions while An Embarrassment of Elves truly proves itself an embarrassment to the author. It strangely reminds me of a scene or two from movies such as The Princess Bride or anything from the Monty Python series, frivolous comedy that lacks any sort of substance.

Except the Queen is an excuse for Yolen and Snyder to stretch out their men-hating muscles and allow the queen of the faeries do it for them. There is not much to this story except for the servants of man and the courtly lives of the seelie and unseelie fae.

All in all I see no reason to waste time on this set of stories and no matter how much someone would pay me. There is little to no character development and I found myself a number of times, flipping through to see when the chapter or story ended just so that I could hurry up and finish. The editor Marvin Kaye obviously did not do his job for a grammer nazi like myself had a very hard time reading such horrible type. I found no substance in the story or the print. At least the cover graphics are worth the paper.

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Publisher: Ace Trade (February 6, 2007)
ISBN-10: 044101481X
ISBN-13: 978-0441014811
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