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Abbreviated Epics (Third Flatiron Anthologies Book 10) Kindle Edition
you're a heroine? "Abbreviated Epics" from Third Flatiron Anthologies
is a double issue containing 19 very short fantasy adventures
featuring samurai and shield maidens, alternate history and steampunk,
and myths old and new. The issue also contains a reprint of Jo
Walton's epic poem, "Odin on the Tree."
"Abbreviated Epics" proudly showcases an international group of new and
established speculative fiction authors, who share with us just a
smidgen of the heroic and grand. Contributors include: Siobhan
Gallager, Iain Ishbel, Deborah Walker, Manuel Royal, Jordan Ashley
Moore, Martin Clark, Ben Solomon, Margarita Tenser, Gustavo Bondoni,
Adria Laycraft, Daniel Coble, Steve Coate, Jo Walton, Elliotte Rusty
Harold, Marissa James, Jake Teeny, Alison McBain, Patricia S. Bowne,
Stephen D. Rogers, and Robin Wyatt Dunn.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateNovember 1, 2014
- File size2348 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B00NRA6A2W
- Publication date : November 1, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 2348 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 196 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0692314695
- Lending : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,046,186 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,589 in Nordic Myth & Legend Fantasy eBooks
- #3,343 in Norse & Viking Myth & Legend
- #4,446 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Gustavo Bondoni is an Argentine writer with over three hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages. His latest novel is Jungle Lab Terror (2020). He has also published another monster book Ice Station: Death (2019), three science fiction novels: Incursion (2017), Outside (2017) and Siege (2016) and an ebook novella entitled Branch. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019) Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.
His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com
Elliotte is originally from New Orleans to which he returns periodically in search of a decent bowl of gumbo. However, he currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife Beth and dog Thor. He's a frequent speaker at industry conferences including Software Development, Dr. Dobb's Architecture & Design World, SD Best Practices, Extreme Markup Languages, JavaWorld, and too many user groups to count. His fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crossed Genres, and Daily Science Fiction in addition to numerous anthologies. His most recent books are Java Network Programming, 4th edition, and the JavaMail API, both from O’Reilly.
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As you might expect, mythology is represented in a big way. In “Blade Between Oni and Hare,” Siobhan Gallagher takes the rabbit figure popular in Asian myth and offers up a highly satisfying twist on tradition, while Gustavo Bordani‘s breathtakingly-captured post-apocalyptic world in “Rain Over Lesser Boso” is fraught with ghosts. In addition to stories drawn from Japanese and Chinese culture, Nordic influences have their part: the strength and courage of the female heroine in Steve Coate’s “Fortunate Son” are particularly heart-wrenching, and Jo Walton’s poem “Odin on the Tree” hearkens back to the old sagas.
I’m a big fan of humorous fantasy, so Margarita Tenser’s flash piece “The Committee” was right up my alley. It’s an uproariously hilarious creation story, and a definite standout for readers who love an intelligent laugh. The merriment continues with the only-slightly-longer “Heart-Shaped,” Manuel Royal’s ferociously clever interpretation of the battle of the sexes, and Jake Teeny’s “Toward the Back, a guffaw-worthy romp about two orcs that aren’t quite as lustful for battle as they’re usually made out to be.
Maybe steampunk is more your thing? Treat yourself to Martin Clark’s “Through an Ocular, Darkly,” featuring two of my favourite subjects: time travel and political intrigue. (I’m totally stoked by the assurance that we’ll get to see more of the fascinating, enigmatic character of Dr. Leon Prinz somewhere, sometime!).
And then there’s the really dark stuff: horror in the classic vein in Daniel Coble’s “Assault on the Summit,” where an adventurer gets more than he bargained for in the Himalayas, and Robin Wyatt Dunn’s gut-checking “On a Train with a Coyote Ghost,” set in war-ravaged Eastern Europe.
A thoroughly enjoyable collection of fantastic, eclectic short fiction.
The book opens and closes with animal tales. Siobhan Gallaher's "Blade Beween Oni and Hare," features a shipwrecked Japanese girl who, having survived a struggle at sea with a squid, almost falls prey on land to a monstrous half-human spider. Having escaped the spider, she finds herself being watched by a white hare. The hare, guardian of the island, offers to help her reach the mainland. The hare is, of course, other than he first appears, and exacts a price from her, but he keeps his side of the bargain.
I had not really understood what "steampunk" was until I read Martin Clark's "Through An Ocular, Darkly." In this story, set in Constantinople, Leon Prinz, an inventor, has been commissioned by Josephus the Pharisee to build an automaton to protect the Jewish temple. But Prinz has already accepted a bribe from an emissary from General Gordon, who wants Josephus out of the way. Josephus had asked Prinz to construct a golem for him. Instead he finds that Prinz has built for him a lifesize ballerina--dismissed by an angry Josephus as "a toy." The "toy" takes a dainty dancing step and strikes Josephus dead. Gordon hasn't quite finished with Prinz, however. He asks a favor of him: to inspect an item that he will send over. Prinz unwraps the package, and finds a complicated mechanical device inside it. The device has a most surprising action. I wasn't too sure of the chronology of this interesting and enigmatic story but then I am not an historian.
The membership of "The Committee," in Margarita Tenser's humorous story is made up of a fascinating collection of gods, goddesses and godlings, all rejoicing in wonderfully appropriate cosmic names, for this is the Creationist Committee, and what they are seeking to create is a--or, perhaps, the--universe. After much squabbling and rejected ideas, and as they have a deadline to work to, the suggestion is made to stuff everything into a tiny dot and then explode it. This is such a witty little story.
The beautifully written final story, "On a Train with a Coyote Ghost," by Robin Wyatt Dunn, provides an excellent ending to the compilation. In it, a ten-year-old Jewish girl travels by train from Poland into Russia to try to find the healer who can provide the broth that she knows will save her grandmother and their fellow villagers, for their community has fallen ill. The child is accompanied by a coyote ghost who was a friend of her father. When she locates the healer, a somewhat multi-denominational entity, she finds to her dismay that the coyote also wants the broth, for his own benefit. The girl and the coyote ghost each has to tell their story to the healer, who will then choose between them; each tale is fascinating and moving and of historical import. This story provides a most fitting conclusion to this anthology of Abbreviated Epics.