Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology: Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy

I loved the stories in this book. They were entertaining and wonderfully written. I received the book in a timely fashion and greatly enjoyed it.

This anthology, like the Legends series of novellas, is a great introduction to the writings and worlds of some of our best writers going today. The big names are folks I hadn't gotten around to reading yet, and it was nice to get a glimpse of what they can do. I'll certainly be looking for more from Syne Mitchell ("The Last Mortal Man") as this is the first time I've read a second-person story that really made good use of that unusual viewpoint. Also, Nina Kiriki Hoffman's story was highly engaging, and an enticement to more of her work. Some stories are simply odd, others more light-weight, but overall one of the most enjoyable collections I've seen in a long time.

Several stories stood out in this charitable collection. First and foremost was David Gerrold's opening piece. In fact, I call this one a tour-de-force and hopefully it will gain some notice during award season. It's a fictional recounting of a day (in the near-future?) when the insane Los Angeles traffic becomes completely grid-locked. Gerrold does a masterful job of showing the trickle-down effects of such an occurrence, showing the potential of a full-blown disaster. Sherrilyn Kenyon contributes a well-written piece based in her Camelot world. Scifi master Larry Niven writes a heartwarming story about the perception of reality. Also of note, Michael Marshall Smith and Tim Lebbon....two Brits who write two moody, intruiging pieces that would do well as Lynch movies. Overall, a great book. Goes for a nice charity. Check it out!

I went into this anthology with one false assumption: I thought all the stories would be disaster stories. The book opens with an unusual disaster tale, "Report from the Near Future: Crystallization" by David Gerrold. The doom he imagines--the highways in LA becoming so congested they simply crytalize into an immobile object that can never be chipped away--is imaginative, but I was a little worried I might find the book a downer if I was going to be reading a score of stories about how the world might kill me. Fortunately, the anthology veers from this pattern with the very next story, the hillarious "And Tomorrow and" by Adam Roberts, a quite clever send-up of MacBeth. Another laugh out loud story comes later in the book, "The strange case of Jared Spoon, who went to pieces for love" by Stel Pavlou. The story of a man in love with a dangerously psychotic woman who is sending him body parts in the mail is about as perfect a comment on the human condition as any I've read. My favorite story in the book has to be "In the Matter of Fallen Angels" by Jacqueline Carey. This tale of a small town's encounter with a divine visitor is haunting. It is funny, moving, and thought-provoking. At times, it reminds me of a Garrison Keilor Lake Woebegone tale in the affection for the quirky small town characters. But it transcends a Prairie Home Companion tale simply by dealing with such mind boggling subject matter--there is, after all, an angel trapped in the chickenwire box out back of the general store, and Carey's subtle approach to the situation made me feel a sense of wonder that only the best SF and fantasy stories can evoke. A good cause, a good book, the best story you're likely to read all year. What are you waiting for?

The proceeds from this anthology go to help Save the Children's Tsunami Relief Fund; so purchasing the collections is a worthy endeavor. However, if that alone cannot motivate readers, the twenty-three short stories written by some of the best of speculative fiction writers on the market today are almost all excellent with no subpart submissions. The contributors obviously motivated by the cause diligently kept the bar at the highest quality level. The tales run the gamut of fantasy and science fiction to include a dangerous trek into fairy land, a lethal march with the military in space and an even more dangerous joy ride around a future Los Angeles. Whether the stories star alien species, mythological creatures, immortals; whether they are comedic; satiric (just ask Macbeth), or seriously cautionary all are terrifically entertaining. Harriet Klausner