Magic in the Mirrorstone: Tales of Fantasy

Reviewed by Dylan James (age 12) for Reader Views (7/08) Through a mixture of interesting and magical stories, this book really will appeal to the `mystic' lovers. The stories widely range, anything from street kids getting money to daemon gods destroying schools. There are goblins in magical schools and mystical monsters in oceans. You'll never know what type of story you are going to dive into... I was extremely interested in this book, although that doesn't necessarily mean I liked it. The book "Magic in the Mirrorstone" has many unique qualities. It is composed of many short stories from different authors. It has stories almost guaranteed that you'll never see in a different book and has intriguing ideas. I would have to say my favorite thing about this book was how different the stories are. Because of that, this is an excellent book to pass the time or a goodnight read. The age range of readers that'll like this book depends on how much they can understand. It is very confusing at times and the reader will need to be able to comprehend what is happening. Because it is only a couple of pages long for an entire story, authors don't have as much time to explain things. There are some sexual situations in this book, but nothing explained in any detail at all. For these reasons, I would put this book at age 12+, mainly for the complicated stories (although not all the stories are complicated). Since this book has such varying stories, I think both boys and girls would like this equally. I think this book would have been better if it had been a little longer, so as to have an easier time to understand the stories. The writing in each and every one of the stories was still great. I have seen better, but nevertheless "Magic in the Mirrorstone" was definitely fun, and a good read.

This book features 15 fantasy short stories for teens and above. Some of the stories are of the traditional sword and sorcery flavor while others are contemporary or even historical fantasy. My favorite sword and sorcery story was "The Amulet of Winter" by Lawrence M. Schoen. Of the contemporary stories I enjoyed "Princess Bufo marinus, Also Known As Amy" by Eugie Foster the best. My favorite historical fantasy story was "Out of Her Element" by E. Sedia. This book is a must have for fans of the Hallowmere series by Tiffany Trent as her story "Blackwater Baby" featuring the origins of an important character appears in this collection. Lastly, Cthulhu crawls into one of the stories but you'll have to buy the book to find out which one!