All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love
George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois: Songs of Love and Death (2020, Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers)
656 pages
English language
Published Nov. 10, 2020 by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers.
Presents a collection of original tales that explores crossover themes of romance, fantasy, and science fiction, with contributions by such genre authors as Tanith Lee, Jo Beverly, Jim Butcher, and Neil Gaiman.
I only read "Love Hurts," by Jim Butcher. It's a good story with one of my favorite Harry Dresden lines: “It just isn’t fucked-up enough to really be you and me.”
The truth! :-)
This SF&F anthology delivers stories that all somehow involve love. It has a bunch of authors that I really like, like Jim Butcher, Robin Hobb, Jacqueline Carey, Neil Gaiman, and stories of mostly female romance or historical fiction authors. I enjoyed most stories, though I mostly skipped two of them. I couldn't get into "After the Blood" by Marjorie M. Liu and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander story proved to me all over again that Outlander is simply not for me at all.
My highlight was probably Robin Hobb's "Blue Boots" which really reminded me that I need to pick up more of her books pronto! The Harry Dresden story was fun, and Jacqueline Carey's story makes me want to re-read the Kushiel series.
All in all a solid 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
