I raced through this anthology this week, because the stories wouldn't let me do much else. Three of them didn't catch my interest, but the rest were lovely, and I'll list my favorites now (in order of their appearance in the book) :

(No story-analysis will be committed in this entry)


"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" - Neil Gaiman: But really, where does he get his ideas?

"In the House of the Seven Librarians" - Ellen Klages: Possibly the best coming-of-age story ever.

"Under Hell, Over Heaven" - Margo Lanagan: If I believed in the Christian kind of afterlife, I would buy into this description of it.

"Incarnation Day" - Walter Jon Williams: Wait. Maybe this could be the best coming-of-age story ever.

"The Night Whiskey" - Jeffrey Ford: I think people's heads might explode if he and Neil Gaiman combined their ideas.

"The Bible Repairman" - Tim Powers: Now I will always wonder what "bad prayers" might sound like.*

"Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" - Geoff Ryman: Oh. Or this could be the best coming-of-age story...

"Journey Into the Kingdom" - M. Rickert: Story-within-story at its very finest.

"The Wizards of Perfil" - Kelly Link: Wicked little girl Learns Lessons and grows into better person.

"Sob in the Silence" - Gene Wolfe: Creepy creepy creepy!!!


* For reasons I can't explain, I feel that combining the ideas of Powers and Gaiman would not work well. Bonus points will be awarded for theories on that in the comments.