Review

Finished Masters of Fantasy edited by Terry Carr and Martin Harry Greenburg. Maybe I’ve reached my limits on anthologies for awhile because this one just didn’t do it for me. My opinion has NOTHING to do with the quality of the stories; for the most part I thought they were all well written and entertaining. What caused me to be glad to put the book down was the over-riding theme of “bad stuff happens to good people”, or at least, undeserving or oblivious people. One or two of these OK, but twenty?? I was, as my husband would say after listening to Celtic music, ready to slit my wrists. So depressing.

It’s one thing if a bad, mean, or insensitive person gets his or her just desserts, but when something horrible happens to an innocent I wanna scream. Yes, I know it happens in real life, but when I read, I mostly want to enter another world, and the world these stories were taking me to I didn’t want to go.

I also read to learn something. If what I’m learning is that no matter what I do or how hard I struggle some psycho is still going to kill me then why try? What’s a story like that trying to teach me? That some people or creatures are beyond redemption? Give the reader an alien or inhuman viewpoint? Explore how people act in terrible situations? Make you feel better about your own life?

OK. I admit there may be reasons for writing and reading such stories. And I sheepishly admit that I, in fact, have written such tales. But again I say…twenty of them in one anthology??? I think at the very least the editor could have added the word “dark” to the title.

Sigh. I just started another anthology. I hope this one’s not as depressing.