Book Review

Winter Moon was actually a triad of stories by C.E.Murphy, Mercedes Lackey, and Tanith Lee. As I started the first story by Lackey I couldn’t get interested. It seemed to drag. The second one by Lee also did and I was confused. I love Tanith Lee.

Then I realized what had happened. These stories had come on the heels of my Twilight immersion. Then I got it. They weren’t slow, just not at the heart stopping pace of Twilight.

So I settled in. In some ways all of these authors, especially Lee and Lackey, write in an old fashioned way. They preserve the feeling of high fantasy. You feel as if you’ve been dropped into a Dungeons and Dragons game. This is not a bad thing; the stories slowly draw themselves out like a fine skein of wool, inviting you to discover and enjoy the subtle colors and texture of the tale. The prose is rich and descriptive, the vocabulary beautiful. I didn’t feel as if I had to finish; I knew the stories would be waiting for me anytime I wanted to indulge.

And so I’ve come to realize that for me, both kinds of literature are “good” writing. The Twilight saga because I could think of nothing else while I was reading them. Tanith Lee and the others because of the exquisite language and storytelling. Something to consider. And to strive for.