Fiddler Fair

A collection of short stories that were mostly published elsewhere before. On the whole, it was an okay read, but most of them are probably forgettable.

Individual stories:

Aliens Ate My Pickup - 2/5 - Weird story, weird point of view. I went “Meh”, when I finished it.

Small Print - 4/5 - I liked this one quite a bit. Shows you that a sinful action is still a sinful action, no matter that you're planning on repenting your sinful actions down the line.

Last Rights - 3/5 - Sort of liked this kinda tongue-in-cheek story. It has its funny moments.

Dumb Feast - 3/5 - It's a summoning-a-dead-loved-one story, with a funny twist.

Dance Track - 1/5 - The context of this alternate history is totally lost on me, so it ended up pretty boring.

Jihad - 2/5 - Another meh for me. It didn't particularly engage me in any way.

Balance - 4/5 - Features a powerful mage and her bodyguard. I kind of liked the setting that this story was painting me. Could be an interesting world. The character interactions were fun to read.

Dragon's Teeth - 3/5 - A sort of follow-up to Balance. This was more cringe-worthy, particularly at the start, but it redeemed it self towards the end. Like I said, I think having this world more fleshed out would be a good thing.

The Cup and the Cauldron - 2/5 - A grail story, with a twist, bringing together two perspectives of the same thing. It was okay, like some of the others. Not very interesting.

Once and Future - 1/5 - Yet another with-a-twist short story. The author's commentary for this story sort of gave the plot away. I found myself being to predict it and found it boring, although I can see the twist was meant to be a little funny.

Fiddler Fair - 3/5 - From the author's commentary, this was supposed to be part of her “Free Bards” books (though I've not heard of them and should probably look them up). Characterisation was really good. By the end of it, I was rooting for the Rune.

The Enemy of My Enemy - 2/5 - Again from the commentary, this was supposed to be based on the Horseclans series by Robert Adams, which I passed over because I didn't like the plot synopsis at all. This cements my decision. I didn't like the post-apocalyptic world this story painted at all, what with telepathic animals and all. The dialects took a bit of getting used to as well, but the portrayal of the various characters/animals fine - I just didn't quite like this hodge-podge mixture of gypsy, medieval, tribal feel.