As you may already know, we aren’t like other online book stores. For starters, we don’t believe that books should only be read once, or have a single owner. Literature should endure and be continually recycled, which is why we help millions of used books find new homes every year. I chose this compilation specifically to read Maggie Shayne's tale from her Immortal Witches series, and although I enjoyed it, IMO it was the least interesting story of the group. The chapter formula became redundant. Except for the last part of the story, it seemed that the end of every chapter introduced a new (apparently) life-changing crisis for Zachary and Jenna. They would solve that problem in the beginning/middle of the next chapter. What annoyed me was that Zachary and Jenna treated each problem in the beginning as an obstacle they could never overcome. Introducing Drama Prince Zach and Drama Princess Jenna. The formula goes: problem, [next chapter] drama moment (hopelessness), revelation, solution (happiness), problem [next chapter]. Over and over again, in every new planet/world they went to, this endless cycle continued to bore me. Jenna starts off with very low self-esteem, but finds a whole lot of self-confidence as the book progresses and is a great role-model for girls who don’t think they are smart enough. Tales of the queer fantastic. Queer speculative fiction stories. What can the discerning reader expect? Distant planets? Ghosts, witches, old gods? The Queen of the Fay. A magical bookstore (are not they all, to some degree?). Body-theft. Steampunk? Vampires? Yes, the discerning reader will not be disappointed. The fantastic is here indeed.

In these stories, Catherine Lundoff transports her readers into wondrous worlds where anything can and will happen. They evoke a marvellous sense of wonder in the readers and invite them to explore their fantastical and strange happenings. In this story, the author wonderfully touches on themes of regret, longing and yearning as she writes about Janet and her feelings. As many speculative fiction readers are aware of, LGBTQ characters are seldom seen in speculative fiction stories, because heterosexual characters can be found everywhere. LGBTQ characters have mostly been featured in novels and stories published by independent presses, because independent presses tend to be more open-minded towards elements concerning sexual orientation and gender issues than bigger presses. Because LGBTQ characters still remain rarities in modern speculative fiction, it's great that Catherine Lundoff writes about them and explores their lives. Catherine Lundoff’s stories have appeared in over 80 publications including Callisto: A Queer Fiction Journal, The Cainite Conspiracies, Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam, So Fey: Queer Faery Stories, The Mammoth Book of Professor Moriarty Adventures, Tales of the Unanticipated, Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures, Farrago’s Wainscot and Best Lesbian Erotica. She is the author of Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Silver Moon: A Wolves of Wolf's Point Novel (new updated edition) and the editor of Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) , all from Queen of Swords Press.Since they are young children they find themselves making mistakes that seem so common sense, and then regretting their decision, but learning from it none the less. Each world they jump through they find new and interesting characters that become more and more dangerous. Based on this collection, it's possible to say that Catherine Lundoff is a gifted author who writes good and fluent prose. She clearly aims to entertain her readers with captivating stories and succeeds in it, because each of her stories is good and well written. I like her way of giving a new spin to familiar plot elements, because it makes her stories feel fresh and exciting. I enjoyed the depth of characters in this book and insights. All of them damaged and pensive, trying to work out where it all went wrong and how it could have been different. Narrated in the first person by predominantly two characters, Harry and Sophie. The book spans generations of the same family, from the Robert Beech (war hero and ammunitions factory owner) to his son Harry (war photographer) and then Harry's daughter, Sophie, who lives in the USA with her two twin boys aged 10. Each character has had suffered loss due to death of partners and parents and this has lead to dysfunctional relationships throughout the generations. However, the speculative is only part of the title, the fantastic only part of the adjectives given for these tales. These are stories of the queer fantastic. The protagonists found are lesbians, bisexual, gay, or “somehow queer-identified,” as Lundoff explains in her introduction. These are important to her, as a “bi/queer-identified writer,” and to such readers like me. That detective on another planet is transgender. “Beauty”, the vampire retelling of Beauty and the Beast is also a gay love story, a “bit of yaoi with vampires” (v). This vampire gay love story was among my favorites. Shakespeare’s sister has to pass as a man, thus she is a crossdresser. The tale of the witches is a lesbian love story, one marked by jealousy, and slightly less than expert spellcasting. “A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace,” another of my favorites, is about political intrigue, dynastic quarrels, body switching at the palace, among other things. As Lundoff asserts in the introduction, “We need to be able to see ourselves as heroes and villains, gods and monsters, knights and wizards, and fair ladies and dragons and all the points between” (v). I read this and cheered! However, I did want to note that a good story, and this is a collection of excellent stories, is a good story, and that the reader does not have to be “somehow queer-identified” to enjoy them. These are human stories, about the human condition and human experience, seen through the lens of fantastic fiction. Here are some answers to the question of what it means to be human, answers that are thoughtful, often funny, sometimes dark, and always, well told, by an award-winning writer with a gifted imagination and keen sense of language and story. Robb/Roberts provides her standard excellence in the in Death series. However, it is the kind of book that needs to have multiple reads to get all the nuances. Oddly, I had not read the other short stories in the book. My problem with the story is that it is presented as an adventure to rescue two wereleopards and all of the necessary facts are detailed about the wereleopards at issue. While we seem to move in that direction, the story suddenly takes a tangent regarding some unexplained point from the series the book is a part of. When that small subplot is supposedly resolved, by the character exclaiming that the mystery will never be resolved, the story ends. Robb and, I presume, Shayne are writing stories that are part of a series. However, their stories can be read as stand-alone stories that have a clear, understandable beginning and a fully resolved endpoint. That more action may happen is clearly intimated, but we get to the end of the story that was initially presented.

To save their parents they will have to travel to unknown worlds. Too bad the natives on each world all seem to want them dead . . . This story has amusing references to H.P. Lovecraft that will delight those who enjoy Lovecraftian stories.Set in 1982 just as a Task Force is sailing to the South Atlantic to repel the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, Out of this World is a family drama that features most of Britain's major conflicts of the 20th century and centres around two main characters; Harry Beech, a former war photographer, and his estranged daughter, Sophie. Harry served in the RAF during WWII whilst his father won a Victoria Cross in WWI and was the owner of a successful armaments factory until he is killed in a terrorist bomb blast. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the first moon landing also make an appearance. Setting: Out of This World starts on Earth as we know it, but proceeds to take place on a variety of alien worlds with everything from transparent mammals to giant wasps to kangaroo-legged owl-men. All of these worlds have portals that semi-randomly appear, which are what connect the worlds ;-).

World of Books also buys directly from charities, taking the titles they don’t want or haven’t got space for. So as well as preventing the destruction of perfectly good books, our customers are helping to support good causes too. Cheap Books, Fantastic ChoiceI bought this book for the Eve Dallas story "Interlude in Death" by J.D. Robb. I stayed for the other three stories in the book: "Kinsman" by Susan Krinard, "Immortality" by Maggie Shayne, and "Magic Like Heat Across My Skin" by Laurell K Hamilton whose Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series is also a favorite of mine, and from which series this is but a snippet.

Beauty" is a fascinatingly dark story with erotic and romantic elements. It was interesting to read about how the Prince found out about his secret ancestry and how he felt about his father and sisters, because he disliked and hated them. This dark and seductively written vampire gay love story is simply brilliant and will captivate many readers. New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton —with a new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter tale: "Magic Like Heat Across My Skin." It's been six months since vampire hunter Anita Blake has seen the two men in her life. Now a kidnapping brings them together--closer than a woman, a vampire, and a werewolf have ever been before... Zachery and Jenna are having their usual morning breakfast when out of no where, shimmering appears in the air and their parents are gone. They've disappeared into thin shimmery air. Of course, just being young middle school children, they jump in after their parents.USA Today Bestselling Author Susan Krinard's "Kinsman." Searching the universe for a missing ship, two telepaths lose themselves in each other--mind, body, and soul... JD Robb: Solid story, but totally unexplored space theme - it’s set off-planet, but absolutely nothing happens that requires or explores that setting which is a little bit of a letdown.