The Faery Reel

Book excerpt: This “wondrous” collection of fantasy tales from Neil Gaiman, Patricia A. McKillip, and others “is a treasure chest. Open it and revel in its riches” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). For this enchanting anthology—a World Fantasy Award finalist—editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling “asked their contributors to reimagine Fäerie” in the present day, or “search its more dimly lit pathways,” and the authors have responded with bountiful imagination. The title piece is a poem by Neil Gaiman, but most of the others are longer pieces, “like shards of stories you want to hear more of.” Jeffrey Ford “limns the heartbreaking tale” of fairies who live in sandcastles built by young children; Ellen Steiber’s ‘Screaming for Fairies’ “sketches the lineaments of desire.” Bruce Glassco “finds a different voice for Tinkerbell and Captain Hook in ‘Never Never.’” Tanith Lee’s ‘Elvenbrood’ tale is eerie and “chilling.” Gregory Maguire, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Patricia A. McKillip, and Emma Bull’s stories all “enchant” and bewitch. Delia Sherman’s ‘CATNYP’ is “both funny and deeply clever, warming the cockles of anyone who has ever had dealings with a research library, especially New York Public’s” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). This companion volume to The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest is “a rewarding choice for those who like the traditional with a twist” (Booklist).