Graham Swift's writing style is wonderful and immediate, and very matter of fact, the characters are very believable. The characterisation is fluent and impressive, because Catherine Lundoff writes captivatingly about the characters, their lives and their feelings. It's nice that the characters' sexuality is never the focal point of the stories, but more like a spice that gives a distinct flavour to them. The characters and their lives will captivate many readers regardless of their gender or sexuality. When I say the collection is a unified stylistic whole, I’m not talking specifically of the titular theme of “queer speculative fiction.” While I appreciate the market targeting signaled by that title, non-default identity here is pervasive but casual. The characters, in their myriad genders and orientations, are all queer in some fashion, but queerness is never the central point of the story. It simply is. Someday we’ll be able to expect that sort of inclusion in stories without needing to be reassured of it in the marketing (which can have the down side of inspiring non-queer readers to pass on by).

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. It is always interesting to me to read a short story by an author whose novels I enjoy. All the elements are there, in a tighter weave than usual. It is a mystery how it done for nothing is missing. The stories are concise, well woven, and captivating. A story about a young lady who visits a medium called Madame LaFarge who has a mechanical eye. She wishes to speak with her beloved Annabel who has died. Still with me? You sure? I’m going to reveal the ending. I don’t often do this, but this one rather bugged me. If you don’t want to know, stop reading this.

Table of Contents

An interesting story about a young man, Arin, who works in a brothel and has to prove that he's innocent of killing a nobleman with poison. This was not easy, nor a very pleasant read, since the stream-of-consciousness accounts and the fragmentary nature of each snapshot requires that the readers pay attention and always try to find the truth beyond the subjectivity of each perspective. This book consists of four novellas. Interlude in Death by J.D. Robb. Kinsman by Susan Krinard. Immortality by Maggie Shayne. Magic Like Heat Across My Skin by Laurell K. Hamilton.

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. I really wish Richards had brought all his awesome creativity into the book earlier. While the worlds he comes up with are interesting, the adventures play out like those weekly TV shows and are just a little too predictable, even though this gets explained later. Just push through! It’s worth it! I 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. 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 Choice A story about a professional editor, Erica, who receives a box which contains a statue of a cat. Soon she meets Rashida who tells her an incredible story about the statue.So far, so good. The characters are simple but believable, the settings are well constructed, the plot flows smoothly and logically... for about 80% of the way through. 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. Suddenly they find themselves in another world run by transparent people who don't seem to happy that they are there and try to convince them to leave their world. This is where the adventure begins, by jumping through portals to find their parents. New York Times bestselling author J. D. Robb —with a new Lieutenant Eve Dallas story: "Interlude in Death." At a police conference off-planet, Lietenant Eve Dallas is forced to forsake duty to take down a rogue ex-cop--and save the name she loves...

In "The Egyptian Cat" the author showcases her sense of humour, because she has given new names to a few well-known Lovecraftian tales. These clever names will amuse everybody who has ever read H.P. Lovecraft's stories. This story also contains intriguing references to Egyptian mythology, because the author writes about Servants of Set.Another great anthology of novellas where I thoroughly enjoy all four offerings of "Love, Supernatural Style"! I received Out of This World for review and didn’t actually realize it was a middle-grade novel before starting it. It became fairly obvious as I read through, but it’s definitely one of those books that you have to keep pushing through to the end because it all makes much more sense and reaches a whole new level of awesome! A Scent of Roses" is a brilliant story about Janet who has rescued her husband from the Queen of the Fae. The author writes captivatingly about how Janet becomes interested in the Queen and what she thinks about her husband. I think that this story will enthrall everybody who loves stories about the Fae. 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.

It’s all ‘magic.’ The beings that abducted their parents used ‘magic,’ and they don’t know how it (or much of anything else) works. That’s about all the explanation we get. It’s not quite as bad as saying it was all a dream, but it’s close. There is nothing about parallel worlds, multiple dimensions, or holes in space-time. All we get for an explanation for how all this happened is that it was ‘magic.’ Humans can do magic too, but the Earth has an anti-magic field around it that makes it almost impossible. Oh, and the San Andreas fault is not really a geological fault line between continental plates, it’s a magically sensitive area that will rupture if the aliens prevent portals from opening between their world and ours.

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. In 1972, Robert Beech, First World War veteran and prominent figure in the arms industry, is killed by a car bomb. The event cuts short the career of his son Harry, a news photographer, and comes close to destroying his granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, Harry, now working in aerial photography, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, remain scarred and divided by the event. Around their broken relationship and Harry’s memories of his truncated career and his father, the novel builds a story that is acutely private yet sweepingly public, at the heart of which lies Harry’s lifelong dedication of the camera. In this story, Selena meets her old college sweetheart Mona who she dumped for another girl. Mona comes to Selena's shop and asks for ingredients for a love spell. Magic Like Heat Across My Skin: Probably not fair to evaluate this as I haven't read any Anita Blake books and now...might not. I got the gist of the plot, and was into the concept of the Anita-vampire-werewolf triad, but Anita herself was so "I only just realized how awful I was being" that I just can't.