Elemental Magic – ed. Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Magic books are fairy tale retellings set in the late 19th and early 20th century – the magic in these stories centers on the elements of Air, Fire, Water and Earth.      This is the first book that opened up that concept to other authors – and I really enjoyed it.

In the intro, Lackey noted that while she wanted to keep her stories in the time period she’d already chosen, she had no problem with others exploring different time periods, as long as the limit was 1919.      So this anthology features stories with Ancient Roman and Greek themes, a story in Hawaii before it was discovered by Europe, and some in America.      There are also several (including one by Lackey) set in the familiar world of the previous books.

The quality on this was good- I recognized most of the authors, and those I didn’t recognize were previously published.    That’s usually my one quibble with this kind of “fan” anthology – there’s usually at least one story that’s a complete stinker.       That was not the case here.    (And really, I’m not sure you could call this a fan anthology, which surely helps.)