"Worlds of Adventure" by Al Thibeaux, Jaq Thibeaux, and Tor Thibeaux

Behold, another anthology. I'm doing the micro-reviews for this again.

"Runners Alliance" by Al Thibeaux: Dystopian, with megacorporate warfare involved (because of course).

"Rendezvous" by Tor Thibeaux: A guy defects from another dystopia, then turns out to have the time of his life doing so, severely annoying everyone who's extracting him.

"Symbiosis" by Jaq Thibeaux: All the trees are sentient and can talk to each other. Then one of them dies, and another one gets depressed.

"Star Harvest" by Tor Thibeaux: I'm not sure if what these people are harvesting are actual real stars or if they're just called stars for some reason.

"To a Better Time" by Al Thibeaux: In which the Lady of the Lake is a time traveler.

"Escape" by Tor Thibeaux: Remember the guy who has the time of his life defecting from a dystopia? He's back, having the time of his life rescuing another person from a dystopia. And ticking off basically everyone else in his organization by Not Acting Like A Proper Secret Agent.

"Adventure for Two" by Al Thibeaux: A guy from a singularly boring village is GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!!! And then he meets a dragon.

"One Last Shot" by Jaq Thibeaux: A random person and her mysterious floating sphere buddy have to get past a guard robot.

"The Aim High" by Tor Thibeaux: A salvage ship finds a mysteriously abandoned ship. With spooky things on it.

"Seven Strong" by Al Thibeaux: Basically just a sci-fi retelling of Snow White.

"Treachery Aboard the Nautilus" by Tor Thibeaux: What if Professor Arronax was evil?

"The Queen's Cure" by Al Thibeaux: A peaceful kingdom with fairies is abruptly invaded by an evil guy and his robot army.

"Raid on the Zone" by Tor Thibeaux: Turns out oil fields can get attacked by angry furries. 

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for violence. 

4 stars.

(Endnote: A "furry" is basically a humanoid animal.)

"Mythical Doorways" anthology

This is getting out of hand, now there are two four of them! Actually there's like 12 of these anthologies, but I've only read four. [EDIT: no, there's actually six.]

"Everwild" by J. M. Hackman: An orphan gets too old for foster care, then discovers both he and the girl he has a crush on are actually fairies. This one's fairly good.

"Well of Fate" by Savannah Jezowski: Y'all remember Ratatosk from the Norse myths? This is him.

"Jericho and the Magician's Daughter" by H. L. Burke: The magic system is imaginative. The story is okay.

"Dragon's Oath" by Katy Huth Jones: Some kid has a terrible crush on a girl whose dad is set against it. He overreacts and leaves the village entirely. Apparently some sort of prequel to some other stuff this author's written.

"The Hallway of Three Doors" by D. G. Driver: Feels like it stumbles into allegory territory, takes a long look, and then nopes out of there to go start a village instead.

"Door Number Four" by Bokerah Brumley: No relation to the previous story. This one's about trainee interdimensional animal rescuers.

"Threshold" by Laurie Lucking: A girl has to choose between living in fairyland or the real world. Not as depressing as it sounds.

 

"Idiot's Graveyard" by Arthur Daigle: Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden are baaaaaaaack! My favorite story in this collection.

 

"Cosmic Cravings" by AJ Bakke: A mouse wizard attempts to create a dimensional portal to Earth in order to replenish her supply of chocolate, heedless of the fact that creating dimensional portals is stupidly dangerous.

 

"Dragon Ward" by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt: A girl is being chased by an angry dragon, then they both get isekai'd.

 

"What Lies Ahead" by Laurie Lynch: An ancient Roman escaped slave uses time travel to... change absolutely nothing about the past.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence. "Well of Fate", "Door Number Four", "Idiot's Graveyard", and "Cosmic Cravings" could all make fairly good videogames; I think "Well of Fate" would do quite well as an old-school text adventure. The others are either too character-based to have much player agency ("Everwild", "What Lies Ahead", "Dragon's Oath", and "Threshold"), too short ("Dragon Ward"), or too hard to translate effectively into mechanics ("The Hallway of Three Doors"). "Jericho and the Magician's Daughter" could do okay as a videogame, but I just don't like it enough to speculate much.

4 stars.

(Endnote: It appears this is the one where they stopped having objectionable content. Which is good.)

"Hall of Heroes" anthology

Behold the third (and, so far, longest) one of these collections that I've read!

"Alancia's Dance" by H. L. Burke: A technically-not-matador-but-only-because-this-isn't-Spain woman meets Totally Not Daedalus, then falls in love. The king disapproves. I didn't really like this one.

"The Hero Feat of Hannah Helstrom" by J. Philip Horne: Superheroes, including one whose power is regeneration and literally nothing else. This one is decent.

"In Plain Sight" by Arthur Daigle: A stage magician with animated (non-creepy) dolls |turns out to be a real magician slash mad scientist with animated objects that are a lot more dangerous|. One of the best ones in the collection.

"Finn MacRorie and the River Dragon" by Katy Huth Jones: Ireland/Scotland, [insert year]: A random knight-errant shows up at a village, fixes this one family's problems, and then leaves. It feels like something out of an Irish/Scottish-flavored King Arthur legend.

"Little Victories" by Karin De Havin: Local escaped-pet-whisperer accidentally discovers injured fairy. This one isn't anything terribly special, but it's a solid story.

"And Only the Eyes of Children" by Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Turns out the Fair Folk do not like {T15+ at least child sex trafficking}. Well-executed, if not very appropriate for young readers.

"The Demon Monkeys" by A. R. Silverberry: Medieval non-European-flavored village is terrorized by demon monkeys. |Who are actually just bandits carrying howler monkeys|. Then a wizard(ish person) shows up. This one is okay.

"Superhero Publicist" by Janeen Ippolito: Exactly what it sounds like. A publicist for superheroes/supervillains has to deal with a supervillain who abruptly became a superhero instead due to converting to Christianity. The premise is good. The story is okay.

"Sweet Basil" by Lea Doué: Magic Is Banned™. Our protagonist has magic. You can see where this is going.

"Darkness Follows the Light" by David Millican: I mean, if there were evil child-stealing monsters, they probably would hang around bad neighborhoods. This one is not appropriate for children.

"Presenting... The Steampendous Adventures of Josiah U. Bear and the Rubber Barons" by D. W. Frauenfelder: A vaguely turn-of-the-century-esque story involving a nation of talking bears. Requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.

"River's Edge Ransom" by Julie C. Gilbert: Apparently part of a larger series. Fantasy. It's okay, I guess.

"The Love Talker" by Deanna Fugett: There's an evil monster that goes around breaking girls' hearts for the heck of it. There are also some protagonists. This one is decent, but not my cup of cheese.

"Gem" by RJ Conte: An alternate-universe world is attempting to shake itself to pieces. Except: That world's God has given them psions that can hold it together with their brains. Except: They never actually get to be more than about seven before the world tries to shake itself to pieces again. Less depressing than it sounds.

"Leticia's Song" by Jessica L. Elliott: Sort of like that one fairytale with the guys who get turned into swans. Also somewhat involves Not!Pandora's Box. This one is decent.

"The Wooden Ruler" by David Millican: Turns out if you make sentient gnome dolls, they might get too sentient. And view you as eldritch horrors. This is definitely an interesting read.

"The Tale of Sir Ronan of Camelot" by Frank B. Luke: Strongly Camelot-flavored, with a pronounced secondary taste of allegory. Didn't like it much.

"A Fiery Gift" by A. J. Bakke: Adorable volcano otters! And some point it's trying to make, probably, but I'm just here for the adorable volcano otters.

"The Hero of Emoh: A Parent's Fairytale" by Sarah Ashwood: DNF'd this one because I could just taste the sappiness and the spelling-things-backwards and was not in the mood for that. I'm still not.

"Sacrifice to the Iara" by H. L. Burke: Sort of ancient-South-American-civilization-flavored. It's got the winged and feathered serpents for that, at least. Well-executed.

"Charla Visits Earth" by Diane Astle: Fish-out-of-water where the fish is actually a mermaid, making that phrase both metaphorical and literal for this case. This one is okay.

"Cry of the Cave Lion" by E. Kaiser Writes: Cave lions. And the hunter-gatherers who hunt them.

"Save the Day" by Page Zaplendam: Teenage superheroes. A fairly realistic take on that subgenre, in fact. This is one of the better stories in here.

"Boy of Sand and Sky" by Laura Matthias Bendoly: Ancient France! But with a kid who can do miracles, and who apparently factors into some other stuff this author's written.

"Teamwork" by Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Have you ever heard of the "Choking Doberman" urban legend? It's basically {T a dog starts mysteriously choking, and when taken to the vet, turns out to be choking on some severed human fingers}. This story is just that urban legend in short story form.

"The Ungifted Twin" by Tamie Dearen: Classic "girl with no magic power in universe where everyone has a magic power" story. This one is okay.

"Not Quite a Hero" by Arthur Daigle: The mayor's intrepid daughter and... how do I even begin to describe Sorcerer Lord Jayden? They meet for the first time in this, then fight a giant shapeshifting monster made of dead stuff. This is my favorite story in the entire collection.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for child abuse and sexual references.

On the low side of 4 stars; would have been 3, but "Not Quite a Hero" exists.

(Endnote: Arthur Daigle is fast rising in the ranks of my favorite authors. The nonexistent ranks, because I don't actually have a list.)

"Fantastic Creatures" anthology

This one isn't as good as the other one I reviewed, but I'm reviewing it anyway.

"Three Steaks and a Box of Chocolates" by A. R. Silverberry: Kind of boring, about a country doctor and a mountain man who has a mysterious monster friend. Its time period is somewhat ambiguous.

"Snapdragon" by Lea Doué: Local mom gets wronged by a man, overreacts, curses both daughters so they can technically never be wronged in that way but also their lives are super terrible now because the curses are poorly executed. Also kind of a retelling of Princess and the Frog.

 

"The Golden City Captives" by Julie C. Gilbert: A guy and his girlfriend get enslaved for the arena and then turn out to both be shapeshifters. Ended too abruptly for my taste.

 

"Seekers" by Intisar Khanani: A little girl has a knack for locating hidden things. |Turns out she's a selkie|. My synopsis is bad, but the story is decent.

"Mystery of Asgina Lake" by Caren Rich: Nobody believes the lake monster is real, except the sheriff's twin daughters. Who find the lake monster. It is not friendly. This one was fairly good.

"Skin Deep" by Morgan Smith: The first one that made me go "Welp, this is not as family-friendly as Tales of Ever After." Basically some girl has to get married to the prince, who's a horrific monster because fairies are jerks. And then {T15+ they play Strip Fantasy Dice Game}. There are so many other things that could have happened, my man! (well, woman, actually.) Did not love this one.

"The Last Chronicle of Pete Mersill" by David Millican: Evil life-draining beings have taken over the world and wrecked most of it. One guy murders a bunch of them. Then he dies (would spoiler tag that, but come on, look at the title.) Too bleak for my taste.

"Priscilla, the Magnificent, Flying Giant Squid" by L. Palmer: About a woman who honors her dead colleague by transporting a sentient kraken via dirigible, despite the fact that pretty much everyone else says A) sentient krakens don't exist and B) if they did, you couldn't transport them via dirigible. This one is okay.

"An Adventurer's Heart" by Nicole Zoltack: A vaguely Greek Mythology-flavored one with jewels that do magic stuff. Didn't love it, but it's not bad.

"Destiny's Flight" by Frank B. Luke: Needs more worldbuilding. Has a vaguely Old Testament flavor, but also a vaguely Medieval Crusades flavor. And some evil guys. Apparently written by a pastor, though I can't speak to what kind of pastor. This either needs to be more or less like Narnia.

 

"The Kappa" by Lelia Rose Foreman: Short, relatively pointless story that reads like a Japanese folktale (and may actually be one). It involves a kappa, because of course.

 

"Celebration" by Arthur Daigle: A king dies. Everyone's sad. Then a bunch of goblins steal the corpse, bury it, and celebrate because said king was actually decent to goblins (who aren't evil in this). This guy wrote my favorite story in the other one, and this story is similarly good.

 

"The Nether Lands" by David Millican: Yeesh. The one that involves demon hunting, and also 85% of the inappropriate-for-children content in the whole anthology. Did not like this one.

"Talori and the Shark" by Jessica L. Elliott: Feels like several fairy tales mashed into an unidentifiable paste and then formed back into a story. It's not my favorite, but definitely better than the previous one.

"Reviving the Sword" by Kandi J. Wyatt: A centaur attempts to re-empower her magic sword. Kind of boring.

"Mothers' Night Out" by D. G. Driver: Graphic violence! Basically the new hire at the daycare gets stuck babysitting all the employees' babies at night while their moms go do stuff. |Turns out they're all werewolves|. Did not like this one either.

"The Mage and the Spotted Wyvern" by Craig J. Price Jr.: A solid story, if not one with anything particularly special about it. Its plot is oddly hard to describe.

"The Very Last Dragon" by Katy Huth Jones: Imagine St. George and the Dragon, but told in a somewhat silly and satirical fashion. This one is okay.

 

"The Adventures of Zero: The Quest for Wormsroot" by Vincent Trigili: A kid attempts to go find a rare root so the village doctor/healer/alchemist will take him on as an apprentice. Fairly entertaining.

"Ishka's Garden" by Bokerah Brumley: A princess's fairy friend gets abducted, so the princess goes after her. Has a decent plot twist at the end.

"Absolutely True Facts about the Pacific Tree Octopus" by H. L. Burke: Little girl gets taken in by Internet hoax that turns out not to actually be hoax. Not great, not terrible.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for sexual references (I'm looking at you, The Nether Lands) and graphic violence ("Mothers' Night Out", anyone?)

3 stars, overall. Most of the stories are fairly okay, there's just a couple that are nyehhhhhh. I'm glad this is the first book in the series, as that means it improves as time goes on.

(Endnote: I'm willing to bet some fake internet points that there are very few other blog posts which use nyehhhhhh as a predicate adjective inside a dependent clause.)

"Tales of Ever After" anthology

This is a collection of 16 stories by various people, some of which stories were good and some of which were okay. The stories include:

"Cinders" by Kendra E. Ardnek: Cinderella, but with a person who's actually a cat |who's actually a person|. And a Cool Old Wizard Guy. I liked this one.

"At the Corner of Elm & Main" by H. L. Burke: In which a lamppost becomes sentient. This one was decent.

"Tears of the Sea" by Savannah Jezowski: The Little Mermaid, but not really. I enjoyed the twist that |the main character's human obsession doesn't end in romance|.

"Steelhand" by Ashley Capes: Sleeping Beauty... sorta? But with an evil alchemist and a hero with a mechanical hand. Imaginative.

"King or Beggar" by D. G. Driver: Basically just King Thrushbeard.

"The Girl Who Talked to Birds" by Kristen S. Walker: It's about a girl who talks to birds. Apparently part of a larger series. This one is fairly good.

"The Princess and the Stone-Picker" by Sarah Ashwood: Feels like it could be an obscure fairy tale. I didn't like it much, but that's just because initially stuck-up protagonists annoy me, no matter how much better they get.

"Wake the Moon" by Annie Louise Twitchell: This one was good. It's a fairly well-executed modern one involving personified celestial objects.

"The Greatest Adventure" by J. M. Hackman: Slaying the dragon! And (surprise surprise) the dragon is actually evil.

"Third Princess" by Emily Martha Sorensen: In which the first two royal siblings also succeed. I liked it fairly well.

"A Week After Midnight" by Alex McGilvery: Basically a "what happens next" for Cinderella. Wasn't my favorite, but I didn't dislike it.

"Being Seen" by Gretchen E. K. Engel: In which a girl is invisible for no discernible reason and tries to find love despite the fact nobody can see her. |And then a blind guy shows up.| Decent, I guess?

"The Quest for a Wide-Awake Princess" by Lia London: A prince tries to find a normal princess who doesn't have horrible trouble sleeping (coughPrincessandthePeacough) or horrible trouble not sleeping (coughSleepingBeautycough). This is one of those stories that lightly pokes fun at fairy tale tropes.

"How to Hide a Prince" by E. J. Kitchens: What if, instead of turning him back human, kissing the frog prince turned you into a frog? And what if nefarious people tried to get you to kiss the frog prince? Not great, not terrible, this one.

 

"Believing Fairy Tales" by Arthur Daigle: Sarcastic shrine tender guy has his shrine invaded by Evil Guys who think there's a magic sword hidden inside. Plot twist: |there is a magic sword hidden inside, sealing a terrifying monster|. Further plot twist: |The shrine tender guy is the terrifying monster, bound in human shape by the magic sword|. This is definitely in the top three best stories in this collection, in my opinion.

 

"The Loathly Princess of Edimor" by L. Palmer: Not my favorite. A princess tries to escape marriage by having a witch turn her into a swan. It doesn't go super well.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T overall. There are some stories that fall below that.

4 stars, as an overall rating; I'm not going to bother giving each individual story its own star rating.

(Endnote: Somehow we managed to pick up the seventh one of these first, and incidentally also the cleanest of the ones I've read. Not to say the others weren't good, but their content level is higher. [EDIT: This isn't the seventh one, it's the fourth. I'm not sure where I got "seventh" from.])

"A Very Bookish Christmas" collection

Yep, the Christmas one of these. I'm going to do this review like the last one, with the mini-reviews and the multiple ratings and all.

(Note: As with the other one, my mom reviewed this, and her review tells you much more what the stories are about.)

Gingerbread Treasures by Rebekah Jones (The Sign of the Four)

This is by the same person who wrote The Windles and the Lost Boy in the Thanksgiving one, which I wouldn't have noticed except that it mentioned Arborville (the town in TW&tLB). It's my second favorite of these four stories; as with TW&tLB, it had a more action-y plot. It's still not the book version of an action movie or anything, but I think this is the only story in this collection where anyone gets in a physical fight.

(Because it doesn't say in the beginning synopsis which Sherlock Holmes mystery this is inspired by, I thought it was the Dancing Men one, what with the gingerbread men and all.)

Rating this E10+ for mild violence and mentions of death. 4 stars.

Molly and Anna by Sarah Holman (Pollyanna)

I didn't love this one, despite the fact that it's by the same person who wrote my favorite story in the other one. Molly and Anna has... less of what I liked about As Long as I Belong, maybe? Something like that. That's not to say I disliked Molly and Anna, but I didn't like it as much as As Long as I Belong.

Rating this E10+ for discussion of racism. 4 stars.

Sylvie of Amber Apartments by J. Grace Pennington (Anne of Green Gables)

I feel like this one was just kind of there. It's not bad or anything, but it also doesn't really interest me. Accordingly, I don't have much to say about this.

Rating this E, 3 stars.

Sincerely, Jem by Kate Willis (Daddy-Long-Legs)

This one is indubitably my favorite. There's a reason it provided all three of the favorite lines (below). I think part of my affinity for this is because I really like the main character; she's just so fun to read about. I'm having a hard time finding things to say about this novella, but it's hilarious and fun and entertaining, so those are three adjectives for you.

Rating this E, 5 stars. (Yes.)

Were this collection a collection of videogames, I'd rate it: E10+.

The collection, on a whole, gets 4 stars. And guess what? Unlike with the other one, it's the actual average of the individual story ratings.

Favorite lines:

    Dear Longfellow,

    Here are thirteen pages of hilarious rubbish.

    Page 358. It's in Sincerely, Jem.

 

    The profs had an ugly sweater contest. (Page 360).

    ...

    Oh, if you have time, sometime, anyway, do tell more about the ugly sweater contest. I have a whole story going in my head about the English teacher wearing his regular clothes and accidentally winning and the art teacher making something sufficiently ugly but with a surprising amount of symbolism or something. How far off am I? (Page 362).

     ...

    You are dead on about the ugly sweater contest, though it was the creative writing teacher, not the English teacher. And you forgot the science prof who thought they were all crazy and dressed as nicely as possible. (Page 363).

    This is an exchange from the letters in Sincerely, Jem, that makes me chuckle every time I read it. It's actually spread out over multiple letters, but I collected it in one place so I could write it here.

    The best prank I ever did was convincing my art teacher in high school that it was a holiday, and we were all there by mistake. Since Columbus Day is a thing, I made up Amerigo Vespucci Day, told all the other students what I would have been doing to celebrate it if I hadn't been in school, and asked my teacher what her plans were.

    Page 363. Also from Sincerely, Jem.

(Endnote: It was kind hard not just rereading Sincerely, Jem again while writing this post. It's such a fun story and I like it so muuuuuch...)

"A Very Bookish Thanksgiving" collection

This is a collection of Thanksgiving stories that are each inspired in some way by a classic book. I know it's past Thanksgiving now, but eh; I read this when it was still seasonable.

Anyway, there are five stories in here, and I'm going to give each one of them a mini-review, complete with videogame rating and star rating. I'll also stick an overall rating on the end.

(Note: My mom reviewed this a while back, so you should probably read her review first. At least, it would make mine more intelligible.)

A Promise of Acorns by Kelsey Bryant (Jane Eyre)

Not my cup of eggnog. It's about someone taking care of a curmudgeonly professor's grandchildren, and it just... didn't have enough plot for me? I don't know. I don't have any reasons to dislike it, I just don't have any reasons to like it much either.

Rating this E, though it's a bit boring for young children. 3 stars.

As Long as I Belong by Sarah Holman (Mansfield Park)

Probably my favorite, or at least tied with The Windles and the Lost Boy (see below). Theoretically, it would seem like this one would have a lot of the same problems for me that A Promise of Acorns had. I think I like the emotional-ness of this one better, if that makes sense? Like, APoA had its main character be more serious and subdued, and As Long as I Belong's main character was... not that? She seemed like she cared a lot more about things than APoA's main character did, even though the text of APoA informed us that the main character did in fact care.

This one doesn't seem like the sort of story that would appeal to me, but it did. If you told me that this one was going to be my favorite, I would have laughed at you (and been predisposed to not like it, but that's another thing entirely).

This mini-review got long. I'm rating this E again, and 4 stars. (Honestly, if I had half-stars, I'd probably give this 4.5 stars instead. But I didn't exactly like it enough to give it 5, so here we are.)

The Windles and the Lost Boy by Rebekah Jones (Peter Pan)

My other favorite. I think this one has the most exciting plot of all of them, and it's probably the only one I might have picked up if it wasn't in an anthology my mom said I might like. It's a tad bit farfetched, but then, so is Peter Pan.

Rating this E10+ for mild violence and mentions of abuse. (It'd probably get T from the ESRB as a game, though.) Also, 4 stars.

Grand Intentions by J. Grace Pennington (Great Expectations)

A young aspiring writer is invited to house-sit for her grandmother, who's going on vacation for six months. While there, the writer develops a crush, falls in with a group of (unintentional) baaaad influences, and gets some character development. I usually end up skimming parts of this one when I read this collection; nothing untoward, I just don't like reading them.

Rating this E10+ for mild alcohol use. 3 stars.

A Fine Day Tomorrow by Amanda Tero (Little Women)

The one I skip most often. It's definitely not bad, but I'm not super fond of Little Women, and I think I had the same problem with it that I had with A Promise of Acorns. It's set during the First World War, which is one of my favorite eras to learn about... but it really focuses more on the Spanish Flu pandemic, which was just grey and depressing, as I've lived through a pandemic (though I'm thankful that the COVID-19 plague was nowhere near as bad as the Spanish Flu).

Rating this E but boring. (Hey, maybe I should make that a separate category; "nothing objectionable, but small children wouldn't bother" or something?) I'm also giving it 3 stars; as I said, it wasn't bad, it just didn't appeal to me.

All right. Were this collection a collection of videogames, the whole thing would get rated: E10+ for mild alcohol use, mild violence, mentions of abuse, and... yeah, that's pretty much it.

 

Overall, I give this 4 stars. I know the average is actually 3.4 stars, but not everything has to work like math.

(Endnote: These are all Christian fiction, and they all manage to have at least some discussion of Christian faith. How well that was worked into the story--basically, how much it felt shoehorned in, if at all--varied from story to story.)