Uploaded May 7, 1997 -- Updated May 7, 1997
HarperPrism
Here is the list of stories in this anthology. If you have any comments or reviews, send them to jbailey@sff.net. Please indicate which publication and/or story you're referring to in the subject line, and try to keep comments for different stories separate in you letters so I can place them properly.
"Eagle" by David Copperfield
"16 Mins." by Eric Lustbader
"Disillusion" by Edward Bryant
[2/10/97]
"The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" by Tad
Williams
"The Allies" by Katherine Dunn
"The Magician of Karakosk" by Peter S.
Beagle
"The N Auntie" by Anne McCaffrey
"The Fall of the House of Escher" by Greg
Bear [2/10/97]
"Chin Oil" by George Guthridge
"Crossing into the Empire" by Robert
Silverberg
"Natasha's Bedroom" by Robyn Carr
"Technomagic" by Kevin J. Anderson
"The Queen of Hearts and Swords" by Karen
Joy Fowler
"The Invisibles" by Charles de Lint
"A Cascade of Lies" by Steve Rasnic Tem
"The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories"
by Neil Gaiman
"Humpty Dumpty Was a Runner" by Janet Berliner
Miscellaneous Comments (on the book as a whole, introductions, etc.)
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Mark Stackpole: 2/10/97
A melancholy tale of a stooge whose purpose in his curiously circumscribed life is to debunk a seemingly miraculous magician. Sad and quiet. Very much in the same tone as Bryant's "Flirting with Death".
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Mark Stackpole: 2/10/97
Everybody knows Arthur Clarke's dictum "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Bear answers right back, "Oh no it isn't" or to be more precise, Magic is distinguishable from advanced technology, as our protagonist discovers to his sorrow.
Bear packs a lot into one of the best stories published in 1996. The setup rings a change on "When the Sleeper Awakes" with a person from our present is resurrected in the far future. Bear's magician character is clearly based on Ricky Jay of "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" fame, right down to the patter and the piercing of foodstuffs with playing cards. The plot, no great surprise here, parallels EA Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher". Full of marvels and rhapsodic language (c.f. the passage where the gimmickry of the magician's trade is described). A great story.
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