The Best of Talebones edited by Patrick Swenson

NOTE: The Best of Talebones was a free review copy provided to Luke Reviews by Fairwood Press.


In this field, there are a lot of magazines that come and go. Some leave a mark, and some pass on with little acclaim or notice. And sometimes some of them really take a hold and manage to pull together some great fiction before their eventual decline. One of these magazines is Talebones, headed by Patrick Swenson, who also happens to be head of Fairwood Press. And now, Fairwood has set out to collect some of the best stories to find homes in Talebones in their newest volume, The Best of Talebones.

The Best of Talebones is a generously-sized collection, topping out at 42 stories. Some big names and award-winning stories make it in here, as do a number of stories I had never encountered, but was glad to have fallen across.

With strong stories from names such as James Van Pelt, Paul Melko, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jack Skillingstead, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Vukcevich, Jay Lake, Devon Monk, William F. Nolan, Aliette de Bodard, Tom Piccirilli, and Ken Scholes, along with a host of others, The Best of Talebones is a huge collection of strong authors, both established and up-and-coming. The volume proves to be a very nice sampler, as well, of authors to check out that you may not have come across before. Off the top of my head, I know Van Pelt, Melko, Skillingstead, Vukcevich, Lake, Mark Rich, Monk, Nolan, and Scholes all have at least one book out from Fairwood Press, if not more, and you will be sure to look them up after seeing what they can do here.

The Best of Talebones chronicles the highlights of a strong genre magazine, and gives a nice look at the start of some careers that deserve to really take off. Fans of genre fiction won’t be disappointed.