Quite a good collection. One or two odd ones, but overall I liked it. In several cases just a hint of magic. Like a good spice that gives a hint of flavour without drowning everything out. ( )

An anthology is very much dependent upon the tastes of the editor and it seems my tastes and those of Jonathan Strahan do not coincide. I enjoyed K.J. Parker's "Safe House," Ellen Klages "Hey, Presto!" and Justina Robson's "On Skybolt Mountain" quite a bit. (Provided by publisher) ( )

I like anthologies as more often than not they introduce me to authors I'd never have come across otherwise, but the short stories on offer can be of a very mixed quality, as here. Some I enjoyed (K J Parker's 'Safe House' and Frances Hardinge's 'Devil's Bridge'), some were unsettling in a good way ('The Changeling' by James Bradley and 'On Skybolt Mountain' by Justina Robson), some were unconventional (Isobelle Carmody's 'Grigori's Solution' and 'Hey, Presto!' by Ellen Klages) and some that I feel would have been better suited to a Twilight Zone anthology ('The Nursery Corner' by Kaaron Warren and 'Ice in the Bedroom' by Robert Shearman), while some I didn't get at all (Karin Tidbeck's 'Migration' and Genevieve Valentine's 'Aberration').

I can see that there's a definite skill to writing a good and engaging short story as pacing is much more crucial than in a longer piece of fiction, but in the end the degree of success or failure of a particular story will very much depend on the individual reader. Though a lot of the tales were diverting for me the 'fearsome' magics promised in the title were in fact rather tame indeed in some cases and there wasn't one stand-out story that would convince me to keep the book. ( )

I've come to have very high expectations of Strahan's anthologies. This is, perhaps, not the strongest of his collections, and the title seems more random that actually indicating a theme - but it's still a solid book with some good-to-very-good stories in it.

** The Dun Letter, Christopher Rowe
It's what we've all dreamed of, isn't it? A letter arrives from Elfland, letting us know that we are lost royalty and that soon we are to be whisked away to marvels untold?
The execution here is fine - but sometimes a trope is a trope for a reason, and turning it on its head makes it less powerful, not more.

*** Home is the Haunter (A Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz story), Garth Nix
This is the first of Nix's Hereward & Fitz stories that I've read, and it's distinctly different than the works of his I've been familiar with. It felt very 1970's - I was reminded of Fritz Leiber or L. Sprague deCamp. A magical pumpkin-headed puppet is accompanied on a journey by a hulking knight. In the midst of a barren waste, they encounter a convent of priestesses who may hide an ominous secret. Action ensues...

*** Grigori’s Solution, Isobelle Carmody
The kernel of many conceptions of magic is that the description of a thing may be the thing itself. This story plays with that idea, giving us a contemporary situation: the solving of a thorny mathematical theorem leads to the literal unraveling of the universe. Logical? No, but many things are not, and more than anything, I feel the the main focus here is the voice of the narrator: a self-important elderly man.

**** Dream London Hospital, Tony Ballantyne
This was not the one to pick to read during lunch! Not so much a dream, but a nightmare hospital. A strange bird-man wanders the corridors, searching for an enigmatic 'her.' Surreal scenes and horrific events confront him as he wanders past, staying detached. Captures dream-logic very nicely, and ends up being genuinely unsettling.
(I see, though, that this is a tie-in to a full-length novel. While I very much enjoyed the style of this for a short piece, I don't think it would work in an extended format...)

*****Safe House, K J Parker
I really have to get around to reading KJ Parker's novels. I keep encountering (her?) short stories, and have loved every one that I've read. I'm impressed by how fully and completely characters and settings are conjured up in an economy of words...
Speaking of conjuring... the wizard we meet here certainly does some of that. He's on a mission; sent by his Studium to locate and rescue an untrained magical Talent in a country that's hostile to all of their kind (not without reason). When we meet him, that hostility is fully on view: he's on a gallows, with a noose around his neck. And things progress from there...

*** Hey Presto!, Ellen Klages
Well, that was unexpected - there's no fantasy element to this one at all. There is, however, magic. I was won over by this tale of a young girl who's won over by her stage-magician father. After her mother's death, she found herself emotionally distant from him - as well as physically distant, at boarding school. Her attitude toward his profession is a combination of embarrassment and disdain. But during a summer vacation, she finds that perhaps she and her father have more in common than she realized.

**** The Changeling, James Bradley
Emotionally difficult, but very well-crafted story. Again, this is not a fantasy piece. Rather, it's an exploration of the mindset of a young woman who has had far more misfortune in her life than anyone could be expected to bear alone.

**** Migration, Karin Tidbeck
Extremely well-written, but emotionally... odd. In a surreal setting, with a post-apocalyptic feel, groups of humans (?) enact strange, insect-like rituals. Definitely gives the opportunity for the reader to interpret the whole thing as an extended metaphor for human civilization... perhaps as observed by an alien that thinks humans are decidedly strange.

**** On Skybolt Mountain, Justina Robson
This is one that I read... and then read again, going back over it to check all the little details for clues... I'm still not sure that all the answers are in the story - but I really liked it.
An elderly village woman is thought to be a witch. She's not, we're told... but what we see sure makes it seem like she might be, even if her charms are small things, aimed toward comfort and a sense of fairness.
This is one of those places where witchery is a burning offense... but when rumors come to the ears of the local lord, she's summoned with a notification that she may be able to evade a death sentence if she uses her powers to do as he asks...

*** Where Our Edges Lie, Nina Kiriki Hoffman
A changeling story, with the added twist that the changeling is one of a pair of twins.
This is a nearly-identical theme to 'The Dun Letter,' found earlier in this volume - but it's handled near-infinitely better, here.

*** Devil’s Bridge, Frances Hardinge
This reminded me a great deal of another sci-fi short story I read recently, which starts out with a young girl getting into a car with a paying client. There's an assumption of what might be going on - but what's being paid for is not what's expected. I almost felt like this might be the same protagonist, but I'm pretty sure it's not. I've got to figure out what the other story was, now... [Edit: the story is “Call Girl” by Tang Fei] (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/985904896)

*** The Nursery Corner, Kaaron Warren
A young girl has practically been brought up in an old folks' home: her mom runs the place. She's used to the vagaries of the senile. However, when her mom starts dating one of the entertainers that comes in every so often - a seemingly jolly fellow - things start to change. He's got a way of calming down even the most truculent residents... making them seem happier.
A very unsettling horror story. I'm not sure the details at the beginning (about the residents of the old folks' home killing the abuser) really ended up being necessary - or even fitting in - to the work as a whole. However, as the story progressed, it did a really good job of increasing tension and culminating in something much more horrible than the standard horror vision.

**** Aberration, Genevieve Valentine
Some readers might not love the lack of clarity or plot structure here - but I thought it worked exceedingly well as a mood piece. I thought the 'feel' of this was very much like the film, 'The Hunger,' although none of the details are really the same.
A woman, seemingly immortal, travels through time, appearing at the scenes of disasters and at more mundane locations. She seems to - possibly - be caught until there is a death, and then to have to move on. She has a companion, whom she meets only occasionally, but their relationship is fraught, strained by, perhaps, some basic incompatibility of temperament, perhaps something lacking in her...
Beautiful writing.

*** Ice in the Bedroom, Robert Shearman
Again, not really a fantasy or speculative fiction piece. This is an exploration of the grieving process, as we see one man dealing with his wife's unexplained suicide. Part of his experience is vivid, hallucinatory dreams in which his bed seems to be transported to some cold, wolf-ridden hell - but while surreal, the dreams are mainly symbolic and metaphorical. It rang very true and felt sincere - but it wasn't my favorite piece.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book. As always, my opinions are solely my own. ( )