- Paperback: 434 pages
- Publisher: Eos (Jun 20 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061053422
- ISBN-13: 978-0061053429
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.5 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,386,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
This collection features 32 never-before- published sorcery stories from leading fantasy writers, among them Jo Clayton, Dennis L. McKiernan, and Janet Berliner.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A veteran fantasy writer's (Freeze Frames, 1995, etc.) anthology of 32 contemporary, original, mostly American stories. Greek myth is well-represented, with tales such as Susan Shwartz's feminist ``Hunters,'' about Artemis' tragic love affair with a mortal, and Esther M. Friesner's amusing if overlong ``Tea,'' about a lustful male aerobics instructor on a cruise ship who finds himself in the middle of a parlor squabble between Circe, Medea, and Prospero. Many efforts here draw upon reserves of deep sorrow: M. John Harrison's ``Seven Guesses of the Heart,'' for example, concerns the inability of magic to comfort a grieving father, and Gregory Feeley's ``The Drowning Cell'' is a sad story about a girl connecting with a boy who, centuries ago, drowned in a debtors' prison. Alternatively, the boy may be only an imaginary playmate, but, in any case, experiencing his sadness enables the girl to free herself of her own troubles. ``I just can't believe in a world where everything is run by science,'' says the main character in Connie Hirsch's amusing romp, ``Wicked Cool,'' which might be a manifesto for fantasy writers; most of these pieces feature some sort of ``magick''--in Hirsch's case, not always the magick of the Old Religion, since her witches fly around contemporary Boston on broomsticks. Mark Kreighbaum's overtitled ``Looking in the Heart of Light, the Silence,'' however, convincingly evokes the allure of the black arts: Two practitioners play out a foreordained scenario on a gloomy winter night in Minneapolis, intoning a series of powerful spells. Magick becomes bittersweet in Karawynn Long's clever commentary on the abortion debate, ``Riddle in Nine Syllables,'' in which a high-school girl invokes a medieval spell to induce a miscarriage in her friend, only to find herself carrying the fetus. Not flawless, but nearly so. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Stories,
By A Customer
This review is from: Shimmering Door (Paperback)
This is an excellent collection of fantasy stories. They range all the way from very funny ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is just a joke told as a story) to true horror stories ("A Wreath of Pale Flowers for Vitri" was haunting and creepy). I don't read much fantasy and had never read any of these authors before, so it was a great introduction. I'll be looking to find some of these authors again. My very favourite story was the first one in the book, "Water Patterns" by Jo Clayton, and my second favourite was "A Time for Heroes" by Richard Parks. But almost every story was a gem.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Open and Enter . . .",
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Shimmering Door (Paperback)
For those who are wondering, this is the same book that was published as 'Sorceries' by Voyager in Australia and England.A wonderful mix of authors, and a wide variety of stories and setting. It was a great introduction to me to authors who are not available in Australia, and a welcome homecoming to some of my favourite fantasy authors. I was only sorry that there was nothing by Kerr herself in the collection, although her co-author of the Pinch novels, Mark Kreighbaum is represented, along with another of my favourites, Charles de Lint. My most favourite story in the whole collection was Connie Hirsch's 'Wicked Cool'. A fun story in an absolutely luscious setting. I hope she writes some novels or perhaps a collection of short stories in that world, as I would love to visit there again. The setting is a university in Boston where the students study magic as part of the curriculum, encounter ghosts on the stairwell and fly around on broomsticks. More please!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic compilation of short stories!,
By desilou freebush - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Shimmering Door (Paperback)
A fantastic compilation of short stories! I love the magic/fantasy genre and "The Shimmering Door" was a wonderful way to read a wide range of authors, but not have a ton of books checked out from the library all at once. There were only two stories that left me thinking, "whaaa??" the rest were outstanding. The vast majority of the stories give you enough of a complete thought that you enjoy the story in and of itself, and often they leaving you wishing for a whole book to follow the characters/stories. Katherine Kerr gathered a wonderful group of stories in "The Shimmering Door," and arranged them in three sections, which fit well. My only complaint with this book is that Kerr didn't have a story of her own in the book, writing only the introduction (of course, having a story of her own in there doesn't really fit either so I suppose I understand. . . ). I wish that I owned this book rather than just borrowed from the library - it'd be nice to have more time between stories to digest them better. Enjoy "The Shimmering Door" it is wonderful!
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