From Publishers Weekly
There's a modicum of magic to be found in this second anthology (after Tales of the Impossible) from master prestidigitator Copperfield and Berliner. The stories are mostly second-rate entries from first-rate authors, and sweet if unsubstantial pieces from others. The best avoid any reliance on hocus-pocus, focusing instead on the magic of the human condition. Katharine Dunn's "The Allies" is a slight but nicely written tale of adolescent angst, family dysfunction and otherworldly craziness. Robyn Carr's "Natasha's Bedroom" is a softly sentimental fantasy about a widowed painter's relationship with her art. Karen Joy Fowler's "The Queen of Hearts and Swords," about racism and perception in San Francisco in the middle of the 19th century, lacks the sharp focus of Fowler's finest work but still intrigues. Enjoyable if predictable, Peter S. Beagle's "The Magician of Karakosk" recounts the predicaments of a sorcerer entrapped by his own prodigious skills. In Greg Bear's "The Fall of the House of Escher," the author takes a conjurer into a future so far-flung that all substance seems mirage. Seeing what humanity has become, the magician "pitied them. They had lived lives of illusion without wonder...." By contrast, this anthology about the wonder of illusion, though it may lack heft, presents enough razzle with sufficient dazzle to win not pity but modest praise.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is Copperfield's second anthology of stories by 18 "writers of the fantastic." As with the illusionist's first anthology, David Copperfield's Tales of the Impossible (LJ 10/15/95), this collection deals primarily with some aspect of magic or illusion, with stories by some of the most popular authors in the fantasy, horror, and sf genres. Unfortunately, the collection is uneven, with few redeeming examples. One outstanding sf entry by Greg Bear, "The Fall of the House of Escher," concerns a magician who is "reborn" into a future society whose inhabitants have abandoned the corporeal form. Other notable examples include Charles de Lint's "The Invisible," Edward Bryant's "Disallusion," and stories by Neil Gaiman, Katherine Dunn, and Steve Resnic Tem. Recommended only for large public libraries.?John Noel, Tennessee Tech Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
