From Publishers Weekly
This collection of conceptually innovative, thematically simple stories proves again that de Lint ( Spiritwalk ) is a leading talent in the urban fantasy subgenre, which seeks to unite the escapist whimsy of fantasy with the hard edge of cyberpunk SF. The stories are all set in Newford, a New York/Chicago-style urban jungle where citizens often encounter strange beings--worldly monsters, as well as unearthly ghosts--who coexist in what one character calls "a consensual reality where things exist because we want them to exist." In what may be his cleverest stylistic twist, de Lint links the stories through overlapping characters, all of whom have some familiarity with the fictional writer Christy Riddell, who (like de Lint) writes "mythistories," the "odd little stories that lie just under the skin of any large city." De Lint is at his best when his sense of wonder at the possibilities of imagination is rooted in an unsentimental view of harsh human realities: "Freewheeling" includes a sad view of urban street kids, and "In the House of My Enemy" takes a tough look at child abuse. However, De Lint's obviously sincere feeling that "if we learned to care again about the wild places from which we'd driven the magic away, then maybe it would return" leads him to spell out his moral messages, to the detriment of his fiction.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A ghostly love story with its beginnings in "Timeskip" and its poignant conclusion in "Paperjack" sets the tone for this collection of 19 stories (most of them published only in magazines) of urban fantasy by the author of Moonheart (Ace: Berkley, 1987) and The Little Country (Morrow, 1991). De Lint has a flair for tales that blur the lines between the mundane world and magical reality, and nowhere is this more evident than in the fictional city of Newford, where the borders between the worlds are at their most permeable. These tales by a superb storyteller belong in most libraries.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
