An excellent short story collection, all by McKillip. These are very well written stories that either introduce a character or concept and give it enough time to be fully developed. A couple are almost novella length. 'Naming Day' and 'Byndley' might be my favorites. ( )

Easing my way back into short story collections. This one started off a little rough for me, as the first couple of stories had what I felt were less-than-satisfactory endings. By that I mean that I felt that (usually) the story just ended before a resolution, or the ending was so vague as to stain the rest of the story, or that the resolution came out of nowhere. Also - it's extremely possible that I'm just not smart enough to read this author's work.
In any event, I'm definitely not on her wavelength, as most of these stories just did not LAND for me, and I was so put off by the endings of the first stories that I had to fight to keep reading them, even after I'd encountered better ones. The final straw, though, was Xmas Cruise, which was the only one that I'd felt actually wasted my time. I threw in the towel after that.

Wonders of the Invisible World : 3 Stars
Out of the Woods : 3
The Kelpie : 4
Hunter’s Moon : 5
Oak Hill : 3
The Fortune-Teller : 3
Jack O’Lantern : 4
Knight of the Well : 4
Naming Day : 4
Byndley : 4
The Twelve Dancing Princesses : 4
Undine : 4
Xmas Cruise : 1
A Gift To Be Simple : DNF
The Old Woman and the Storm : DNF
The Doorkeeper of Khaat : DNF
What Inspires Me: : DNF ( )

I have often wondered why Patricia A. McKillip can create such fantastical worlds of individual books and yet rarely does a series. I finally found my answer in the back of this collection of her short stories. The editor included a speech McKillip gave at WisCon 28 in 2004 on the subject, "What Inspires Me." McKillop said, "What I set out to do fifteen years ago was to write a series of novels that were like paintings in a gallery by the same artist. Each work is different, but they are all related to one another by two things: they are all fantasy, and they are all by the same person. That's all I wanted to do."

Brava, Ms. McKillip as you have succeeded. ( )

This collection is full of good, solid fantasy stories. For me, the two standouts were:

Byndley: This one played on my fascination with back roads, shortcuts and borders and it confirmed everything I have suspected.

The Kelpie: Everyone's favorite, it seems. If I am ever able to find that borderland wormhole that will allow me to travel through time, I am sooooooo going to visit the Pre Raphaelite painters and I imagine it will be very similar to this story. ( )