Short stories, found on the Baen Website. ( )

This book is an anthology containing eleven short stories in a mix of genres including fantasy, science fiction, paranormal, and even alternate history.

Although I’m usually not too crazy for short stories, I actually really enjoyed these. They had plenty of meat and character development, and sometimes there were deeper themes underlying a story that gave it more meaning. I wouldn’t have complained if the stories had been longer and more fleshed out, but I didn’t feel like I was just being fed scraps of a potential story like I often feel when I read short stories.

I would have rated this book with 4 stars if not for the endings. There wasn’t a truly happy ending to be seen in the bunch. They ranged from “rather bizarre” at best to “completely depressing” at worst and everywhere in-between. I much prefer stories with happy or at least hopeful endings, so being hit with eleven unhappy (or, at least, "not happy") endings one after the other was a bit much.

I’m not sure if it was just this electronic version I had downloaded from the Baen free library years ago or not, but I found a lot of errors in the book – more than I would expect to see in a formally published book. But, in spite of the errors and the endings, I still enjoyed this book well enough that I read it all in one sitting. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?ID=253 ( )

Read Online: http://webscriptions.net/10.1125/Baen/1888993294/1888993294.htm