Review of “Black Feathers” edited by Ellen Datlow

Birds may be the theme for the excellent Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales, but it is human interaction with our feathered friends (and enemies) that provides the darkness as well as the diversity in these 15 stories (13 original, two republished) and one poem. Not surprisingly, corvidae—traditional birds of ill omen and intermediaries between life and death—tend to turn up more than other phyla, but that does nothing to diminish the variety of the tales.

It is diffic...