Twenty Epics

by Susan Marie Groppi (Editor), David J. Schwartz (Contributor)

Epics have lost their charm. There was a time when you finished an epic. When an epic left you feeling not discontent and exhausted, but joyous, melancholy, rejuvenated, satisfied -- left you feeling that you were a better person for the experience. TWENTY EPICS will bring that feeling back. In ten thousand words or less. All-new stories from Christopher Rowe, Tim Pratt, Alan DeNiro, Rachel McGonagill, K.D. Wentworth, Marcus Ewert, Christopher Barzak, Meghan McCarron, Stephen Eley, Jon Hansen, Paul Berger, David Schwartz, Sandra McDonald, Jack Mierzwa, Mary Robinette Kowal, Zoe Selengut, Ian McHugh, Yoon Ha Lee, Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Scott William Carter. Edited by David Moles and Susan Marie Groppi.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthologies

390 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2006

Reviews

[DavidO · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are 2 important questions I think about this collection.

The first is, are the stories good? So far I have enjoyed over 80% which is pretty good for a collection, I tend to be a picky reader.

The second question is whether or not there are 20 epics in here. Sadly the answer is no. Depending on your definition, there is from 3 to 8. No where near 20. I suspect they just didn't have 20 epics submitted to them of sufficient quality to publish so they just chose stories that were close to being epics but weren't quite epics. Some were fragments of epics, some told about an epic which didn't happen on the pages we read, some seemed to just be short stories set in a fantasy or science fiction universe.

Overall, the stories were pretty good but the title of the collection is misleading.

[Lord Humungus · Rating 4 out of 5]

some brilliant awesome stuff