currents

[ex_pippin880]

Whatcha reading at the moment? Would you recommend it to others?

After taking a break to read 42 volumes of Dragon Ball I've gone back to The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I've read less than half of its contents, but so far I've been more disappointed than pleased. Hopefully the quality will pick up...

Comments

[sweet_sparrow]

At the moment, I've just finished up Titus Groan yesterday. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it, so I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to yet. I liked it, but I can see why people wouldn't.

I'm curious now, which of the stories in The Coyote Road did work for you? (I could't even finish The Dreaming Wind. It completely failed to grab my interest.) The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park after the Change was definitely the best story in there for me. I'm glad I read The Coyote Road for the stories I liked, but it's not been enough to convince me to rush out and collect the rest.

It's the third time I've read an anthology of theirs, but it just wasn't enough to convince me I must run out and collect the rest. I loved the first anthology I read, the second was utterly ruined by a single story, and this one... As said I'm glad I read it for the stories I liked, but... I don't know. *rambles*

We've very different causes for the reaction, though, I think. I thought a few of the stories were absolutely terrible choices (and the rest at least enjoyable to read), whereas you seem to dislike most of the stories.

[foxfinial]

I have a very mixed reaction to Ellen Datlow anthologies (regardless of whether there's a co-editor): I'll love some stories and struggle to finish others, and find quite a few mediocre. On the one hand, it suggests that Datlow is good at picking a range of stories. On the other, I wish our tastes intersected a little more.

Yet I go back for more. =D She is capable of picking some truly excellent stories.

I've read, hmm, four of hers: Salon Fantastique, Black Thorn White Rose, The Coyote Road and The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy. I also have the last YBFH, although the presence of Kelly Link & Gavin Grant on the editorial team means the success rate should be much higher.

[sweet_sparrow]

She certainly is, that. Though I have to wonder how much of the reaction is just something that's magnified because the stories are shorter and read more closely together. Would the effect be similar if these had been novel-length pieces we picked up and read after one another? Would the effect be similar if they'd been short stories we hadn't read together in anthology? For me the answer would be 'no'.

I wish I knew how to phrase my reasons for the first question. *pokes brain* The second, though. There's a sense of quality about stories that are brought together in an anthology (especially one like the YBFH which even has 'best' in the title), so when the reader finds that quality lacking, for any reason, where does that leave the anthology? When is an anthology truly successful? Should we like every story in an anthology equally? Should we, as readers, allow for the (occasional) ones that we're hard-pressed to finish? How about the ones that leave us wondering why on earth the story was included? (Mind you, I'd love to know why stories were included/picked, period, because that's the kind of thing I find fascinating.)

They're strange things, anthologies. And replying to you now, writing down those questions... I don't think I've ever realised how much of my childhood reading was anthologies. I grew up with read-along anthologies. They're probably the books I went back to most often, for the few stories that truly gripped me. One of them had a translation/condensation of Peter Pan in it that made up half the book's content. I skipped it routinely. That's a lot of story to skip in a book, even an anthology, but I've never, ever regretted reading those books. Nor sticking to reading my favourites. It's strange to think how much my reading's changed.

Also, I'm sorry for straying so. They're questions and thoughts that pop up from time to time in my mind. *pokes DW and hopes it won't double-post now*