Review: Unusual Suspects, edited by Dana Stabenow

Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy (Sookie Stackhouse, #8.1) Unusu­al Sus­pects: Sto­ries of Mys­tery & Fan­ta­sy by Dana Stabenow

My review


rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars
Anoth­er uneven anthol­o­gy. I still have it in my hands, so I’ll try to hit each sto­ry briefly.

“Lucky” by Char­laine Har­ris — Sook­ie is much eas­i­er to take in short form. I can’t help it, the woman grates on me (in the TV show even worse than in the books). The oth­er char­ac­ters keep me reading.

“Bogie­man” by Car­ole Nel­son Dou­glas — Delilah Street does more than grate on my nerves in long form. She’s more palat­able in short form, too, but there are reminders of why I don’t intend to read more in that series.

“Looks are Deceiv­ing” by Michael A. Stack­pole — If I’ve read any of Stack­pole’s work before, it’s been in antholo­gies, and I don’t remem­ber it. I did won­der if this short sto­ry is set in a uni­verse he uses in longer works, though. It was­n’t bad at all.

“The House of Sev­en Spir­its” by Sharon Shinn — I loved this sto­ry! And how often do you say that about a haunt­ed house tale? I must track down and read some of Shin­n’s nov­els. Any suggestions?

“Glam­our” by Mike Doogan — The Peas­antry Anti-Defama­tion League might be after Doogan if he isn’t care­ful at least, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the male peas­antry). The sto­ry was cute, and it did make me laugh.

“Spell­bound” by Don­na Andrews — This is anoth­er author whose books are going on my (groan­ing) to-read shelf. The sto­ry hit a few clich&eaute;s, but was fun enough to get away with them.

“The Duh Vice” by Michael Arm­strong — Ugh. A lit­tle too preachy, and way too much anti-fat prejudice.

“Weight of the World” by John Stra­ley — Where does San­ta Claus go in the off-sea­son? That’s the biggest ques­tion answered in this piece. The “mys­tery” was “solved” near­ly as soon as it was discovered.

“Illu­mi­na­tion” by Lau­ra Anne Gilman — Bon­nie’s back sto­ry! I think a bit of this sto­ry is used in the first chap­ter of Gilman’s first PUPI nov­el, but I’ll know more when I get my hands on it. It’s a must-read for fans of the Cosa Nos­tradamus uni­verse, though.

“The House” by Lau­rie R. King — could we maybe call a hia­tus on the abused-kid sto­ries? Maybe I’m hyper­sen­si­tive, but I’m tired of them.

“Appetite for Mur­der” by Simon R. Green — is anoth­er dark Night­side sto­ry. I don’t think I’ll ever need to read more in that universe.

“A Wom­an’s Work” by Dana Stabenow — I’m an unabashed Stabenow fan­girl. Despite that, I was­n’t sure how she’d do in a fan­ta­sy set­ting. She proved her­self, cer­tain­ly. I can only hope that we’ll see longer fan­ta­sy works from her in print at some juncture.

View all my reviews.

Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
Posts created 4259

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.

Back To Top