Friday, January 6, 2012

Review: UnCONventional. ed. by Kate Kaynak & Trisha Wooldridge

It’s about to get weird…                                                          
Okay, weirder in here.

Alien ascensions in hotel ballrooms.
Mermaids on cruise ships.
Werewolves in dog shows.
Steampunk fairy time travelers.
A teenage superhero
Hitching a ride with a supervillain.
Comic books
That absorb their readers.
Magical filk… and much more


Disclaimer: Anthologies are very hard to review due to the many authors/styles/stories within them. I will not attempt to review each one. Instead, I am reviewing the collection as a whole.
Disclaimer part II: My own short story appears in this anthology. Since I did not trust myself to give it an unbiased review, it is not included in my review at all. In fact, after spending several minutes staring at my name on the title page, I skipped my story altogether.  Now on to my thoughts.

            I absolutely love the concept/layout of this anthology.  Each author has a convention badge, panelist bio, and appears on a schedule of events. The stories are divided into “panels,” and I’m pretty sure there isn’t an area of the fantasy/sci-fi genre that isn’t covered!     

            The stories themselves are creative and light-hearted. They were fun to read, and I loved seeing how many different takes there were on the same basic concept. UnCONventional is a must-have for any short story collection.

            Of course, I have a few personal favorites. In no particular order, they are: “Beast in Show” by Kate Kaynak, “Myrtle” by Melina Gunnett, “AlGorethm” by Randy O Green, “The Ascension” by Daniel Cohen, and “The Waltz” by Lauren Marrero. I know, that’s a lot of favorites, but there are so many great stories here its hard to narrow it down any more.

Rating:4.5/5 stars

YA notes: Some stories contain mild language, sensual/and or homosexual references.

1 comment:

  1. Great Book!!! You can add your name to my list of personal favorites. Your story rocked!!!

    ReplyDelete