The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound like they may be interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the […]

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The Tangleroot Palace contains six short stories and one novella by New York Times bestselling author and comic book writer Marjorie Liu, each of which is followed by her reflections on it. The author’s introduction mentions that she could not resist making some edits to these previously published stories, but they remain essentially the same as they were beforehand. I’d never read any of these stories before this book so I […]

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales is a collection of twelve reimagined fairy tales written by New York Times bestselling author Soman Chainani and illustrated by Julia Iredale. As stated in an interview, the author wanted these stories resonate with both younger readers and adults, and it’s published as being for ages 10+ in the US and adult readers in the UK. This book contains the following stories: Red Riding Hood Snow […]

Though I read far more novels than short stories, I was first introduced to World Fantasy Award-winning author Patricia McKillip’s work through her fantastic collection Wonders of the Invisible World (my review). I was utterly enchanted by her spare but beautiful prose, characters, and themes and also impressed by the vast range of her stories: not only were they a mixture of genres including high fantasy, contemporary fantasy, a fairy tale retelling, and science fiction but they also ran the gamut […]

The Best of Nancy Kress, comprised of 21 short stories, novelettes, and novellas, will be released by Subterranean Press next week. This collection, which will be available as both a signed limited edition hardcover and an ebook, also contains an introduction and afterwords after each story, all written by the author. The stories within this volume are the author’s own personal favorites, other than a couple of novellas that were too long to include, and most of them are science […]

Wonders of the Invisible World is a collection of previously published short stories by Patricia A. McKillip. McKillip is perhaps best known for her Riddle-Master trilogy or her World Fantasy Award winner, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, but she has many well-known works. She has been a published writer for about 40 years, and she has released numerous novels and short stories since then. This recently released collection of her work contains an introduction by Charles de Lint, sixteen stories […]