A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of
Stories
Edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Keith J. Olexa
Wordfire, Jul 28 2014, $16.99
www.wordfire.com
ISBN 9781614752028
Living
up to its title, this is A Fantastic Holiday Season fantasy anthology. The fourteen superb stories are anchored by
five entries from popular series. “Naughty
& Nice” by Kevin J. Anderson stars Dan
Shamble helping Santa Claus. “The
Longest Night” by Mercedes Lackey occurs at a gifted school in the Secret World. Married Krewe of Hunter agents work a ghost
case in “Santa’s Mortuary”. In Chicago,
Harry the Book enjoys “Christmas Eve at Harvey Wallbanger’s”. Patricia Briggs has a werewolf in Missoula on
an email blind date in “Unappreciated Gifts”.
Occurring
in the future, two entries (“Yes, Virginia2097c, There Is a Santa Claus” by Sam
Knight and “Astronaut Nick” by Brad R. Torgersen) focus on whether there is a
Santa. Another pair occurs in the
nineteenth century; as David Boop’s “The Atmosphere for Miracles” takes the
audience to a cursed 1890 Arizona Territory town and in 1868 the lad is in
trouble for fricasseeing chickens in Quincy J. Allen’s Jimmy Krinklepot and the
White Rebels of Hayberry, Missouri”.
Separated Leo wants to spend Christmas with his family but his magic
fails him in “Close Knit” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. It started with the pig in Ken Scholes’ “A World
Done in by Great Granny’s Grateful Pie”.
The lonely American takes the “Midnight Train” (by Kristine Kathryn
Rusch) to the ghost station on Christmas Eve. The man and boy are hungry, cold and scared as
they avoid the dead until they reach Santa’s house to find “A Christmas Feast”
by Jonathan Maberry.
Harriet
Klausner
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