Andreya's Asylum

Anthologies are always something I both look forward to and dread. I love short stories, but I rarely like more than one or two stories in an anthology that I'm reading and often I hate the rest. This is one of my exceptions. I liked almost every story and I loved several of them. I didn't care for a few but they were the minority. I've seen the process for a few anthologies, and between submissions, editing, and just being able to pick stories that mesh well together, I have nothing but admiration for someone who can make one read more like a book than just a collection of stories.

My favorite story was Lying in the Sun on a Fairy Tale Day by Bracken MacLeod. My other favorites were: The Immortal Dead by J.C. Michael, Dealing in Shadows by Annie Neugebauer, The Mournful Cry of Owls by Christopher Golden, and Wants and Needs by Paul Michael Anderson. My least favorite part of reviewing is telling you what I didn't like about a book or a story. The only story I truly disliked in this collection was The Hopeless in the Uninhabitable Places and not entirely for the story itself, which I thought was okay. The biggest issue I had with this one was the complete lack of punctuation in dialogue. I realize that some people consider this a "style," but I find it annoying and feel that it makes the story seem less coherent.

Overall I think that Suspended in Dusk II is a solid anthology with some amazing authors, who I already knew, and a few I am happy to have discovered. I would highly recommend it and as I haven't read the first anthology, I am looking forward to reading that as well.

I received a copy of this from the editor in exchange for an honest review.

@ 2018 by Andi Rawson of Andreya's Asylum