This shared world anthology reminded me of two of my favorites, Thieves World and Merovingen Nights. I'd read those in the late 80s early 90s and loved them. This book shares many of the strong points of those books. My favorite story from this book was "Badu's Luck" by Emma Bull followed closely by "The Green Rabbit from S'Rian" by Gene Wolfe and finally 3rd best IMO was "An Act of Contrition" by Steven Brust. ( )

A shared world startup with less than total coherence. Some of the authors decided that the set up was more guidelines than rules and one even read the map backwards. ( )

Ce recueil de nouvelles ayant pour point commun une ville de fiction qui lui donne son titre possède une originalité rare. En effet, les trois auteurs qui signent les six nouvelles qui le composent ont œuvrer dans un monde de fiction partagé. Cela donne une cohérence et une continuité à l'ensemble tout en permettant une diversité de style.
Les six nouvelles se concentrent sur le comte Dashif, l'homme de main du régent de Liavek, et sur Kaloo, une jeune fille qui va peu à peu se découvrir des capacités à pratiquer la magie. Chaque nouvelle nous dévoile un peu plus de la vie de ces personnages tout en mettant à jour les différentes luttes de pouvoir au sein de Liavek.
Ce recueil est une vraie réussite et il est à espérer qu'il sera suivi de nombreux autres, vingt-deux auteurs différents ayant pris part à ce monde de fiction partagé. ( )

Even if I didn't enjoy the Liavek stories themselves, I'd have to read these anthologies just because I get weak at the knees thinking of so many of my favorite authors in one room together. And then I think of them roleplaying, and have to chuckle.

As in all anthologies, some stories are better than others. I must always stand loyally by Pamela Dean as my favorite, and "The Green Cat" is as cheerfully dark as her later works. Pat Wrede comes in a close second. The only story I really didn't care for was Barry Goodyear's, which isn't surprising considering the fact that he was a guest to the group.

The best thing about this anthology? It inspires me to write my own fantasy stories...

This is the first in a series of shared-world anthologies, the world being Liavek, the city of Luck. The main thing that distinguishes this world is the way in which magic works. Everyone has a certain amount of "luck," and they can access it during the hours of their birth--that is, on their birthdays, for the hours during which their mother was in labor. A wizard is someone who's "invested" their luck--stored it in an object during a ritual that must be repeated yearly during their luck time--so they can access it year-round.

I approached this anthology with skepticism, because it seemed that in the last anthology I'd read in this shared universe, every story was about rival wizards trying to find where each other had stored their luck and to destroy it &/or to disrupt their reinvestiture. And the first story, "Badu's Luck," by Emma Bull, did indeed fit the mold, although it was more about recurring character Snake protecting a wizard during their luck time.

Then "The Green Rabbit from S'Rian" by Gene Wolfe ended the one-story streak, with a story about pirates, of all things. And "Ancient Curses" by Patricia C. Wrede convinced me that there was going to be more to this anthology than I'd suspected. This story was about someone trying to summon the god Rikiki, who'd been turned into a squirrel.

"Birth Luck" by Nancy Kress is a story of revenge--a sister seeks revenge on the wizard who convinced her brother to try to invest his luck--the failure of which killed him.

"An Act of Contrition" by Steven Brust is a tale of intrigue and a convoluted plot--that does involve wizards' luck hours, but only peripherally.

Jane Yolen's "The Inn of the Demon Camel" is a short-short story, told like an Aesop's fable. And "The Hands of the Artist" by Kara Dalkey is a mystery story. So much for my presumption that all the stories would be alike.

"The Green Cat" by Pamela Dean is about a young woman who thinks life's not worth living, so she joins a suicide order--the concept is that once she discharges all her obligations, she can die. And she does, except for this cat... "A Coincidence of Birth" by Megan Lindholm is about another young woman who hires a wizard to learn her birth date.

Will Shetterly's "Bound Things" has recurring character Trav The Magician being hired by a child to recover her dolly and outwitting a rival wizard.

The last story is "The Fortune Maker" by Barry B. Longyear. It's about a garbage picker who invests his luck and becomes a rare "fortune maker"--that is, whenever someone asks him what their fortune will be, whatever's in his heart regarding them will be. It's the longest story in the anthology by far.

The problem with fantasy short stories is that fantasy generally involves a lot of worldbuilding, and trying to squeeze that into 20 pages or so doesn't leave a lot of room for the story. That's where the shared world concept comes in. Some of the stories in this anthology still suffer from that, and quite a few of them suffer from an excess of characters--too many characters with odd names in a short story makes it rather confusing.

The clearest, and therefore most interesting/entertaining stories, IMO, were Brust's (despite the convoluted plot, it was easy to follow), Dalkey's, Dean's, Shetterly's, and Longyear's.

It was better reading than I'd expected (though I'm afraid my enjoyment of Emma Bull's story suffered because of those expectations), and I'm looking forward to the next Liavek anthology in my TBR pile. ( )