Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries is a well curated collection from the Bad-Ass Faeries series, curated and edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail. Released in 2017, it's 326 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
One reason I prefer collections and anthologies is that short fiction is really challenging. It's spare and authors don't have a wealth of wordage to develop characters or plotting. Well written short fiction is a delight. I also love collections because if one story doesn't really grab me, there's another story just a few pages away. This is a varied bunch of well written faerie-fiction. It's unapologetically gritty and Tinkerbell's nowhere to be found. The stories (as with all anthologies) are a mixed bunch. There are westerns, mysteries, time travel, and always always badass faeries doing faerie stuff. I sincerely enjoyed this collection and a couple of the stories surprised a chuckle out of me and at the end of the day, that's worth the price of admission.
There are 20 stories here by my count: 5 from each previously released anthology, and they're all quite entertaining. A couple of them are sublime. I intend to acquire some of the new-to-me authors' longer fiction for comparison.
Four stars. It's a solid collection.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 18 January, 2022: Finished reading
- 18 January, 2022: Reviewed