Dragon’s Teeth

This long collection of short fiction is a fairly impressive tribute to the breadth of Mercedes Lackey’s work. It’s also a whole lot of not much new for devoted fans. The first section includes two previously published collections (originally published as Fiddler Fair and Werehunter), and only the last seventy-five pages contains previously unpublished work—five stories set in the world of The Secret World Chronicles series. But it does have everything Lackey-short-stories under one cover.

I didn’t have any problems with the repetition because I have never read any of Lackey’s short fiction. I’ve only really read her Bardic Voices series. I had assumed that the stories, especially those in Fiddler Fair, would include similar high fantasy stories. While there was a little bit of high fantasy, the stories represent a wide range of times, places, and genres (under the science fiction umbrella). Being a recent transplant to Lackey’s home state, I was particularly delighted to see so many stories set in modern Oklahoma. The first story, “Aliens Ate My Pickup,” narrated in full-on Okie, had me rolling. Too disparate for a single sitting (or even several), these stories are, individually, great reads for snippets of time.