snugglekitty

I read Of Drag Kings and the Wheel of Fate by Susan Smith in just a few days. It was a loan from

7j. When I was about halfway through the book, she and

starkeymonster had a conversation in which they mentioned that this book actually started out as Xena fan fic. I hadn't realized that at all. And I think that you could definitely enjoy this book without ever having watched any Xena.

(At the same time, having been a Xena fan back in college, this inspired me to order Xena first season on DVD from the library.)

I thought this book was wonderful. The descriptions were great, it was very sexy, and in places, it was profound. "Eight torrid days with a professor and a drag king" could have been the subtitle. I felt this book really captured the rush of a new relationship, as well as treating seriously with topics like fate, family, and gender. Four and a half stars.

On the other hand, I read The Faery Reel very slowly - it took me more than a month. It's an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling as a companion volume to the amazing, and wildly successful, Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest. Now I want to start out by saying that Green Man knocked my socks off. It was a birthday present from

starkeymonster last year and I thought it was terrific. This anthology was fine, but it just wasn't up to that standard. I didn't find stories in it that I wanted to read over and over and read aloud to my sweeties, as I did with the other one. Of course, I'm not as into the realms of Faery as I am into the forest. But I did like "The Dream Eaters" by AM Dellamonica, "The Price of Glamour" by Steve Berman, and "The Annals of Eelin-Ok" by Jeffery Ford. Three stars.