I've been getting several wonderful MM antholgies from DAW recently and had a lovely time reading The Magic Toybox over the weekend. These are all fantasy stories crafted around toys and it's really a blast - consider it an excellent stocking stuffer for SFF fans. There are always a few standouts in any collection like this and I fell madly in love with two stories in particular.

Dean Wesley-Smith contributed "The Call of the Track Ahead" about a young man who literally finds himself living in his train set after coming to a stopping point in his real life. The magic of it all is glossed over - the story here is what you do when you are stuck on an 18 minute track, the folks you meet and why you stay. Through conversations between Mason and Paula readers learn how they got stuck and what they want out of life. They have to take a leap of faith, literally, to get back in the real world but they aren't sure if it's what they should do - and they are scared of the decisions they will have to make.

I'm a big train chick - my son is just getting old enough for us to put a set together for him (finally!) and I thought the metaphors in this story were great. The ending is perfect, Mason's quest to understand what he needs to do is great - all of it was lovely. I'm sure I've read some of Wesley-Smith's other work (he has written 84 books!) but was surprised to see he is married to Kristine Kathryn Rusch. As you may recall, I love her Retrieval Artist sci fi books and I'm really looking forward to the new one this fall.

Peter Morwood's story "The Longest Ladder" is very different and thrilled me in a completely original way. The story is about a great toy - the best toy ever - which in this case is a very realistic NYFD fire engine with firefighters, helmet, the whole nine yards. The young boy who receives it is in Dublin it is only a few years since WW2 and his father is a firefighter, and was one during the war. Soon enough something happens and the boy finds himself in Dublin during the war, on is way north to Belfast and taking part in a something that could not have happened but did - something his father has never understood but remembers plain as day. It scares the crap out of the boy when he comes back into himself - when he wakes up or returns or whatever and causes him to have a conversation with his dad about the war that he never cared enough to have before. Ultimately he can't keep the fire engine - too many new bad memories, but he longs for it, and he longs to know just what really happened one night in Belfast.

I had no idea that there had been a German air attack on Ireland until I read this story and I promptly went to check and see if it was real. I found stories about it everywhere and all of them mentioned the firefighters from the south who came to help. So the history is all accurate, which makes the fantasy that much more amazing.

As it turns out, Morwood is married to Diane Duane, another longtime fav of mine. These creative marriages are certainly interesting - can you imagine all that energy burning in one house? How cool!

I also finished the YA fantasy Snow, Fire, Sword by Sophi Masson. This is a great YA fantasy set in an alternate land of Jayangan - an island nation very much like our own Indonesia (where Masson was born). The story mixes myth and magic and relies a lot upon old stories of the spirits and gods who have been part of the island's history since time begain. There is a new "Sorcerer" who is going after all those who still know the old ways and capturing them (or killing them) in his quest to takeover the country. Adi and Dewi find themselves caught up in the events surrounding them as those they care about are attacked. The two children are sent on a quest to find "snow, fire and sword" and use them to defeat the Sorcerer. There's lots of action and danger and challenges along the way. The whole book moves at breakneck speed but it is the inclusion of the mythology and the stories of the gods and goddesses that keeps it from being just another action adventure. (It is so so so not that kind of book.) I'm including it in my October column as there is a very real layer of creepiness to the tale and it fits perfectly into my collection of October Country books. I'm so happy to read a book in such a unique setting - this one was very cool.

I also finished Patricia McKillip's Od Magic a book I did not expect to love as much as I did. Don't get me wrong - McKillip is a favorite writer of mine, but I'm not always a fan of the high fantasy type novels. I like urban fantasy best - books that are in my world with magical elements or in a world that is at least recognizable as something like mine. But Od is pure fantasy and I thought it might not be so compelling for me - boy was I wrong! It's a novel of court intrigue and quests and magic not for gratuitious reasons but because magic, and how it is handled, is critical to the world in this book. And there are so many gorgeously written passages here - so many places where the language and the descriptions just swept me away. I've seen it described as romantic fantasy and I can't imagine why - the relationships in the story are not the significant plot lines, they are merely wonderfully added nuances that flesh out the characters. Male readers shouldn't shy away from this one - there is an even split between strong male and female characters.

All in all, this was wonderful and I adored it. I'm hoping to have two McKillip books reviewed next month and maybe I can bring her a few more readers.