by Alan Dean Foster

Most of the anthologies I've been reading in recent years have been multiple author collections on a theme, but this one is a compilation of short stories all written by a well-established Fantasy writer, Alan Dean Foster. Needless to say, the quality is consistent and of the highest caliber.

I don't know what else I can say about this one. I loved every story. The excellence easily earns the designation of Master Storyteller on the description. If you like traditional Fantasy, read this. You won't regret it. Full of brilliant ideas, great characterization and unexpected plot twists well done.

by Alan Dean Foster

Another great collection of stories from Alan Dean Foster! This one is 13 stories all well into the science fiction genre. We have aliens taking over the planet through corporate buy outs, bootleg knowledge, alien assistants, and we even get to learn how to communicate with a cuttlefish.

Foster's writing is always good and his inventive plots are way above par. This collection has a nice variety of stories that are well up to his usual standard, exploring other worlds whether they are in space or under sea.

Highly recommended for any science fiction fan.

Broderick Manz is an insurance adjuster who's just been assigned to a particularly tricky case. Although the security measures are thorough and should be impregnable, three shipments of expensive pharmaceuticals have somehow been stolen. While he was being given a tour of the security for a fourth pharmaceutical shipment, that was stolen as well. How had the thieves managed to nab the drugs right from under his nose, from a completely sealed and airless room? As he, his beautiful colleague Vyra, his humaniform Moses, and his AI Minder investigate, the case rapidly becomes more than just theft - whoever's doing all of this isn't above committing murder as well.

I was in the mood for a fast-paced sci-fi thriller/mystery. Unfortunately, even though that's basically what this was, it still didn't quite hit the spot. Manz didn't particularly appeal to me, Vyra was basically just there to be sexy and occasionally blow stuff up, and Moses was downright gross. I'm sure Foster intended Moses's habit of chasing, pinching, and offering to have sex with women to be funny, but the humor didn't work for me at all, and some of what Moses did crossed the line into creepy.

I suspect that the Minder's habit of breaking the fourth wall to address the reader and say everything its programming wouldn't allow it to tell Manz was also intended to be funny. I was okay with this, at first, but after a while the constant stream of insults (towards Manz, Moses, all of humanity, and even the reader) got really, really old.

The story was less a mystery and more a thriller. Lots of people being assassinated, a little bit of sneaking around and spying. The solution to how the thefts were being carried out and who was doing it should have been more exciting, and yet it just felt like another thing thrown into the plot.

All in all, not as much fun as I was hoping it would be.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

This is a locked room sci-fi mystery, four thefts. The thief, whoever they are, is quick, precise, and able to steal the pharmaceuticals out of a completely airless room. It seems fairly obvious that the thief must be a robot, especially since not one character has suggested that possibility. So far, the characters' theories have been "very clever people" and "ants." Literal ants. Possibly dressed in tiny environmental protection suits.

Maybe not the best book to read after Star Healer. After this, I should probably try something that's less likely to have characters that treat women like walking breasts (or whatever the species' equivalent happens to be). In this instance, it's a robot that can't be around women for more than a few minutes without trying to chase them or pinch them, for "research." Manz, the main male character, scolds it (him? not sure - I think "it" was the pronoun used) and threatens to send it off for a memory wipe but otherwise doesn't really do anything about it, because its personality is somehow useful or something.