This is my first try on Andre Norton, a hugely prolific author striding the barrier of fantasy/sci-fy, and (I hear) an icon of the genre. I'm likely to dip in again; I finished this one in little time, as much because it was short, as because it was very easy to read.

I would have loved (as in capital letters, LOVED) this book when I was about 13. This could be taken as indictment or praise, and I guess I'm wavering between the two. On one hand, my taste has... I don't know if matured is the word, it sounds presumptuous, but having read several run-of-the-mill, I search for the exceptional now, so maybe I've become picky. This book doesn't meet that standard. On the other hand, I'm also reading "On Writing" by Stephen King, and in a clear case where one read influences another, I find that the story, while not amazingly written, was entertaining, the premise just what I'd been searching for and the execution serviceable.

So I'm not left with book hangover, but it's a good imagination launcher. Not meaty, but opens a world where you'd like to revel in and keep adding on, daydream or fanfiction style.

This collection so short stories stealthily walks the line between fantasy and nightmare and sneaks itself into your dreams. Most of the eight short stories are set in the future, where the world now lacks something... perhaps it's music that is missing, or animals. The people may constantly live inside with no remembrance of the color of the sky, or perhaps the cities have been destroyed and demons now walk among us. It is a changed world and the people who live there are both like us and foreign to what we know.

The author does a great job of bringing this future to life, with descriptions that make you see colors of the new sky, the hopes of the people who are there, and even their despair. While the future in these short stories may seem a little bleak, there is enough human interest to keep you reading to see what happens next.