RIP Tanith Lee

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Next one here...
https://www.immanion-press.com/love-...ime-of-dragons

Quote

LOVE IN A TIME OF DRAGONS AND OTHER RARE TALES ‘A time of dragons’ might conjure the image of a fantastical medieval world, with knights dark and light, clever sorcerers and witches, doomed kings and charmed innocents. Love might seem to be very much a part of such a world, where passions rage and honour fires the blood. But the truth is that dragons come in many guises, even into modern times. As does love. Love and the dragon go hand in hand: the hot fiery breath of desire and the madness that takes possession of the senses; the dragon sleeps within but may be awakened. Sometimes the beast is subtle, sometimes fearsomely overt in its endeavours to control the human heart, to intimidate, to conquer. Love itself can be a dragon. Even in Tanith Lee’s most fantastical fairy tale worlds and medieval fantasies, the beating heart within her stories reveal aspects of the human condition – its weaknesses and strengths, its passions, its yearning. In this volume of tales, most of which have not been collected before, the author takes up her sword to face the dragons – not to slay them, but to see their stories reflected in the blade. For be sure they each have one to tell… With an introduction by Craig Gidney Contents: Love in a Time of Dragons; Uous; Age; Battle; The Champion; Exalted Hearts; King’s Mage; Saxon Flaxen; The War That Winter Is; After I killed Her; The Demoness; Northern Chess; Sun City; Three Days; The Mermaid

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Tanith Lee - Tanith By Choice

This is one of two recent Best Of collections, in this one the stories are chosen by friends (many people you'd expect, although I was surprised to see no Liz Williams). The other is called A-Z, a much larger collection of mostly newer stories chosen entirely by her husband John Kaiine (he chooses a story and supplies cover art for Tanith By Choice).
The Selected Stories series (2 books) from 2009 was misleadingly titled. "Selected Stories" tends to be an upper-class publishers way of saying "Best Of", but these two were just regular collections.
Dreams Of Dark And Light from 1986 was the first Best Of. Forests Of The Night from 1989 might have been a retrospective but I'm not sure, as quite a lot of her collections have overlap and choose some old favourites.

My three favourites in this collection are...
(1) "Bite-Me-Not Or, Fleur De Fur". Wonderful setting: a castle of decadent royalty and vast surrounding mountains populated by winged humanoids, beautiful story.
(2) "White As Sin, Now". Fairy tale told from fragments of different viewpoints from different time periods.
(3) "After The Guillotine". Funny story about the afterlife of a group of people executed in the French revolution. I kept smiling at "let us pause to admire him". Gorgeous ending.

Although I tended to prefer the type of stories most associated with Lee, there's a good range, surprising at times. Especially "The Ghost Of The Clock", a fairly modern gritty British story. Perhaps too many stories were chosen for the circumstances in which they were first encountered?

I could see some people making a good case for "The Isle Is Full Of Noises" (final piece, the only novella) as the best in the collection. Even quite a long way into it, I wasn't sure what shape it would take or what sort of story it was, the uncertainty was enjoyable. There's so many parts to consider and piece together, to puzzle over. What was "the sound"?
Sarah Singleton says it's one of a few Tanith stories that sort of casts Rutger Hauer as a character (I have a strong feeling that "After I Killed Her" from another collection put me in mind of Hauer, which is bizarre, since I cant imagine any detail so specific suggesting him so effectively) and it has some commentary on using real people in this way.
I thought it was mostly great but I often struggled to visualize the shapeshifter in a satisfying way and a bit more detail could have fixed that, I know it was purposely vague but I felt it could have been less awkward. And some of the comparisons used throughout the novella seemed too much of a stretch. An impressive piece all the same. Loved the way it criticized talk shows too.

Unfortunately, there's quite a number of typos and one story has the wrong title across the upper corner of the pages. I'm guessing scanning technology was used because a few times "1" was used instead of "l" or "I". "Cold Fire" has lots of course slang written in an unfamiliar way, so possible typos were doubly dangerous there.
Every book should be proof-read but when you're trying to ensure a writer's legacy and talk in the introduction about the preciousness of their words, it's a bit harder to swallow a lack of proof-reading. Still a very strong book though.

After I've read A-Z I might come back here and say how it compares as an introduction to the writer. This is only my second book by her so I cant say how well selected it is.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Forthcoming: an incomplete novel that is said to work as a novella.
Exciting News for Tanith Lee Fans Megalithica Books

Interview with John Kaiine Megalithica Books
I already have Blood Of Roses but it was getting expensive, so the news of a 2020 reprint is nice.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

https://www.immanion-press.com/a-wolf-at-the-door

https://www.thisishorror.co.uk/tod-0...onomicon-2019/

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Storyteller: The Legacy and Work of Tanith Lee, A Virtual Roundtable - YouTube