F/SF

A series of short stories about mythic beasts. Not bad stories but nothing spectacular, most of the stories have also appeared elsewhere. It's also more of a SF slant on fantasy than true fantasy. Each story has an introduction talking about the mythical creature featured and how that is different from the story presented.

The first is a Centaur story, "Centaur Fielder for the Yankees" by Edward D Hoch. Centaur plays baseball, yup, that's about it.

Second, Dragon, is George R R Martin's "Ice Dragon", which I've read recently. Quite a sweet story about Adara who never feels the cold who is the only one who can ride the Ice Dragon, a coming of age story.

Next up are Firedrakes represented by Andrew Lang's "Prince Prigio", the most fairytaleish of the stories but it tries a bit too hard.

Next up is the Gorgon; Tanith Lee's "The Gorgon": modern story about a mysterious woman on a greek island. No-one will bring the narrator there so he swims himself.

Next - Griffin; Frank R Stockton's "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" - one of my favourite stories and a better fairy tale type. A Griffin hears of a sculpture of himself and goes to find out.

"The Kragen" comes next, a story by Jack Vance, pretty much SF and had me glazing over occasionally, my least favourite of the bunch.

When you talk Mermaids the story has to be Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid".

Mildred Clingerman represents Minotaur with "Letter from Laura", a time-travel humourous story with a visit to a Minotaur.

F A Javor has "The Triumph of Pegasus", a genetic Engineering story with a woman asking for a flying horse and getting what she wants, but be careful what you wish for.

Thomas N Scortia has a Phoenix in "Caution! Inflammable!" A phoenix lands and starts building it's nest and a reporter is sent to investigate, I did like the twist in the tale.

at this stage I was beginning to be a bit disappointed at the ratio of SF to Fantasy and Robert F Young's Sphinx story "The Pyramid Project" added to the SF collumn with a story that could have helped inspire Stargate (it was written in 1961) where the Sphinxes kidnap two men from opposing armies and try to enforce peace. Their pyramids back on earth have a purpose.

Theodore Sturgeon puts a tick into the Fantasy side with his Unicorn story "The Silken Swift", sweet and interesting looks at innocence and virginity as only Sturgeon could.

Last was Thomas A Easton's Mood Wendigo. My absolutely least favourite story and falls into the SF category. Not my cup of tea at all. ( )