cover image The Very Best of Charles de Lint

The Very Best of Charles de Lint

Charles de Lint, Tachyon (IPG, dist.), $15.95 paper (428p) ISBN 978-1-892391-96-4

Contemporary fantasist de Lint built this winning compilation with help from his readers, who voted on their favorite stories. The result is an outstanding and widely varied collection of 29 tales. The delightfully light-hearted "Pixel Pixies" adds magic and mischief to innocent online interactions. ("If you're lucky, [the pixies are] still on the Internet and didn't follow you home.") "Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood" investigates the nature and meaning of memories. The heart-wrenching "In the House of My Enemy," later developed into the novel The Onion Girl, narrates the decisions made by a pregnant girl with an abusive past. Longtime fans and newcomers alike will fall in love with de Lint's graceful, poetic language and characters like "an old man who wore the shape of a red-haired boy with crackernut eyes that seemed as bright as salmon tails glinting up the water." (Aug.)