The stories in this anthology are all by top writers currently in the field. Taking place in the future, for the most part anyway, these stories generally deal with Humans in conflict with alien races. The stories are unrelated to one another, each being a separate universe unto itself. The gamut of science fiction is pretty much handled, as there are uses of such things as: FTL travel, enhanced mental abilities, cybernetically enhanced humans, time-travel paradox-type situations. . . None of these stories are found lacking in appeal, with the characters not totally flat as happens in many SF stories. If you like science fiction with a military twist, I believe you will enjoy this collection.

For those of you who are tired of the Star Trek series where the characters cannot change; this one is for you. This series of short stories takes you beyond the rigid parameters of series science fiction books. In this anothology we see those who are less than perfect; prevent near catastrophoes; and they are not the best and the brightest in fleet. The heroes in this book are ordinary people driven to accoplish extrodinary things under fire.

This book is a one-volume look at mystery fiction in almost all of its forms. It is a compilation of interviews, essays, articles, and lists as presented by writers, editors, critics, and booksellers. There are ample photos, many taken from movies which were made from mystery stories. Remember the lurid and exotic book covers from the 50's? Well, there's photos of some of the more popular covers. Each chapter is begun with reproductions of archaic depictions of mayhem. There are articles about apparently well-known and well-regarded authors that I have never heard of, and I consider myself, not an authority, but at least well-read and as such, familiar with many of the less popular ones. I know I was very pleased to learn of several new authors that I plan to add to my ever-growing list. This is a fact-filled book and is a welcome addition to any mystery reader's library. It can provide hours of satisfying browsing. The articles and essays are excellent and informative, well written, and offer opinions on various aspects of mystery stories, writers, and the genre in general. For instance, the well-known mystery writer, Lawrence Block, offers a superlative dissertation on the definition of hard-boiled and cozy mystery stories. The introduction by Jon Breen is a veritable history of mystery stories. As you probably know, the origins of the modern detective story is usually traced back to Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1840's). Did you also know that the detective in that story, C. Auguste Dupin, appeared in another two tales by Poe? The school of romantic suspense owes its beginnings to gothic novelists like Ann Radcliffe with her "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794), Horace Walpole with "The Castle of Otranto" (1765), and Matthew Gregory Lewis with "The Monk" (1796). The chapter headings include American Mysteries which has Mysteries of New York, Mysteries of Los Angeles, Mysteries of Chicago, .......Small Towns, New England. Chapter 2 is entitled Traditional Mysteries and includes cozies, cat and dog stories, and an excellent essay on John Dickson Carr and the locked room mystery. Chapter 3 is about the Black detective, and Chapter 4 covers Religious Mysteries. In Chapter 5 the Private Eye Mysteries are discussed and Chapter 6 is about Gay Mysteries. Chapter 7 talks about British Mysteries and offers up the information that Jonathan Gash (Lovejoy series) and Mike Ripley (Angel series) just happen to live in the same small village in England. Chapter 8 is about Dark Suspense and Chapter 9 discusses Women's Suspense stories. Chapter 10 describes Police Procedurals while Chapter 11 outlines the Hard-Boiled Mysteries. Chapter 12 discusses Thrillers and other chapters cover Young Adult Mysteries, True Crime, Television Mysteries, Comic Books, Nostalgia, Organizations, and Mystery Bookstores Throughout the book are "Best of" lists compiled by various writers, editors, critics. I have visited a couple of these bookstores and if both are indicative of the others then any are worth a visit. I found comfortable, stuffed armchairs strategically located in small nooks, with a small table and lamp nearby, inviting the browser to sit awhile and skim a few lines. The pervading atmosphere was one of hominess and a warm hearth. Definitely inviting. So "The Fine Art of Murder" is heartily recommended as an addition to the reader's library, whether a mystery fan or not. It is entertaining as well as informative.

From Christmas to New Year's this book has stories for all of them. Even the holidays less known, such as Boxing Day. Some of the stories are written by famous authors such as Carole Nelson Douglas the author of the Midnight Louie series. While others are written by unknowns.

This was an enjoyable book, but slacked off at times, producing somewhat boring stories. I recommend this book to any fans of mysteries, and cat lovers.

The seventh entry in the short story series starring feline detectives overall is very good, but has some disappointing tales. Each of the stories involve a crime occurring on a different holiday. The holidays range from the obvious such as Christmas and New Years Day to the less celebrated (at least in America) such as Arbor and Boxing days. Some of the most renowned cat detectives,d including the world famous Midnight Louie, are featured.

This collections is well written, but some of the more famous cats like Louie only whet the audience's appetitie for the longer full length novel format. Still, fans of the sub-genre or just cat fans in general will enjoy this and the previous six cat crime books.

Harriet Klausner

Of the twelve stories in this collection, about half are really outstanding for their story-telling and their ability to make the reader feel empathy with the characters. Each story is fairly original as the front cover claims, the robots aren't just servants, they represent social conflicts, have personalities, and sometimes are the only characters around. For me, that isn't enough, I have to want to keep reading because I care about the characters. The best story is a tie between Rusch's touching tell of a poor family in 'A Helping Hand' and Nye's equally touching 'Sacrifices' where a fairly wealthy but constantly moving family loses one of its "own". The worse is easily 'K-232' by Collins because its really more of a short essay on what its like to explore the universe than anything that really pushes our concepts of humanity or paints a future picture. And that is important since one of the editor, Larry Segriff, says that this is a collection about our children, humanities children in the form of robots.

The stories in this book made me laugh, they made me sad and they made me think. But of course, they happen to be by some of the greatest sci-fi authors ever. You DON'T get bad stories from James P. Hogan, William H. Keith Jr., Jody Lynn Nye and the rest within this book. 12 stories that you CAN'T be without if you love articial intelligence, robots or sci-fi in general.

As a time travel fanatic, I try to get my hands on every time travel book I can find. This one really didn't live up to my expectations. Why? Well, most stories were either unoriginal, or started nice but the ending was completely predictable. This was, literally, a collection of boring stories. I think one of the things I like about time travel books, is that the ending can be really tricky - there are so many ways such stories can have a punch line, and even after reading many of these books I still find myself surprised most of the time. Sadly, it wasn't the case with this collection of stories..
There was only one story which was more or less okay, "Blood Trail", about a police officer who is sent in time to try and find the identity of a serial killer. The officer is not allowed to change anything, but he CAN try and gather information about the killer which will enable catching him in the present. However, the officer really, really doesn't like to see people killed in front of his eyes...
To summarize: if you have nothing else on your list, go for it, or even if you just MUST read every time travel book you can find (like me). However, don't expect anything above average, and most stories don't even live up to that.

I was really looking forward to receiving this book after I ordered it, having read other time travel anthologies such as _Timegates_, _Tales in Time_ and others. But _Past Imperfect_ is aptly -- or should I say "appedly" -- named, for it's packed full o' typos. Seriously, I've never read a professionally published book with so many misspelled words, words left out, etc. Kind of takes you out of the moment when you're reading, no pun intended.

As for the stories themselves, only a few of the twelve were worth the read: "Palimpsest Day" and "Gift of a Dream" stand out, but others were fairly old-hat, "oops, I just killed my future self"-type tales, or ones that were high on technical merit but short on human feeling.

If you're a time-travel fanatic and want to read all-new stories, you may want to skim this book, but be prepared to trip over typos. A better option, in my opinion, would be to peruse some oldies but goodies in _About Time_, a collection of time-related stories by Jack Finney.

_..to finish this one. I have read all but two story's in this book and I am so impressed with it , well if I put it down today, I could sleep well and satisfied.
_I almost feel like I ripped off the writers and the publisher because I got WAY more than my money's worth in this one.
_I am completely happy with these up-to-date exciting and great storys...

The book contains short stories of varying quality. The title gives the impression that the collection deals with crimes solved by cats. This, however, is not usually true, although a cat plays a major role in each story. Two of the stories were outstanding and would hold their own as good literature. They were: "The Death Cat of Hester Street," by Carol Gorman and "Byron" by Jack Albert. Cat lovers will love the book, for it was written with cat lovers in mind

Authors are: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Janet Dawson, Debbie De Lousie, Jon L. Breen, Bill Crider, Carol Gorman, Doug Allyn, Morris Hershman, Tom Piccirilli, Shirley Kennett, Brett Hudgins, Elizabeth Foxwell, Bentley Little, Marc Bilgrey, Gary A. Braunbeck, Barbara Collins, Jack Albert, Bruce Holland Rogers, Jan Grape, Peter Crowther, Carole Nelson Douglas.

The one that caught my attention was Elizabeth's, Tinker Tam and the Body Snatchers. Being a cat about Edinburgh, Tinker Tam notices a homeless girl is taken against her will, so he sets about rescuing her... In some of the stories the cat is the focus, in others the cat is a part of the story and brings about the clue or clues to solve the mystery.

A delightful read. Cat fans, mystery lovers and history buffs, this is the book for you. The stories are all different. The history travels from Edinburgh, to the California gold rush, to the Wild West, on to the royal tombs, and there's still more!

This DAW fantasy collection has something for everyone, from an overwrought Sword & Sorcery tale by Robin Wayne Bailey---woman in breastplate with dagger named 'demon-fang' falls in love with Death. Death has black silk sheets---to a gentle tale from Charles de Lint about a woman who wants to experience her dog's dreams.

Although S&S tales predominate, the stories I liked best were the oddballs that involved spells, but not from the standard grimoire. My favorite, "A Spatter of Later Stars" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, concerns a girl who paints faces at a carnival. She comes into her gift at age fourteen: the gift of making people feel beautiful---or otherwise. No death-dealing wizards. No women in breast-plates. Just a slightly-out-of-the-ordinary carnival family and a wonderful fourteenth birthday present.

"A Spatter of Later Stars" would have deserved inclusion in the wonderful "Magic in Ithkar" fantasy volumes which were edited by Andre Norton and Robert Adams, if (alas) the series hadn't petered out after Volume Four.

"And King Hereafter" is a Boscobel League story by Rosemary Edghill, involving a slight, sorcerous meddling with the Royal Succession in England---what if that awful American divorcee had died before she could marry the future king?

Another offbeat fantasy in this collection, "The Midas Spell" by Julie E. Czerneda could be said to involve wizardly meddling with American history. It's the story of an all-star running back who really, really wants his team to win the Super Bowl.

All in all, thirteen tales of (mostly) original magic, a leetle heavy on S&S for my taste.

"Fantasy is fueled by spells, from those cast by simple love potions to the great working of magic which can alter the very nature of reality, destroy seemingly all-powerful foes, offer power of punishment, immortality or death..."

This wonderful treasury of short stories features written works by Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Michelle west, Jane Lindskold and many more.

This is the perfect book to take with you on a train, ferry, airplane ride or in the car. The short stories make it easy to read with interruptions, since each story is about 25 pages or so, give or take.

There are many compelling stories. Such as the one about the wizard who runs a magic shop and finds himself a prime suspect in a murder, to the very short story about a magical computer.

The only reason I did not deem this book 5 stars is because I sometimes find short stories dissatisfying. I am not criticizing any of the authors or their stories, but due to my personal tastes, I prefer regular novels. Compelling and "fantastic" nevertheless. *S*

Built around a liberal definition of frontiers, this anthology of original stories not only has stories about space exploration and life on harsh colony worlds but also stories about death and dreams and transformation. None of the stories break new ground, but most keep you entertained as they roam around old plots.

Two stories hold little interest. "The Cutting Edge" by Janet Pack handles the details of its technology plausibly and realistically, but, at this point in time, a story about using nanotechnology just to remove a brain tumor seems stale. "Home World" by Marc Bilgrey features the old story of a frontier couple threatened with the encroachment of the civilization they originally fled.

The vast bulk of the stories are entertaining examples of old ideas well done. It was nice to see geology, a little used science in science fiction, providing the clues to an alien artifact in Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch's "Traces". While conducting her researches, the heroine also has to avoid persecution by the theocratic government she lives under. It has already imprisoned her ex-husband for insisting man is not the universe's sole intelligence. Robert J. Sawyer's "Star Light, Star Bright" is one of those stories where the inhabitants of an artificial world, here a Dyson sphere, realize that man did not evolve there. Its charm derives from the clues they use to deduce this. The "Chauna" of Alan Dean Foster's similiarly titled story are mythic creatures inhabiting deep space, and a legendary inventor and mogul, enfeebled and dying, leads a resentful crew on a quest to find them. Terry D. England's "Out of the Cradle" was a fun, sometimes humorous story, about a connoisseur of death, or, more accurately, the pain involved in his elaborate, repeated suicides. His siblings wish he would put such adolescent activities behind and upload his mind to the TerraSphere, a virtual environment inhabited by most of humanity's intellects. He has other ideas, though. The frontier of dream research is the subject of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Dreamlike States". Its protagonist embarks on a disasterous project to synchronize his dream with those of his twin brother. Lawrence Watt-Evans' "The Last Bastion" reminded me a bit of Vernor Vinge's work, specifically A FIRE UPON THE DEEP. A coalition of human groups has to negotiate with the Link, a human-computer interface originally created by humanity and now at war with them. But both sides now need a peace because research by the Link has spawned new enemies for both. "Forgotten" by Peter Schweighofer doesn't try to rationalize its ending, but its main attraction is the study of those abandoned in nursing homes, here a futuristic one in orbit around a gas giant. Julie E Czerneda's "Down on the Farm" offers the unusual proposition of an agricultural boot camp through which all of a colony world's immigrants must go. They're annoyed by its stress on primitive, labor intensive methods, but, at story's end, hidden reasons for the camp are revealed.

Two adventure stories offer little novelty but still keep the pages turning: Andre Norton's "Set in Stone" and Robin Wayne Bailey's "Angel on the Outward Side". The Norton tale features a slave and his masters confronting, on an exploratory mission, an alien and hostile intelligence. Bailey's tale gives us a Shakespeare-quoting, android pacificst and his decidedly non-pacificistic partner, one of those mercenaries with a dead family and a whole lot of enemies who want his head. Here he meets an old love who hires him to find her lost sister. Nothing special in the plot pieces, but the team of North and Yoru were entertaining enough that I'd like to see them in other adventures.

The gem of the collection is Jane Lindskold's "Ruins of the Past". Full of plot surprises, good characterization, and humor at just the right moments, it tells of a woman desperately fleeing creditors who want to force her into lifetime indentured servitude. Hoping for quick cash, she climbs a mountain holding alien ruins at its summits, ruins which few return from. There an android waits to kill her. But the android has other needs, and a third presence lurks nearby.

With the exception of this Lindskold piece, this is collection of comfortably worn old plots well told. You won't be sorry you read it. But most of the stories won't stick in your mind either.

Future Net, by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Sefriff is one of the strangest book I have ever read. As I read chapter after chapter, the stories were different from each other which gave me a twisting journey. This Novel took me though an off road ride with the world wide web of what you wouldn't expect. All the most weirdest things can happen when you interact with the net and when you don't realize that there are somethings out there haunting us. The stories went from talking aobut stock buyers to virueses, human chatters to alien chatters, and ghosts to possessed computers. Most of the exciting chapters will catch your imagination, however, I can't say that every story in this book was great. In my opinion, I recommend this book to all who love to serf the web or use internet because there are so many mysterious things going on in cyber space that you can't explain,yet can learn from. Hopefully, you can enjoy the interesting world of blind communication as I did in this book.

THIS BOOK WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!! EVERYTHING EXCPECT BATTLE MAGIC FOR MORONS ISN'T WORTH THE PAPER IT'S PRINTED ON!!

Very disapointing..... all except "girl slayer" was terrible, and even girl slayer was weak compared to other books of this genre i have read. But i suppose it is pretty hard to develop a strong fantasy story with only 20 pages to work with...

Battle Magic is a superbly produced audiobook anthology of outstanding fantasy with each short story taking up the concept of magic as a weapon of combat between individuals, between armies, and between kingdoms. Each story, drawn from some of the best and most innovative writers in fantasy today, are aptly read by their individual narrators and conjure up worlds of dark enchantments, single champions against overwhelming odds, and powerful wizards locked in deadly conflict. The stories in this superbly produced, highly recommended, nine hour, unabridged, six cassette collection include Warlord; Hell's Bane; The Miracle of Salamis; The Jewel and the Demon; Alaric's Gift; The Fatal Wager; Ten for the Devil; Battle Magic For Morons; A Matter of Honor; Principles of Warfare; and The Strangeness of the Day.