Nautical Fantasy, Apparently, Is a Thing. I Like it.

Sails & Sorcery: Tales of Nautical Fantasy by W.H. Horner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is exactly the kind of book you can judge by its cover, and I think that's good. If you like the idea of fantasy stories on the sea, with pirates and magic and such, and enjoy short stories as a format, you're gonna find a lot to like in this book.

Sails and Sorcery is about as on-the-nose as any title you'll ever find. And the subtitle, "Tales of Nautical Fantasy," spells it out more if you somehow missed the point. With a cover image of a castle guarding a port, an airborne sailing ship, and mermaids in the foreground, you can be pretty sure of what you're going to get in this book. It tells you what to expect, and, thankfully, it delivers. It's a fun collection.

Really, I thought the stories were very even in quality and entertainment value, which is surprising, as there are 28 in the book. I didn't dislike any, and several I liked quite a bit. All of the stories--truly, all, in my opinion, without exaggeration--have good action and varied characters and interesting settings and exciting plots and satisfying conclusions. At 15-20 pages a story, they can each be read in a single sitting, short enough not to grow tiresome but long enough to entertain. Pretty much what you look for in a short story collection, right?

Often, short stories are aimed at a literary audience, even in science fiction and fantasy, but that is not the case here. I'm glad--those stories leave me cold. These are closer to the pulp end of the literary spectrum, which is to say that they're primarily about action and plot, with a focus on entertainment, though many have a lot of emotion and offer food for thought. Some stories develop the characters more than others, and some spend more time on world-building, creating some amazing settings, but all are peopled by interesting characters and are set in exotic and exciting worlds (though a few are recognizably our own world). Several could lead to good novels, in my opinion.

I liked it, and I recommend it, and so that I don't appear to be overselling it, I gave it four stars. Solid collection, plenty of good stories. And if I'm wrong anywhere, it may be that you'll think I should have gone to five.

And that's cool.

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