To Weave a Web of Magic: Four Stories of Fantasy and Exquisite Romance Paperback – July 6, 2004

Very interesting short stories - unusually detailed and interesting

Bought it for the Kurland story, but enjoyed the other stories included, too!

Fantastic item fast shipping ,great price.

I don't think Sharon Shinn EVER writes a story that's not completely magical and that doesn't engulf a reader from the first sentence. Her story definitely is a 5.Delacroix's story was very close to Shinn's in quality. I don't require a happy ending if the ending is the right one for the story and this one definitely was. The ending was haunting but true. Another 5.Kurland's story was OK, if obvious all the way through, probably a 3-4, and I didn't finish the McKillip story. Nothing new here - in an anthology, the quality of the stories will vary. If you're a fan of Shinn (like me) or of Delacroix (I'd never read anything by her before), you should definitely enjoy their stories.

Awesome

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Reading the reviews for this volume--which I rated for (and in which I read) solely the story by Patricia McKillip, I'm amazed how many readers seem to have missed the multiple layers of her complex allegory--a true palimpsest in the literary tradition. The fantasy story at the forefront is only the thinnest cover for many more intriguing levels of ideas.In the next layer, for anyone who has read about the history of the nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite painters, the characters in the story are clearly based on them. Anyone with a little knowledge of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their circle will easily identify Dante Gabriel Rossetti, tragic Elizabeth Siddell (McKillip suggests an interesting and original explanation for her suicide), William Morris, Jane Burden Morris, and many others.Underlying that level, McKillip comments upon the tendency of men such as Rossetti, Morris, and the members of the PRB to idealize women as a mysterious, inexplicable presence, with a concomitant unwillingness to deal with the real life and struggles of the actual woman underneath. Led by the Gorgon--the personification of the dual fascination and horror with which men mythologize women--the hero of the tale learns to appreciate not just the idealized woman, but the far more interesting pain and strength of the real woman underneath.Partly to blame for the readers' apparent lack of insight may be the packaging as a romance, a facile genre, which doesn't prepare the reader to approach the story with the level of awareness that McKillip's award-winning writing requires. Although the uncredited cover art by McKillip's best cover artist, Kinuko Y. Craft, gives a hint of the multi-textured novella within, only those aware of McKillip's stature in her mature novels as one of the finest and most complex writers of the twentieth century will greet this tale with the depth of thought it requires.

These four adult fairy tales are wonderful. Full of fun and fantasy. These are not erotic fairy tales, but wonderful journeys into the realms of myths, magic, and monsters. Sometimes the monsters are human.This was an exquisite experience. Each tale is very different, but all four are good. As with any good fairy tale the is a lesson to be learned in each.In one we have a painter who can't see what is really before his eyes.In two (my favorite) we have a delightful Lynn Kurland story, that reminds us sometimes our loved ones are not who we think they are.In three we find a world where angels are real and have a day to day relationship with man.In four one of the fey finds that being human is more than the flesh we wear.This book was like a breath of fresh air. Enjoy.