Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology

Sixteen authors, including big names like Martha Wells, Andy Duncan, and Nisi Shawl, celebrate the late World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award winner Tanith Lee in this passionate and playful anthology of stories inspired by her work. Editor Day writes of Lee in the introduction that she “always focused on the damaged, the forgotten, the cast off, and the power she saw within them, both for dark and for light,” an ethos that is reflected across these diverse tales, which range from the medievalesque to the futuristic. The fairy tale–like opener, “Makers,” by C.L. Hellisen, follows Ru, who is cast off by their parents but harbors hidden magical talents and a burning desire to make something of themself. In Mike Allen’s opulent sci-fi piece “Vortumna,” performance artist Roxia genetically programs tobacco leaves to grow from her body. Much more mundane though no less impactful magic flows through Starlene Justice’s “After the Light Fails,” about a teenager who is slowly going blind and, while taking photos in the forest in an effort to record what she can still see, spots a malevolent fairy. The result is both a fitting tribute to a master and an enchanting compendium in its own right. (July)