It almost seems kind of wrong to face to prospect of a Geek Speak issue that does not have a short-story collection review at all. So to prevent any all-night-long-crying-sessions (possibly complete with rocking oneself back and forth in a corner), I have taken it upon myself to provide such a review. And heck, with a nice, broad topic like “Magic” for this month, that should be easy! Thus, this month, we present Murder by Magic, a collection of 20 stories dealing with… well… murder. And magic. That does actually raise the question, though… are we talking about mystery stories that happen to have a magical aspect to them? Or definitely-genre-related stories, via magic, that happen to about a mystery? And if it’s the former, does that still warrant inclusion in this here magazine? Would me reviewing this collection entail some kind of “gateway book”, opening the door for more Mystery discussion that progressively gets away from anything genre related? Hmmm… I’m sensing a potential Geek VS Geek debate in here somewhere about the merits of blurred lines in genre categories.

But that’s a debate for another time. And place. Perhaps the Twilight Zone.

In this particular time and place (and Zone), we are discussing the relative merits of Murder by Magic, and the stories therein. Edited by Rosemary Edghill, herself an author (originally of Regency Romances, then some genre work, more recently known for collaborations with authors such as Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey), the stories within the book are divided into five categories: Murder Most Modern, Murder Unclassifiable, Murder Most Genteel, Murder Fantastical, and Murder Most Historical, thus attempting to give a varied view at the possibilities the combination of magic and murder could allow for. Honestly, there was no reason for the divisions, as by nature of the topics, the stories themselves are varied enough that attempting to group them together was rather pointless. But whatever.

Some stories focus on the use of magic as the method for investigating a crime, others have magic (in various forms) as the means to cause the crime. And some, in a major plot twist (as one might expect from reading mysteries) don’t even deal with murder at all! Swerve! But all in all, the twenty stories do make up an interesting collection.

Examples of the stories within are “Doppelgangster”, by Laura Resnick, in which a group of wiseguys are getting killed off with each supposedly having seen a copy of themselves soon before dying; “Mixed Marriages can be Murder”, by first-time author Will Graham, about a married couple who hire out for ‘special assignments’; and “Dropping Hints”, by Lawrence Watt-Evans, about a new Duke who must investigate the murder of the local wizard killed by one of five supposedly-identical homunculi.

They’re all pretty decent, for the most part. There were some that I preferred over others, with my favorite of the collection probably being “Cold Case” by Diane Duane, about a detective who uses magic in an attempt to solve and/or bring closure to a particular old case, but nothing that was really outstanding and incredibly thought-provoking. On the flip side, there were others that weren’t all that great, but nothing terrible. As I said, they’re all pretty decent (which is causing me a little issue in trying to figure out what to say about them, really, if you hadn’t noticed).

One aspect that is always fun to discover, as we’ve discussed in other reviews this issue, is how magic is used/handled in a particular literary universe. What kind of rules are set out in that world, how prevalent is the use of magic, etc. With twenty different stories, there is a quite a range found within this collection, which is pretty neat, but as we are looking at short stories, most don’t have the time to go into much detail. A few cases left me particularly intrigued in the world created, and would be interested in seeing further stories taking place in those worlds, but again, nothing particularly stand-out-ish.

One other story worth noting, though, is “Night at the Opera” by Geek Speak favorites Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (they of the ever-awesome Liaden Universe®). This story was actually my first introduction to the two, despite our Editor in Chief’s insistence beforehand that the Liaden books be read -- I had yet to locate a copy of the first Liaden book Agent of Change, and thus had put it out of my mind. But then seeing these names in this particular short story collection caused the little squirrel in my head to start running on the treadmill and slowly but surely, the thought hit me of “hey, wait a minute… these author names sound familiar…”, which then lead me in another attempt to locate Agent of Change, a much more successful attempt as it turns out, and the rest is history. Glorious, glorious, Liaden-filled history. Oh, and their short-story here is pretty decent as well.

Bottom line -- this is a perfectly fine (and decent… perhaps even dandy) collection. Certainly not filled with crap stories, but nothing particularly brilliant either. Most above average. A good solid B (with some stories pushing toward either a B+ or B-). If you’re looking for a collection that combines mystery and magic, this’ll fit the bill just right. If you’re looking for something to pass the time, you could do worse. But if you’re looking for a collection filled with stories that will stay with you and make you want to re-read them… you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

   -- K. Burtt