Review: Fall Into Fantasy 2018 Edition

Fall Into Fantasy 2018 Edition by Andrew M. Ferrell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I hate giving bad reviews to anthologies I have stories in. I feel like I'm betraying them somehow, because we're supposed to be a team or a family or something, if that makes any sense. Am I not supposed to give reviews if they aren't positive? But that feels disingenuous, and I feel like it's my duty to honestly report my experiences to protect others from harmful stories.

(If I'm breaking some unwritten author code, please tell me.)

There are good stories in this book. One standout is Fluffy, about a pink werewolf. (Yes, it's super adorbs.) But most of them fell short.

Okay, some of them are definitely an "it's not you, it's me" thing. The subgenres of fantasy represented are vast and varied and I'm not the biggest fan of high fantasy, so it takes a LOT to keep me from skimming those in the best of circumstances.

But then there's the editing. Or lack thereof. Look, no one is perfect, but three typos on the very first page is not a great sign.

Finally, some of the stories were kind of offensive. In one, a man totally renames a woman rather than learn to pronounce her name. Ableist slurs (and some racial ones) are common.

One story (which was an intriguing concept, which is the only reason I read to the end, but content warnings for sexual assault would have been nice) features a bad guy who rounds up women and changes them into less desirable races so people will care less when they are raped???????[insert infinity question marks]

Like I said, I hate giving bad ratings to books that I'm in, but I'm not proud of this one and I'm not super duper glad I read it.

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