5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most professional indie anthologies Ive come by. August 31, 2014 By M.M. Schill Format:Paperback A Forest of Dreams is the first release Ive read by Indie Authors Press. Immediately I was impressed with the gorgeous, professionally, designed cover-art by Drusilla Morgan. This is my first taste of her work, and as a graphic-artist myself, I was very interested to see her work. I ended up quite pleased at the level of detail and balance displayed in the design. As for the rest of the book, the over all layout and formatting of the book was neat, clean and professional. Ill give it to Indie Authors Press, Ive read a lot of poorly strung together anthologies in the past, but this one was approached with a lot of obvious care. In this they respected the reader by ensuring that this antho was as professional as possible. They defiantly get that people are spending their money on something, and they didnt disappoint. Overall, a good layout, easy to index to specific stories, clean chapter breaks and formatting, and it is well edited. Easy read. Jumping into the stories of the book, the stories are mostly all easy reads, cleanly edited, and well selected for the anthology. The stories are diverse, spanning several sub-genres of fantasy, ensuring that there will be a story in there for just about any fantasy fan to enjoy. Personally, I tend to categorize anthology stories by author, more so than the individual story. I sort of view anthology reading as a chance to explore new authors and get acquainted with their individual writing styles and voice. I was most particularly interested in reading the entry by Maggie Secara before picking this book up. Ive been following her The Dragon Ring/Harper Errant (Crooked Cat Publishing) series, and had always loved the highly-literary aspects of her prose, and her take on a fantasy world system. However, Ive never read any short fiction from her before so I was interested to see how she approached that format. I was very pleased to see that she didnt lose any of her literary flare in the shorter fiction format that she had in her novels. I was also interested to read a short piece from Roy C. Booth. I had recently read a novella he co-authored with Nicholas Johnson; Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Man-made Vacuum (Harren Press), so I was interested to see what sort of fantasy story he had contributed to the antho. I got a lot better idea of his writing style and voice by comparing the two works to each other. Very solid and imaginative. A few authors I had never read any fiction from, but am happy I got a chance to was Rose Blackthorn, James Pratt, Michael Merriam, Jesse Duckworth, and Allen B. Anderson. All of these authors Id be interested in checking out their longer fiction. (Im more of a novel reader) They all had very clean, easy reads. I enjoy sharp stories with uncluttered prose, and engaging personalities. I think they gave me the most of what I enjoy in fiction in this anthology. Not to say I didnt enjoy the other stories however--Im just highlighting these authors to my personal taste. Over all, a good release, and a great opportunity to check out some new writers I hadnt had the chance to check out before. amazon/Forest-Dreams-Allan-B-Anderson-ebook/dp/B00MSEKK6U/ref
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 00:19:06 +0000
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