Firebirds, edited by Sharyn November

Buy on Amazon!.
I originally became interested in this book because I evesdropped on Ellen Klages at the Neil Gaiman reading and found that she has a story in the new Firebirds anthology (Firebirds Rising) - which is her famous story about the girl raised by "feral librarians" (DZ overheard her mention this story which is why he perked up my ears too, normally we are not so nosy... ha ha).

But the new book is still "in processing" at the San Mateo library system so it may be a while before I can get a copy. I think this means that all the librarians are passing it around to read before they release it to the general public!

The editor of this book is Sharyn November (who I really want to meet after reading through her site - I'm not sure if I would be able to ask people who know me to describe me as she has), and also a motherless daughter whose page about her mother has inspired me). Plus, the Firebird imprint is also responsible for Pat's "The City" coming out in paperback finally.

I am just going to list the stories and authors that I really liked, with short blurbs about them so I can remember to go back and get their other works:

* The Baby in the Night Deposit Box - by Megan Whalen Turner. Best described almost as a girl raised by "feral bankers" - a baby is deposited into a bank and grows up there safe from the clutches of her evil aunt, until the evil aunt comes to make her withdrawal. This was so hilarious and sweetly odd that I told it to dz in the hot tub, and he actually listened to the whole thing.
I got all excited looking at the author bio which said she lives in Menlo Park but curses, she has moved to Ohio!

* Mariposa by Nancy Springer - really great story of a woman who has lost her soul (quite literally - it's a physical object in this world and she's about to get an artificial one put in, like plastic surgery). She decides to try to find it first, and returns to her childhood home and her mom and grandmother (who have certainly found their souls already or not lost them) to see if she's left it there.

* Medusa by Michael Cadnum - good to get the story from Medusa's perspective for once! As he said in the Author's Note, she couldn't always have been such a terrible creature.
Also note that he has a book out about the Vikings: Daughter of the Wind.

* The Black Fox - adaptation of trad. ballad by Emma Bull and illustrations by Charles Vess
Very nice to have a mini-comic story from Charles Vess here in the anthology

* Hope Chest by Garth Nix - a train pulls out of the station in a sleepy little town, leaving a large steamer trunk precariously balanced on the edge of the platform, with a little baby swaddled in a pink blanket on top. Of course the townspeople save her before she can fall, finding a note that reads, "Alice May Susan, born on the Summer Solstice, 1921. Look after her and she'll look after you."
And she does.

* Little Dot by Diana Wynne Jones - from the cat's point of view, about "her human" (a wizard, apparently) and also has a very interesting mobile hen-house type contraption that the cat can actually use to fly around the yard and the house with.
I am surprised I haven't yet read anything else by Diana Wynne Jones, she seems really quite awesome, and she wrote Howl's Moving Castle.

* Flotsam by Nina Kariki Hoffman
Jeff meets a young alien named Poppy at the basketball court, who needs to get back home (and looks human enough to pass until he tries to talk...). She also wrote a book recently called Catalyst which has first contact themes as well, but not the same characters or world.

Sidebar - we just watched Star Trek: First Contact last night on DVR - which I find fascinating because the 2063 year that they travel back to, the year of first warp drive and first contact, is not that far away. They can now shield microwaves using a "invisibility" cloaking device. Not far to visible light...

* Cotillion by Delia Sherman - I can't succinctly summarize this at all but to remember it - ball, faery world, Valentine brought back to human form by girl (and lots of cool music played on old instruments). This is the story of Tam Lin, btw, I am cribbing from a review elsewhere to remember that.