Review: Enjoyable, kind of
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 15, 2011
I mainly bought this for the Iron Seas novella.  I loved The Iron Duke and "Here There Be Monsters" and I'm looking forward to Heart of Steel quite a bit, so this little treat was a nice way to fill the gap (so to speak).  I've read Jill Myles before--though her Succubus books and I've wanted to read Carolyn Crane, so it all was nice to come together for me."The Blushing Bounder" (Iron Seas 0.4)As I said this was the primary reason I bought the anthology.  Its not quite as dire as the synopsis up top makes it sound.  Brook focuses more on the relationship between Newberry (Wentworth's taciturn partner) and his wife Temperance.  The two had just arrived from the New World a few weeks before and it was Newberry's first week or so on the job as Wentworth's partner.  At first, as Temperance is describing Newberry I was like 'Now wait. I must be thinking of a different guy here!', but as the story unfolds it becomes apparent that misunderstandings and ignorance is really what kept the two apart.It was interesting to see things from a different angle then either 'Here There Be Monsters' (the novella in Burning Up) or The Iron Duke.  Those both focused much more on the Horde and how it effected England, while this focused on how others--namely the New World--saw the Horde and the revolution.  Also Newberry was a different sort of hero then either Rhys or Eben (Mad Machen).  He didn't aspire to be anything more than a good husband and constable (and to make Inspector).  He was kind of awkward and shy in his attempts to show Temperance how he felt, even more awkward in understanding her reactions.All things considered this story lived up to its promise which pleased me greatly."Vixen"This is not, to the best of my knowledge, connected to any of Myles' other novels/series.  I'm not entirely certain I enjoyed this story. Miko's characterization felt all over the place and the guys fell flat. They said the right things, did the right things, but I didn't get a real sense of depth from them.The premise behind why the guys were there--a fox hunting club takes root in the middle of Texan countryside, putting the were-foxes in the area in danger--was more than a little contrived sounding. And its used more as a 'Hey look Miko is doing something dangerous boys go save her' then anything else.The guys were basically a bunch of cliches stuck together. I can't even remember both their names just the descriptors that Miko uses for them--tall dark one and cocky blonde one. That pretty sums them up too--the tall dark one does a lot of 'smouldering' and saying things 'mildly' while the cocky blond one does a lot of innuendo and suggestiveness. Myles' one attempt at giving them some sort of history is little more than a paragraph and STILL doesn't tell us anything about the guys.I'm pretty sure I knew more about Miko's mother, who only appears as a voice on the other end of the phone a couple of times, then about the guys.I think this story suffered from not being original enough. Alpha guys, stubborn infuriating girl and a throwback plotline that gives them plenty of excuses to be cooped up in the house all alone together for days."Kitten-tiger and the Monk"Connected to Crane's "Disillusionist" novels, which I have not read so I can't tell you very much about how this relates to them.  What I can tell you is that though I was mightily interested in the background of our girl Sophia, her talents being rather interesting in a landscape of super-powered beings who all seem to be clones or someone or other, Crane tended to be more about Sophia's angst and issues.  So she wants to be a good guy and wants to take the quick route by having herself purged (I guess?) of her evil intentions instead of doing the legwork and I don't know doing good deeds and proving herself a decent, if largely misguided by her family, person.This was mainly interesting because of Sophia's powers.  Basically she could 'reset' any interaction she ever had (within a day) and then choose to re-do it to find a favorable result.  How cool is that?  The story glossed over a lot of her 'wickedness' that she wanted to no longer have to be burdened with, partly because I'm guessing we see some of it in the novels themselves (of which I think she's a support character?) and partly because there wasn't space enough.  Which is a shame because between her power and the 'Monks' power they were really interesting.  Much more interesting then the sentimental backstory and infinitely more interesting then the extreme levels of angst everyone seems to live under in the story.So in the end this anthology worked in that I really enjoyed Devon's story, was mildly entertained by Crane's and let down by Myles' unfortunately.