I've long been a fan of Robin McKinley's novels, so when I learned that she'd teamed up with her husband Peter Dickinson-- also a fantasy writer-- to make a collection of short stories about magical water-related beings, I was sold almost before I picked up the book. It's a good thing I did pick it up, though, because these are fascinating and sometimes startling gems of short fantasy. The two authors play to their differing strengths-- Dickinson is better at intellectual depth, while McKinley is better at emotional depth-- and create an impressive array of six stories with great variety and no real weak points.

McKinley fans like me will probably get the most out of the last story, which connects the world of McKinley's Damar books to the realities of modern life in an unexpected and affecting way. Others will relish Dickinson's bold historical settings-- mermaids in Puritan New England, a sea serpent in ancient Britain. Dickinson also contributes a focused and philosophical study of an otherworldly Kraken; McKinley adds a simple but beautifully told romance between land and sea folk, as well as a story with a unique magic system that's perhaps the most viscerally watery of them all.

Both authors have their quirks and weak points-- Dickinson wears his materialism on his sleeve, while McKinley's heroines can never be without their beloved animals-- but overall this is a disciplined and well-rounded collection, with plenty of variety and interest to go around. More importantly, it features subtle and mesmerizing fantasy storytelling that doesn't get the least bit old on a third or fourth reading. Highly recommended.

Generally, the stories in this anthology were fine. I just wasn't overwhelmed by any of them. It's probably partially due to the evolution in my tastes, as there was a time I loved McKinley without question. In recent years, I've been more judgemental with her books. Pegasus nearly killed me to get through it.

So, the stories in this anthology were fine. I have never been a big fan of Dickinson, and the stories he wrote did nothing to turn me. Of the stories in the book he wrote, the first was probably the one I liked most. I found the others got into so much technical jargon about the subject matter that I was bored or confused. Yes, I assume you did your research about boats, but I'm quite happy to not share in that knowledge so can you edit out some of those "yawn" details and get to the story please?!

The McKinley stories were better, but even there, I wasn't dying to finish any. Of her stories, the Sea King's Son was the one I liked the best. The Damar story was the one I bought the book for and was most excited by when I bought the anthology, but it fell very flat for me. The time travel (or whatever it was - smelled of time travel which my family knows I hate) and the fact that Damar figured very little in the story. It was just weird.

If you like McKinley and/or Dickinson this won't be a wash. But if you don't know either, not sure this is the piece to start with.

More Robin McKinley is always a joy, and Peter Dickinson, while not in my top favorites, is a reliably interesting writer. In this book I find that I definitely prefer McKinley's work. "The Sea-King's Son", my least favorite in part because it is a very simple romance, is nevertheless quintessential McKinley. All three of Dickinson's stories are imaginative, well realized, and somehow not quite as engaging as McKinley's, even when I don't like them.

I have great deal of sympathy for McKinley's problem with short stories tending to metastasize into novels; "Water Horse" in particular has a richness of world-building that seems almost wasted on a short story, and I would love to read the novel (or series!) that seems to be lurking in the background. The last story, "A Pool in the Desert" billed as "a new Damar story" takes place mostly in the Homeland, far from Damar, and in an analogue to what seems to be England's mid-twentieth Century, as The Blue Sword occurs in an analogue to the colonial period in India. It too seems to want to be a novel--indeed, without spoiling the story, I can say there is a page of description, near the end, that seems to be a summary for the novel to which we have the first chapter and epilogue presented here as a short story. Only because of McKinley's sympathetic eye for character does the story stand reasonably on its own, and I would still love to read the novel summarized in that one teasing page.

The Robin McKinley tales were all great stories from different areas of Damar. I couldn't get into "Sea Serpent", but I did enjoy the other Peter Dickinson tales. A really good book.

Update: now that I've read some Charles de Lint, I had a better grasp of the Peter Dickinson stuff. I still prefer Robin McKinley, but I think I got a little more out of the others than I had previously.

Excellent book of writing advice. I love Writer’s style. Highly recommend for other.

I loved these collection of short stories!

Each chapter was a new short story with a theme of water. The fantasy tales were differing and disjointed. While I enjoyed the majority of the tales, there were a few that were difficult to follow. Perhaps I do not know enough water mythology to fully appreciate the stories. I loved the final story from Damar...and then realized I already knew the land from The Blue Sword. It was a great story to end on.

I don't often read short stories - i prefer the character development of a long one, or even a series. but i finished this short story collection by robin mckinley and her husband Peter dickinson a little over a week ago. they're all fantasy stories having to do with water, and for the most part, i enjoyed them. they have a simplicity to them, like a fairy tale. there was one that i really didnt like, about bringing rocks down a river or something. i started that and got so bored i just skipped the whole thing. the way they were written, in the pattern they were written in, was more like an old time fairy tale than a modern one, with lots of girls being taken advantage of. if you're looking for something simple that you don't have to focus your mind on a lot, pick up this collection.

I loved these stories. The last has ne wanting to pull out the Damar books for a reread.

A collection of short stories, half by Peter Dickinson (Mermaid Song, Sea Serpent, Kraken) and half by Robin McKinley (The Sea-King's Son, Water Horse, A Pool in the Desert). The Dickinson stories were imaginative but a bit dull (especially Sea Serpent), but I thought the McKinley stories were almost transcendentally beautiful and powerful. Water Horse (a young girl is the last thing standing between her island and destruction, and she is but a disobedient apprentice) and A Pool in the Desert (a woman has two lives, one in our world and one in a magical desert kingdom) were my favorites of the collection.

Mixed feelings on this one - this was one of the times in a short story collection where some stories worked a lot better than others for me. I loved 'The Pool in the Desert' (which to be fair was the whole reason I picked up this collection - since it was a return to Damar) and 'The Sea-King's Son', and 'Kraken' was interesting - but the other three weren't really my thing.

This is a collection of short stories, some by Dickinson and some by McKinley, all involving water spirits in one form or another. One of McKinley's is another Damar story (The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown). Several of them, by both writers, involved merpeople in what's at least somewhat a shared world. Overall, I find McKinley's characters more likable and enjoyable to spend time with, but all the stories are entertaining.