ghosts

This collection brings together fifteen stories and a novella, "Everard's Ride". Spanning genres from science fiction to fantasy and even a touch of horror (in "The Master"), all of the stories show off Jones' wit and wild imagination, qualities which make her one of the best young adult fantasy writers of today (perhaps one of the best fantasy writers of today, period). I was disappointed, though, that so many of the stories had been in previous collections - surely there were more to choose from?

Among the stories, the standouts are: "Enna Hittims", in which a girl who has the mumps draws stories about a fictional hero, who becomes frighteningly real; "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight", set on a world in which dragons are real and telepathy is illegal; "The Girl Who Loved the Sun", the myth-like tale of a girl who longs to become a tree; "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy", a witty story of a typo-prone science fiction writer whose computer suddenly starts talking to her; and "What the Cat Told Me" and "Little Dot", both tales of magic narrated by cats.

Since I already own and had read most of the stories, I was most looking forward to reading "Everard's Ride" and wasn't disappointed. Alex and Cecilia live in Victorian England, the children of a wealthy farmer; there is a mysterious island near their home, said to be the site of a ghostly kingdom called Falleyfell. When an enigmatic stranger comes to the farmhouse one night, Alex and Cecilia begin an adventure which leads them into Falleyfell and the dangerous intrigues of its court. Not as inventive as Jones' best novels, (...)