Book Review - "Transcendent"

I recently finished Transcendent, Tales of the Paranormal by

1.	Rita J Webb	2.	Melanie Marks
3.	Lani Woodland	4.	Wendy Swore
5.	Melonie Piper	6.	Heather McCubbin

...and Evan Joseph.

From the back cover:
Discover the secrets of a siren, fly with a hawk girl over the mountains of Montana, and flee supernatural party-crashers as the décor comes to life in this magical journey through paranormal stories.

Along the way, watch for ghosts in a haunted house, or ride through the moonlight with a stranger. Save a comatose boy who has lost his soul, and don’t forget to bring your garlic and wolfsbane—you never know when the shadows will snag you.

Transcendent includes eight stories of magic, love, death, and choice by some of the newest names in young adult fiction. 

It's been a long time since I've read an anthology, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them. In fact, it was through an anthology that I discovered one of my favorite authors of all time, Anne McCaffrey, and her amazing Dragonriders of Pern world.

One of the great things about an anthology is you get to taste the writing of a variety of different writers. You can experience their writing styles, world building, imagination, and characterizations. It's can be tough to do a good job of that in a short story, so my hat goes off to everyone who succeeds.

Transcendent reminded me a little of Stephen Spielberg's TV show Amazing Stories from the 1980s. My family loved most of the episodes and even recorded them on tape. Here's a clip from one of our favorites called Mummy Daddy. Seriously, it's hilarious!

Well, I could see the various short stories in Transcendent being made in a TV series. Some of the stories would start out quite normal and turn into the bizarre, and I'd be turning the pages to see what happened next. Other times I knew right from the beginning that something was afoot.

The story of the hawk girl is written with almost hauntingly beautiful language, and the party that goes awry due to the décor is hilarious and creepy all at the same time. I think perhaps my favorite was the story of the boy who gets struck by lightening and ends up trapped in his iPod.

A couple of asides . . .
1. A couple of weeks ago, the charming Ali Cross, author of Become, did a blog critique for me. On New Years Day, I'm going to post her comments and redecorate. She had some great suggestions that some of you may be interested in, so I hope you'll drop by.

2.  I met my goal to finish the latest edit of WIP #1, and the full manuscript is in the hands of an editor. My oldest son is working on a book cover should I decide to self-publish.

I'm not the least bit excited.

(And if you believe that, I've got this bridge I'd like to sell you . . .)