Starred review from April 20, 2015
The witty, unusual first joint collection from Wrede (Thirteenth Child) and Dean (Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary) reprints nine stories from the series of shared-world anthologies set in the magical city of Liavek, as well as adding one previously unpublished story (“Of Fish and Fools”) and one written for this compendium (“Shards”). The stories fit together into a sprawling, self-contained narrative surrounding the Benedicti family, political émigrés who may have brought their home country’s mad god with them. The tangles of the various Benedicti siblings and connections take them throughout Liavek, a city filled with scatterbrained deities, a street of wizards that’s not always there, a beneficent church of people planning suicide, and the mixing of several different cultures after waves of conquest. Dean and Wrede admirably match styles, and their stories range from funny to tragic and back at the turn of a clever phrase. The city lives and breathes as many fantasy cities do not, and the repetition of basic information at the beginning of each story is easy to tolerate. This deeply enjoyable journey to Liavek will be of interest to longtime fans and newcomers alike. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown Literary Agency.