★★★☆☆ Which universe is this, now?

Instinct: An Animal Rescuers Anthology

Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, D.J. Butler, E.A. Copen, Lucienne Diver, Hailey Edwards, Alex Erickson, A.J. Hartley, John Hartness, Faith Hunter

Instinct: An Animal Rescuers Anthology is a collection of stories sold to benefit animal rescuers. From the Acknowledgements, "70% of book sale profits are donated to Lifeline Puppy Rescue, a no-kill shelter for puppies in Brighton, Colorado." Naturally most of the stories are about animals. In this context, "animals" should be understood to mean dogs and cats, the occasional dog-or-cat-like Fantasy or Science Fiction creature, and some dinosaurs. Although I didn't read all the stories, I'm pretty sure invertebrates get short shrift, or no shrift at all. BOO! Worms and bugs and mollusks deserve some interest, too! (See, for instance, Adrian Tchaikovsky's work.)

Confession time: I read only five of the seventeen stories in this anthology. I read the first few lines of each story and the authors' biographies with which they end, and then decided if I wanted to take the time to read the story. (Sorry folks -- there are a lot of books out there I want to read.) The five were:

"George and KitKit Save the Witches", Faith Hunter
"Fugitive", Jim Butcher
"The Unexpected Dachshund", LE Modesitt, Jr
"Nine", Seanan McGuire
"A Memory of Witches", Patricia Briggs

The problem with this collection immediately became evident on reading the Faith Hunter story "George and KitKit Save the Witches". Hunter introduces it as follows: 'Author’s Note: Based on “My Dark Knight”, a short story set in the Jane Yellowrock world, but from the critters’ point of view.' I have not previously read anything by Hunter and am not familiar with the Jane Yellowrock world. The story makes essentially no sense unless you know the characters beforehand, and I did not. The Jim Butcher story "Fugitive" had the same problem. Patricia Briggs' "A Memory of Witches" would have, too, except that I am thoroughly up to speed on Briggs' Mercyverse and have even recently reread Storm Cursed, the novel from which "A Memory of Witches" comes. (If you're up to speed -- it's a good story -- it presents events we saw in Storm Cursed from the point of view of the mysteriously powerful werewolf Sherwood Post and partially dissipates the mystery that surrounds him. But if you're not familiar with the Mercyverse, you will mostly be lost.) This problem was not confined to these three stories, I could see from the introductions to many of the stories I skipped that they were also specific to Verses created by their authors.

Among the five I read the honorable exceptions were the contributions from Modesitt and McGuire. I say "contributions" because only one of these was actually a story, Modesitt's "The Unexpected Dachshund" is a straightforward science fiction story about a dachshund (or is it?) adopted by a couple at a space colony. McGuire's "Nine", in contrast, is an essay, a poem, a metaphysical speculation into the nine lives of cats, and a love letter from cats to humans. If you love cats, or are loved by any particular cats, you will, I hope, be charmed by this.

The ones I skipped were:

"The Gold Standard", A. J. Hartley
"Howl-O-Ween", Alex Erickson
"Dog", D. J. Butler
"Safe Place", Eliza Eveland
"Keeting it Real", Hailey Edwards
"Helpful", Jennifer Blackstream
"The Unlikeliest Places", John G. Hartness
"Forever and A Day", Kelley Armstrong
"The Kitcoon", L. J. Hachmeister
"A Cry in the Night", Lucienne Diver
"The Kindness of Cats", R.R. Virdi
"Junkyard Rex", Sam Knight

I read the book mainly for the McGuire and Briggs contributions, and for those it was worth my time. I also got some negative value from the Hunter and Butcher stories, in the sense that I now feel no overwhelming eagerness to dive into their longer works. Since, as I said, there are a lot of books out there I want to read, that is useful information.

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