Al Sarrantonio has previously edited two anthologies – the perfectly decent REDSHIFT: EXTREME VISIONS OF SPECULATIVE FICTION and the great horror-centric 999 – but his latest, the now-in-paperback FLIGHTS: EXTREME VISIONS OF FANTASY, is his best yet. And this comes from someone who generally dislikes fantasy.
Say the word “fantasy” and people immediately think of wizards and dragons and elves, often ignoring the fact that BIG and FIELD OF DREAMS qualify, too. Luckily, Sarrantonio doesn’t ignore that, filling his book with stories that have nothing to do with Hobbit-like worlds. Oh, sure, there are a couple of wizards and dragons and elves within, but when have you ever read a story about an elf who goes to San Francisco, picks up AIDS and takes it back to his elf village to infect all the other elves? Never, until now, as it’s one of 29 stories here.
Sarrantonio gave his contributors – ranging from Neil Gaiman to RAMBO creator David Morrell – full creative freedom to explore taboos if they so wished. Thus, Peter Schneider reimagines FIGHT CLUB with diaper-clad toddlers, Joyce Carol Oates offers a rather disturbing tale of a family stricken with a mysterious disease and BUBBA HO-TEP author Joe R. Lansdale contributes a sexually charged fairy tale about a steam shovel that wants to do nothing more than demolish forests and insert his dipstick into a tailpipe.
This is an excellent collection that pushes boundaries and exceeds expectations, and is one of the most solid anthologies I’ve ever encountered. Highly recommended.
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Oh, sure, there are a couple of wizards and dragons and elves within, but when have you ever read a story about an elf who goes to San Francisco, picks up AIDS and takes it back to his elf village to infect all the other elves?
GREATEST. PLOT. EVER.
I’ve been reading Science Fiction and Fantasy for over 40 years and this anthology reinforces my opinion of anthologies by third-party editors rather than by their authors. Of the stories in this book, Flights, only two of the stories really caught my attention and I ended up completely skipping most of the rest, despite their so-called critical acclaim. Basically, this book is a collection of what the editor liked and woe to the reader who doesn’t like the same things. At least with an author’s collection, you can relate the stories to what the author himself writes and enjoys; and if you happen to like the author’s own works, it’s more likely you’ll enjoy the same stories the author did.
To me, this book doesn’t deserve the ratings everyone else has given it. While a few of the authors featured are authors I like, these seemed to be works that simply couldn’t work anywhere else. If I had read this book before reading these author’s other books, I would probably have never read those authors’ other works. In other words, don’t use this book as a touchstone representing the other titles by these authors; those other works may be better or worse than these stories.