Tim Pratt’s (Little Gods, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl) Hart & Boot is a stunning collection of thirteen stories of the fantastic. Hart & Boot & Other Stories collects thirteen stories of love, death and monsters, including new story "Komodo," a tale of lizards, sex magic and dangerous men. The title story, "Hart & Boot," was chosen by Michael Chabon for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories: 2005. Critics have called Pratt’s short fiction “Quite Gaimanesque…” and this comparison is not unfounded. His straightforward storytelling techniques, combined with an uncanny ability to convey a sense of wonder and the fantastic, are part of the reason why the title story to this collection was selected by Michael Chabon for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2005 anthology. Tim Pratt has been nominated for the Nebula, the John W. Campbell, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy awards, and his work (including “Bottom Feeding,” herein) routinely finds its way to the Locus Recommended Reading lists. In 2005, he won the Norton Award. His fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Polyphony, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Lenox Avenue, The Third Alternative, and Realms of Fantasy. Full of a keen sense of usual fantasy--strange creatures and legends--and the fantastic in ordinary life, Pratt's stories are a lot of fun. "Hart & Boot" is a western in which Pearl Hart determines to make her fortune as an outlaw with the help of the mysterious Boot, who appeared to her out of nowhere. "Terrible Ones" seasons the last days of the Eumenides with a modern performance of Medea. "The Tyrant in Love" is so bored with causing pain that he tries love and makes rather a mess of it. The girl "In a Glass Casket" is there because her father doesn't want her ever to leave him. "Living with the Harpy" is on one level about the benefits of having a myth for a housemate but also considers giving up the merely fantastic for something even riskier. Pratt's notes reveal the motives behind each story; for example, he aimed "The Tyrant in Love" at a woman he hoped to seduce (not his best idea, he says--the seduction, that is). Regina Schroeder Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved