Fiddler Fair [School & Library Binding]

"Aliens Ate My Pickup" (didn't appear in Esther Friesner's ALIEN PREGNANT BY ELVIS, so is the only story "original" to this collection). Written in 1st-person dialect by an Oklahoma native, we only see his responses to his questioner, not the questions themselves, and he continually strays off topic, talking about stocking his bass pond, and how his hayfield's been messed up by the crop circle. :)

"Balance" and "Dragon's Teeth" (SPELL SINGERS; these two stories have no connection with Lackey's Free Bards to date). They're designed to be read back-to-back, concerning the developing relationship between middle-aged Masterclass sorceress Martis and her newly assigned bodyguard Lyran, and opening with a reversal of the usual pattern: *she* makes an insulting snap judgement of *his* professional ability, since he looks and dresses more like a dancer than a swordsman. (Martis, however, isn't at her best, having been assigned to deal with a much-loved student gone bad, and generally being hard to please anyway.) The first story explores Lyran's Way of Balance as Martis gets to know him. In their second outing, the two have evolved a partnership rather than a mage/bodyguard relationship.

"The Cup and the Caldron" [sic] (GRAILS OF LIGHT). In Arthur's reign, a young nun and a healer of the Old Religion are called to the same quest, although one sees the Grail and the other Cerridwen's Cauldron.

"Dance Track" (Mike Resnick's ALTERNATE HEROES) combines Dixon's passion for cars and Lackey's for dance. One point of departure is that James Dean, surviving a car wreck and given the choice of tearing up his contract or quitting his hobby of racing, stuffed the pieces into a studio exec's pipe and signed on with Bugatti's Grand Prix team as a driver. Another (making for a nice story, but going beyond the pale historically) is that the dancer Isadora Duncan has been made a generation younger. (Her involvement with the Bugatti team - as their previous driver, WWII having left them short a few years ago - is OK by me, though, given her history as I know it.)

"Dumb Feast" (Mike Resnick's CHRISTMAS GHOSTS). Wealthy Victorian lawyer Aaron Brubaker initially seems very sympathetic; he misses his late wife so much that he's casting the spell of a "dumb feast" to summon Elizabeth's spirit on Christmas Eve. But Elizabeth, in death, no longer has to fit the mold he forced her into during their marriage...

"The Enemy of My Enemy" (Robert Adams' anthology FRIENDS OF THE HORSECLANS). Set in the post-holocaust Horseclans world, wherein the survivors were far from major cities, e.g. the people of the western reservations in the U.S. Lackey chose to focus on another group: the Rom (gypsies). The viewpoint alternates between the town smith and the horse-trading Lowara, who at present are being mannerly visitors, but didn't see fit to enlighten the Gaje about *all* Rom customs. Their devotion to their horses' wellbeing reminds me of Mayhar's HOW THE GODS WOVE IN KYRANNON.

"Fiddler Fair" was written for MAGIC IN ITHKAR 3, and when that shared world anthology series died (a shame, I thought), Lackey reycled the story to drop the incident into a world of her own making, revising the Ithkar-specific references to geography, religion, and so on. ("Fiddler Fair" corresponds to chapter 13 of THE LARK AND THE WREN, which shifted the scene to the Midsummer Faire at Kingsford, even the Ithkar tagline that all the world comes there.)

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" An original essay addressing some FAQs about Lackey's career.

"Jihad" (Mike Resnick's ALTERNATE WARRIORS) picks up with Lawrence of Arabia just as his captors at Deraa heave him out to die after torturing him. (WARNING: Lackey doesn't gloss over it the way the excellent 1960s film adaptation had to.) Lawrence in our timeline never completely got over Deraa; in "Jihad", he copes differently, turning history into another track. [I admit I had a qualm at one point, wondering if Lackey were about to give him a Companion.]

"Last Rights" (Greenberg's DINOSAUR FANTASTIC). See Lackey's introduction to WEREHUNTER for details of her adventures in rehabilitating raptors - from teaching fledglings to hunt to avoiding injury. Consequently, in this story of a Jurassic-Park-type reconstructed dinosaurs lab, you just *know* the 3 yoyos breaking in to "liberate" the dinosaurs are going to pay for not doing their research, in their unshakeable belief that there's no such thing as a dangerous animal. After all, brontosaurs are vegetarians, right? :>

"Once and Future" (Greenberg's EXCALIBUR) Michael O'Murphy, waking with an awful hangover, vaguely remembers getting drunk in the woods with his friends, but he thought seeing an arm come out of the lake was just a dream - until he realizes that really *is* a talking sword in his bed this morning.

"Small Print" (Mike Resnick's DEALS WITH THE DEVIL). Lester Parker, a small-time "preacher", rescues a televangelist who takes sick while patronizing the same brothel. Brother Lee, in exchange, offers Lester a referral to "Mr. Lightman". Lester, of course, thinks he can take care of himself even in *that* kind of contract, and seems to have a foolproof plan.

IRRELEVANT NOTE: I think Clyde Caldwell missed the point in his cover painting; his Rune *couldn't* pass for a boy, and Sweet did a better job with the Skull Hill Ghost for the cover of THE FREE BARDS, although the figures are posed similarly in both paintings.