Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, John Joseph Adams, Editor
3/8/22; 384 pages
Grim Oak Press
Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, edited by John Joseph
Adams, is a highly recommended anthology of science fiction/speculative
or alternate reality short stories.
Much akin to Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, this anthology focuses on lost places, adventures, undiscovered realities, mysteries, or new parts of our world.
The collected stories cover the gamut from spectacular to mediocre. The
span between the excellent and inadequate seemed a bit greater than
what is normally found in anthologies, but perhaps that was only my
experience. My rating is based on the majority of the stories which I
liked enough to highly recommended the whole collection. One of the
weakest stories was the first one for me, which actually had me
considering setting this collection aside.
Contents include: "The Light Long Lost at Sea" by An Owomoyela; "The Cleft of Bones" by Kate Elliott; "The Voyage of Brenya " by Carrie Vaughn; "Comfort Lodge, Enigma Valley" by Charles Yu; "The Expedition Stops for the Evening at the Foot of the Mountain Pass" by Genevieve Valentine; "Down in the Dim Kingdoms" by Tobias S. Buckell; "Those Who Have Gone" by C.C. Finlay; "An Account, by Dr. Inge Kühn, of the Summer Expedition and Its Discoveries" by E. Lily Yu; "Out of the Dark" by James L. Cambias; "Endosymbiosis" by Darcie Little Badger; "The Orpheus Gate" by Jonathan Maberry; "Hotel Motel Holiday Inn" by Dexter Palmer; "On the Cold Hill Side" by Seanan McGuire; "The Return of Grace Malfrey" by Jeffrey Ford; "The Tomb Ship" by Becky Chambers; "Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology" by Theodora Goss; "There, She Didn’t Need Air to Fill Her Lungs" by Cadwell Turnbull.