Ruby slippers, golden tears Book

This is a 3.5 from me. It could have been a 4, except for a couple of truly bad choices of stories from editors who are usually very good. The first story, "Ruby Slippers" was just terrible, and it made me very suspicious of the rest of the book. Why would you lead with your weakest story?

And "Billy Fearless" had an unfortunate author gaffe the either editor or author really should have caught and fixed before publication. The whole point is that the boy doesn't know what fear is, and yet early in the story is this quote: "Unfortunately, Billy didn't know what a shudder was . . .. He was afraid to ask his father for fear of the old man's temper..." That's just sloppy.

But there were some really excellent stories in this volume as well. Here are my standouts:

"The Beast" - Tanith Lee
"Summer Wind" - Nancy Kress
"Brother Bear" - Lisa Goldstein
"Real Princess" - Susan Palwick
"The Fox Wife" - Ellen Steiber
"The Printer's Daughter" - Delia Sherman

Which I think just proves to me that I must go read one of Nancy Kress' novels, as I keep loving her short stories in various collections.