Thieves' world Book

A long, long time ago Thieves' World popularized the idea of a shared world. But, throughout its life, it was always the most primitive example of the genre. Though its stories shared a setting, and though its characters occasionally crossed over, the sharing was very limited, not extending to the idea of real plots that would be carried forth in more polished shared worlds like Wild Cards.

Here we are a few decades later, and Thieves World has been pulled off the shelf for a whole new generation of readers ... and the storytelling style hasn't changed at all. It's still that very primitive, barely-connected style of shared world.

Worse, this new generation of characters just doesn't have the vibrancy of Sanctuary's originals. Many of the individual stories are good, but as a whole they aren't memorable at all. Worse, there's very little meaningful sharing among these stories. Oh, they have a bit of shared background involving some nomads and an evil cult, but they just don't seem to progress beyond that, either as individual stories or (more importantly) as a whole.

So what we have here feels like an appendix to the Sanctuary story, an adjunct that doesn't add anything to the whole due to the flatness of the stories. I've got the final book in this short-lived revival sitting on my shelf, but I'm not sure I have any desire to read it ...

Home is Where the Hate is (Reichert: Dysan). This story of another survivor from the Pits nicely maintains the storyline of neo-Sanctuary. The main character is interesting but his story is too slow. It becomes interesting only at the end, when we draw the curtain over our happenings [6/10].

Role Models (Offutt: Lone). We certainly don't get very far before we get more returning characters from the original Thieves' World series. It's sort of nice to see Hanse as an aged mentor and to see Strick's legacy continue. But newcomer Lone is way too much like the original Shadowspawn and the plot of this story is paper thin [5/10].

The Prisoner in the Jewel (Paxson: Latilla). Another story with some ties to the past of Thieves World, as we're suddenly reminded of the whole Rankan court. This one also has a nice cast of characters, but it's hard to suss out where Paxson is going with her new era of stories [6/10].

Ritual Evolution (Rosen: Kadash). I have no idea who Selina Rosen is, but this Thieves' World story about a pair of new characters is charming mainly for those characters and how they interact. It also makes good use of the setup for these new stories [7/10].

Duel (McKiernen: Rogi, Ariko & Soldt). As with several of the early stories in this volume, this one is pretty scattered. It's hard to tell who the protagonist is, and thus it's hard to feel close to any of the characters. This is a fun story of a duel for a gem, but that's about it [6/10].

Ring of Sea and Fire (Bailey: Spyder). An interesting protagonist and a story that nicely touches back on the troubles of the past in the form of Nisi witches. It drags at times, but is generally nice adventure [6/10].

Doing the Gods' Work (Nye: Pel). It seems like half our new characters are former Dyraleens. Despite that repeated trope, Pel is another interesting and likeable character, thought he plot here is a bit weak and obvious by the end [5/10].

The Red Lucky (Abbey: Bez). Bez is a nice new character for Sanctuary, primarily because his morality makes him so unusual for the setting. This story also does a nice of introducing the new Sanctuary, especially the Swamp that's appeared in Sanctuary during the intervening years. As for the plotline? It's good enough, but it drags by the end because of this story's length [6/10].

Apocalypse Noun (Grubb: Heliz). A D&D writer comes to Thieves World! This is a nice piece with an interesting character, a different sort of magic, and a bit of tension. I could read more about him [7/10].

One to Go (Feist: Jake the Rat). A thief steals some stuff. This is one of the few stories in this book to feel like it's part of a shared world, but there's also nothing to it [5/10].