The Book of Witches - Edited by Jonathan Strahan - ★★.½

EDITOR: Jonathan Strahan

GENRE: Anthology, Fantasy.

RATING: 2.45 stars.

In a Nutshell: The best thing about this book is the cover. The second best thing is the intent. Hardly any story left any long-term impact on me.

This is a collection of twenty-nine stories, focussed on witches. The stories are quite diverse in terms of format (prose as well as poems), genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary), cultures (having several BIPOC authors gives it a brilliant diversity), and even the types of witches focussed upon (there is one story with a techno-witch!)

The book starts with a brilliant editor’s note, highlighting what makes a witch, and talking about the approach to building this inclusive collection. It also stresses on how the witches in this stories aren’t the ones from Western tradition with witches in pointy black hats. (Query to the people involved: Why that cover then?) I must say, the note made my expectations go sky-high.

Sadly, the stories didn’t live up to the promise. Most of the stories dragged. Most of them had a “witch” in the loosest sense of the word. Witches and magic go hand in hand, so to see several stories without a substantial fantastical content was disappointing.

At 500+ pages, this is a huge anthology. The meandering style makes it further slower. As such, I would recommend this only if you are a hard-core anthology fan and are open to slower, lengthy collections.

As always, I rated the stories individually, but most of the stories hovered around the midway mark. Very few breached the four star level. There were a couple of poems as well, but I didn’t read or rate these as I am not fond of freeverse poems.

The only stories that touched or crossed four stars were:

➙ What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata - P. Djèlí Clark - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

➙ The Liar - Darcie Little Badger - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

➙ The Unexpected Excursion of the Murder Mystery Writing Witches - Garth Nix - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

➙ So Spake the Mirrorwitch - Premee Mohamed - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

➙ John Hollowback and the Witch - Amal El Mohtar - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

(Sorry, but I am too disappointed to even write a short synopsis for each of the above stories.)

With just 5 out of twenty-nine stories delivering, I cannot put this anthology in the must-read category. But every reader ha a different taste, so who knows? Maybe you might enjoy this collection if you are more open to innovative formats in meandering storylines.

2.45 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the stories.

My thanks to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Book of Witches”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.