Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind and Other Stories - Beka Gremikova - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Beka Gremikova

GENRE: Short Story Collection, Fantasy.

RATING: 3.9 stars.

In a Nutshell: A delightful collection of stories themed around different kinds of encounters. Varied in characters, distinct in genres, charming in effect. Loved this!

Life enjoys a game of irony. While I read plenty of indie works and plenty of anthologies as well, I had never encountered the name ‘Beka Gremikova’. While she is quite active on Goodreads and we also have a good friend in common, we've never bumped into each other virtually. When Beka wanted to update her book’s cover pic here on Goodreads, Marquise directed her to me. As a GR librarian, I was happy to help. But as a reader unashamedly biased towards stunning book covers, my eyes popped out of their sockets in wonderment when I saw that magnificent cover art. 😍 And so I did what I had never done before in my life: I asked her to consider me for an ARC. She generously agreed.

So, you see… the journey to this review also began with a serendipitous ‘unexpected encounter.’ 😊

Am I allowing the above to influence my opinion? I hope you know me better than that.

This collection has twenty-two stories, all of which are set around encounters. The confrontations differ from story to story (happy, tense, creepy, dangerous,…) as do the characters (humans, dragons, werewolves, mer folk,…) While most of the tales have a strong fantastical feel (spanning multiple SFF genres such as sci-fi, low fantasy, and paranormal), they also have an equally dominant undertone of folklore and legends. The author calls her work ‘folkloric fantasy”, which is the perfect epithet. A couple of the stories are reboots of popular fairy tales, but most of the content comprises original plots.

The introduction mentions that many of these stories began as flash fiction pieces that were expanded to the short fiction length. I was apprehensive when I read this because extension of an existing completed plot hardly ever works in favour of the story. But the quality of the author’s work was such that I couldn’t even make out which stories were padded out to meet the short fiction length.

Despite the wildly imaginative elements, the writing has a soothing quality to it, even when the stories go dark. The only complaint I have is that the flow was predictable for many of the stories. This didn’t spoil my fun that much because those stories were still good, but I do like to be more surprised especially when I am reading creatively flexible genres such as fantasy.

As an avid reader of anthologies/collections, I pretty much have a checklist of what I want such books to have. This collection ticked off every item on my list.

✔ An attractive cover that matches the content.

✔ A title not just taken from one of the stories but also that suits the collection as a whole.

✔ An author’s note right at the start, detailing their thought process behind the collection. (Beka’s note is amazing, btw! I would have given it a separate 5 stars if I could. I always appreciate authors who put such efforts into making readers understand the intent behind their imagination.)

✔ A reasonable number of stories. (Not too many, not too few.)

✔ A more or less consistent length across the stories. (Not too long, not too short.)

✔ A sensible plot and character development.

✔ An ending that’s perfect for the tale, even if it is open.

(Yeah, that’s *all* I want! I am so easy to please! 😛)

Furthermore, the author also included features that weren’t present on my checklist but left me impressed! (And in case of the second point below: chortling!)

✔ A detailed list of triggers for each story after her introductory note. I rarely read trigger warnings as they contain major spoilers, but this is a good practice for those who need content warnings.

✔ A little note about her words having "extra" or rearranged letters due to her Canadian spellings. This Queen’s English user ain’t complainin’! 😄

✔ The distinct graphic banners above each story title, which indicate the genre of the story – a WOW idea, as it helps those who might not like a particular genre to skip the story.

✔ The setting and world-building – something I don’t even usually look at in short fiction due to length constraints. In most stories here, the locations aren't mentioned and when they are, they are mostly fictional. Yet the author’s descriptive style made it easy for me to guess the possible regional setting, whether Africa or South Asia or South-East Asia.

But what about the stories themselves, you might be wondering…

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the twenty-two stories, only one story got 2 stars and five stories got 3-3.5 stars. The remaining sixteen were all at 4 stars and above. As there are too many good stories to mention here, I’ll only specify my top favourites with 4.5+ stars:

🐉 Unexpected Encounters of the Draconic Kind – The story that lends the book its title, and also establishes the mood of the collection. I am anyway biased towards dragons, and the one in this book ensured that this story was an easy winner. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🌶 A Spoonful of Spice – As someone who loves spicy food (courtesy my Indian genes!), I had a great time reading this, though I could see where it was going. It was funny to see a spirit use modern words. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

👻 The Grave Dancers – Again, a story that was guessable in its outcome but the imaginativeness and the characters won me over. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🐯 Tiger Bright – Now this is what I love – a story that takes me by surprise at the end. Adored the ironic twist in the finale! - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

🌊 Sea Claim – Not my kind of story, to be honest, but I loved the message it incorporated. The ending was stunning. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

✉ The Screwtech Letters – I don’t think this story will make it to the favourites list of many readers, but I am a computer geek. You give me an entertaining fantasy story set INSIDE a computer AND written in epistolary style AND with a generous dollop of humour? I give you five stars without any hesitation. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

All in all, this is one of the best fantasy story collections I have read. The author said in her note that she meant it to be a relaxing-cum-challenging read, and the collection meets that complex aim admirably.

Strongly recommended to all short fiction and fantasy lovers.

3.9 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each tale. (If you are familiar with how mathematical averages work, you will know that this is an outstanding average for a 22-story collection.)

My thanks to author Beka Gremikova for providing me with a complimentary copy of “Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind and Other Stories” at my request. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.