As with the previous two volumes, I was planning to read Clockwork Phoenix 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness back to back with volume 4, and wrap ’em up in one go. But even with a longer daily commute (more on that in a later, long-overdue update) I don’t seem to be reading as much lately. So, here are some thoughts on the third Clockwork Phoenix anthology.
There are a few stories that stood out: Murder in Metachronopolis by John C. Wright (on account of its non-linear chronology), C.S.E. Cooney’s Braiding the Ghosts (because I like a proper ghost story in which a clever girl outsmarts the evil hag) and S.J. Hirons’s Dragons of America for reasons that I can’t quite put a finger on.
My favorite line—the only one I highlighted, which I’m not as queasy about in digital books—was from Michael M. Jones’s Your Name is Eve: It was a Monday, for such things always happen on Mondays, it seems, when he had an idea.
Because that rings true to me.
- Book read
- Clockwork Phoenix 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness (edited by Mike Allen)
- First line
- Everything. And then, nothing at all. (from Mike Allen, Introduction