I'm a huge Jim Butcher fan. I love his Dresden Files series so much, I go looking for short stories in that world that I haven't read before. This week and next week, I'll tell you about two anthologies I read this month, both with Dresden Files short stories in them. (Yay!)

Dark and Stormy Knights has nine short stories by popular authors in the urban fantasy genre. I particularly liked “Even Hand” by Jim Butcher (duh), “The Beacon” by Shannon K. Butcher (yup, Jim's wife, never read her before but I want to now), “Even a Rabbit Will Bite” by Rachel Caine, “Dark Lady” by P.N. Elrod, and “Rookwood & Mrs. King” by Lilith Saintcrow.

The stories include a wizard, a vampire and a ghost, a dragon hunter, and some seriously strange supernatural entities, as well as lots more weird and interesting characters. Pretty cool.

I've read little to nothing by most of these authors, so I was eager to try them out. But many of them used a character in a series that I wasn't familiar with, and didn't give enough back story to help me understand the context of the story. That was disappointing and made the stories less enjoyable.

That being said, this was one of the urban fantasy anthologies I enjoyed the most. If you like this kind of story, try out this anthology. Fun stuff!

4 stars, Liked It