The great thing about anthologies is that they offer the reader a chance to discover a new author to explore more deeply… and Robots vs. Fairies achieves that. The big names may be the ones that grab your eye… Valente is here telling a wonderfully oddball story of a pro wrestling tournament match between histories most famous faeries vs the world’s greatest thinking machines. Sesean Maguire takes us to a Disneyland where the attractions are a bit more lively than simple automatons, etc, but the cool thing is finding what’s hidden in the haystack. Very often, the best story is the one from the author you don’t know and that happened here.
The stories range from good to great with only one real clunker. The conceit is fun as each author took sides. Were they team robot or team fairy? Who would they rally for and who would they fight for? The most disappointing thing about Robots vs. Fairies was that there were relatively few stories where robots and fairies intermixed. Most were either a robot story or a fairy story and despite their good qualities, the tease of the title promises something else.
