Bradley P. Beaulieu's Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories was published in May 2013.
Information about Bradley P. Beaulieu:
Bradley P. Beaulieu is the author of the epic fantasy trilogy The Lays of Anuskaya (The Winds of Khalakovo, The Straits of Galahesh and The Flames of Shadam Khoreh). The first book of his new fantasy trilogy, The Song of the Shattered Sands, will be published next year.
Click here to visit Bradley P. Beaulieu's official website.
Information about Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories:
With The Winds of Khalakovo, Bradley P. Beaulieu established himself as a talented new voice in epic fantasy.
With his premiere short story collection, Beaulieu demonstrates his ability to weave tales that explore other worlds in ways that are at once bold, imaginative, and touching.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories contains 17 stories that range from the epic to the heroic, some in print for the first time.
A REVIEW OF BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU'S LEST OUR PASSAGE BE FORGOTTEN & OTHER STORIES
Bradley P. Beaulieu's Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories is an excellent and fantastic short story collection. In my opinion this collection deserves all the praise it gets, because it's been a while since I've read a fantasy short story collection that can rival this one in terms of quality, versatility and originality.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories contains the following 17 stories:
- In the Eyes of the Empress's Cat
- Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten
- Prima (a Lays of Anuskaya story, original to this collection)
- Sweet as Honey
- Shadows in the Mirrors
- Parting the Clouds
- An Instrument of War (original to this collection)
- Unearthed (original to this collection)
- Flotsam
- Prey to the Gods (original to this collection)
- A Trade of Shades
- Good Morning Heartache
- Cirque Du Lumière
- How Peacefully the Desert Sleeps
- Foretold
- To the Towers of Tulandan (a Lays of Anuskaya story, original to this collection)
- From the Spices of Sanandira
These stories appear as author's preferred texts in this collection. They were originally published in a slightly different form in various magazines and anthologies.
I think that readers will be interested in knowing what they can expect from this short story collection. To be short, they can expect 100% quality and first-rate fantasy stories.
With these stories Bradley P. Beaulieu shows that he's able to write both heroic and epic fantasy stories. He fluently shifts his focus from heroic fantasy to epic fantasy and even combines both. He's also able to write different kind of fantasy stories that differ quite a lot from each other in several ways.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories has an amazing amount of different kind of stories. The author has written all kinds of stories and some of these stories have plenty of Eastern and Russian elements in them. It's great that the author has collected all these stories into this collection, because this collection gives readers a chance to see how versatile an author he is and what kind of fantasy he can write.
What amazed me most when I read this collection was how easily the author developed the happenings and how fluently he wrote about the characters (it's great that he's able to create stories that come alive when you read them). I also admired his ability to write touching and imaginative stories. This is a talent that only a few fantasy authors have and it separates mainstream fantasy authors from quality fantasy authors.
Some of the stories in Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories are almost like fairy tales for adults while others are more epic in nature. This is nice, because it creates diversity. In my honest opinion each of these stories is a small gem. All of these stories can be read over and over again, because they're fine examples of quality short stories that can withstand the test of time.
The two Lays of Anuskaya stories (Prima and To the Towers of Tulandan) will be of interest to readers who have read The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy and have enjoyed it. I was very satisfied with these stories, because after I had finished reading the trilogy (which by the way is one of the best and most ambitious epic fantasy trilogies ever written), I wanted to read more stories about the same world. I'm glad that the author has written these stories, because they were excellent.
Bradley P. Beaulieu's Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories is one of the best fantasy short story collections ever published, because the author writes about exotic locales, the characters are interesting and the happenings are fascinating. I'm sure that everybody who has read lots of fantasy will agree with me when I say that Bradley P. Beaulieu is one of the best new fantasy authors, because he knows how to write original and intriguing stories.
It's difficult for me to choose the best stories, because I enjoyed reading all of them, but if I had to choose them, I'd probably say that the best stories are Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten, In the Eyes of the Empress's Cat, Prima, To the Towers of Tulandan, Unearthed, Prey to the Gods and An Instrument of War. I also liked A Trade of Shades, because it's a good example of perfectly written flash fiction. I remember reading that Unearthed is a short story, which is set in Bradley P. Beaulieu's new Bryndlholt world (hopefully the author will continue to write more Bryndlholt stories, because this story is good).
Before I finish writing this review I have to mention that the cover art by Sang Han looks amazingly beautiful. I also liked the interior art by Evgeni Maloshenkov, because the drawings were fantastic.
I can highly recommend this short story collection to everybody who has read Bradley P. Beaulieu's The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy. I can also recommend this collection to all readers who enjoy reading good fantasy stories (if you've never read Bradley P. Beaulieu before, this collection is a good starting point). If you want quality and originality from your fantasy stories, this is the collection to read.
Highly recommended!