★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention
(Modern Fantasy) Clover’s people produce all the special attractions in the Enchanted Garden region of the Dreamland park, and they’re very anxious when an efficiency expert visits for fear he’ll discover some of the magic is real. (5,830 words; Time: 19m)
Recommended By: 👍RHorton.r+1 (Q&A)
"Build Me a Wonderland," by Seanan McGuire [bio] (edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe), appeared in Robots vs. Fairies (RSR review), published on January 9, 2018 by Saga Press.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2018.136 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: Things are bad in the land of Faerie, so different magical creatures are hiding in plain sight in a park that might as well be Disneyland. The owner and the visitors don’t realize that many of the attractions are real, but the magical creatures live in fear of being found out.
I thought it was particularly cute that the “people” running the park were kobolds and the “efficiency expert” was really an elf who independently came up with the same idea. It makes for a nice twist. It's also a delicious irony that the elves and kobolds look likely to cohabit peacefully in the human realm when they were never able to do so on their own.
Con: It’s a cute story, but there’s little under the surface. We never get a reason to care about Clover in particular or the other kobolds in general, nor is it ever clear why they don’t just go public and demand equal rights from the US courts.
And if they’ve got health insurance, exactly how are they hiding their existence from doctors?
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Seanan McGuire Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
Pro: Things are bad in the land of Faerie, so different magical creatures are hiding in plain sight in a park that might as well be Disneyland. The owner and the visitors don’t realize that many of the attractions are real, but the magical creatures live in fear of being found out.
I thought it was particularly cute that the “people” running the park were kobolds and the “efficiency expert” was really an elf who independently came up with the same idea. It makes for a nice twist. It's also a delicious irony that the elves and kobolds look likely to cohabit peacefully in the human realm when they were never able to do so on their own.
Con: It’s a cute story, but there’s little under the surface. We never get a reason to care about Clover in particular or the other kobolds in general, nor is it ever clear why they don’t just go public and demand equal rights from the US courts.
And if they’ve got health insurance, exactly how are they hiding their existence from doctors?
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Seanan McGuire Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
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