Early Review – Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Anthology
Length: 448 pages
Publisher:‎ Del Ray
Release Date: September 17, 2024
ASIN: B0CQJHYVCS
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 4/5 stars

“From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy, through the realms next door to Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories. Here, among many others, we encounter:

• A mushroom witch who learns that sometimes the worst thing in the Scholomance can be your roommate.

• The start of the Dragon Corps in ancient Rome, after Mark Antony hatches a dragon’s egg and bonds with the hatchling.

• A young bride in the Middle Ages who finds herself gambling with Death for the highest of stakes.

• A delightful reimagining of Pride & Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennet captains a Longwing dragon.

• The first glimpse of the world of Abandon, the setting of Novik’s upcoming epic fantasy series—a deserted continent populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural mysteries.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: wrestling with destiny, and the lengths some will go to find their own and fulfill its promise.”

Series Info/Source: This is a short story anthology. I got an eGalley of this from NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: I have very brief summaries/thoughts on the individual stories below. As with just about every short story anthology I have read, this was a mixed bag. There were a couple of stories I loved, some I disliked and a lot that were just okay. If you are a huge Novik fan and keep up on reading her short stories you have probably read a lot of these stories already. Many of these stories were published in other fantasy or sci-fi anthologies previously.

My favorite stories of the bunch were “After Hours”, “Spinning Silver”, “Seven”, and “Castle Coeurlieu”. These are all fantasy stories involving clever women with some fun twists to them. My least favorite of the bunch was “Seven Years from Home”; a rather complex and long sci-fi story that was incredibly boring.

Please see below for my thoughts on each story.

– Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake (4/5)
I read this story before in the Fast Ships, Black Sails anthology. It is a fun story about a noble woman who ends up using a protective amulet that turns her into a man when her ship is attacked by pirates. She then ends up on a series of wild adventures with the very pirates that originally attacked the ship she was on.

– After Hours (5/5)
This was a wonderful story the takes place with some new students some time after the main Scholomance trilogy.

– Vici (4/5)
If dragon training started in Rome. This was funny and witty. I definitely enjoyed it more once the dragon hatched. It ended pretty abruptly but was fun.

– Buried Deep (4/5)
This was an intriguing story about the Minotaur and his sister. I thought it was a bit slow but it was beautifully written and I enjoyed the way it delved into the mythology around all of this.

– Spinning Silver (5/5)
Really loved this story. This is a shorter version of the book. It involves a young woman who takes her family’s poverty in to her own hands and turns things around by making an intelligent deal with a fairy. I loved how clever this was and enjoyed the main character a lot.

– Commonplaces (3/4)
This was okay, it is about one of the female characters from the Sherlock Holmes books (who I was not familiar with) tracking down and confronting (among other things) Sherlock after his supposed death. It was a short and abrupt story that may have had more impact if I had read more than one Sherlock Holmes book, and if I knew who the main character was supposed to represent from the Sherlock Holmes series.

– Seven (5/5)
Really enjoyed this story about a strange town where the clay builders must use a special clay to repair the guarding statues…a clay that leaves them sick and dead a matter of years after working it. That is until a practical woman is forced to take on this job.

– Blessings (3/5)
This was a short and humorous look at a child who was blessed by drunk fairies. This results in some questionable attributes for a noblewoman as the child grows.

– Lord Dunsany’s Teapot (4/5)
I had read this previously from “The Cabinet of Curiosities” Book by VanderMeer. This is a well done story about a strange teapot that brings peace in the trenches of war.

– Seven Years from Home (2/5)
I found this really, really boring and ended up skimming a lot of it. This was a complex sci-fi story that had a lot of info dumping.

– Dragons & Decorum (4/5)
This is set in the Temeraire world and told in a very flowery “Pride and Prejudice” style. It is a retelling of sorts of parts of Pride and Prejudice. I am not a huge fan of this style of writing, but it was cute and clever.

– Castle Coeurlieu (5/5)
I really enjoyed this story about a young girl who is married off to an old man during the plague. He is kind and goes off to war while she hangs out with his son who is around her age (13 yrs old). However, there is a tower on the grounds that no one is supposed to enter at night. When the lord’s son enters the tower to escape the plague, she goes after him in an effort to save him and ends up on a strange adventure within the tower’s confines.

– The Long Way Round (4/5)
This was a decent read about a couple of siblings that decide to take a different way, the long way, around their normal trade route. They travel via ship and run into new and amazing wonders as they travel. I found the magical constructs that they found on their travels a bit confusing. This was more like a glimpse into a world than a well fleshed out story. I did enjoy the characters, although I am not huge on sea types of adventures. I thought some of the aspects of the story were very intriguing as well.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this is a solid collection of short stories that includes a lot of Novik’s stories that have been published in other anthologies. As with most anthologies, there both hits and misses. I would say this is more hits than misses; with a few stories that I loved, a lot I liked, some mediocre ones, and one I did not like. If you are a Novik fan, you have probably read a lot of these short stories before. If you haven’t, it is worth a read.