Villains Victorious

by Tim Waggoner, Lucy A. Snyder, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, et al.

Book Overview

This wicked new anthology includes fourteen original tales about those characters you love to hate-and hate to love: Villains. Bad guys. Femme fatales. After all, what is a hero without a truly evil... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0886779804
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: DAW
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.9" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

14 tales from Professor Moriarty to Lucifer

Bischoff, David: "The Whiteviper Scrolls" occurs later in Whiteviper's unsavoury career than its counterpart in _Apprentice Fantastic_, and like it is narrated by him to a downtrodden peon in his old age.Braunbeck, Gary A. & Snyder, Lucy A.: "Souls to Take" Dr. Louis Cohen never wanted to end pregnancies by anything other than a normal delivery, but rather than leave patients to alternatives that seem even worse, he keeps performing abortions, despite his own qualms. But when the "LifeGuards" ambush him on his way back from a house call, the doc's rescuer may be worse than the fate she saved him from.Crowther, Peter: Set in a comic-book world of "Heroes and Villains", the tone is something like the realism of _Watchmen_, but from the viewpoint of the super-villains. The Comedian in particular is struggling with his conscience, as he prepares for a deathbed visit to his mother, their first meeting in many years. But even sidekicks are well drawn - one, for instance, lost his father at 12 when a run-of-the-mill superhero/supervillain struggle destroyed a few city buildings, and the apologetic superhero's out-of-court settlement wouldn't bring his father back.Davis, R.: "King of Thorns" is the title awarded to the best of the temple's Thorns - their master assassin trainees - each year. The story follows the Thorns' final competitive exam with one another, and is recommended for _Thief: The Dark Project_ players. :)Dungate, Pauline E.: "Nina" has a mysterious hold on people - her classmates fear her, she rarely does her homework, and the real story of her father's suicide is uncanny. The narrator's family has arranged a marriage between them, and now that he's asked around about her, he's finally got sense enough to be scared. The story begins with his reference to the marriage, jumps back to his enquiries, then works forward to the wedding day.Edghill, Rosemary: "The Mould of Form" James Cruikshank, the narrator, will be better known by another name to readers. After Cromwell's victory, his Royalist father's death left James and his mother to their cousins' unkind charity, but James' memories of the abuses of Eton are the most bitter.Gorman, Ed: The narrator escaped the trap set by the FBI with the help of a woman who betrayed him, and became "A New Man" - with the help of plastic surgery. But by chance, his betrayer (who no longer recognizes him) lives in the small Midwestern town he's passing through - but she's married to a cop.Huff, Tanya: "All Things Being Relative" Cornelius Dickcissel, far from being a heroic adventurer, is an author; receiving the queen's summons, he drew up his will (the traditional response, when summoned by *this* queen). But she has read his story of a would-be dragonslayer that considered the dragon's point of view, and wants him to write *her* story - although she has his editor killed for the clunky title of Cornelius' last book. See how many fractured fairy tales you recognize herein. :) She's even read the evil o

Evil gets its day

The premise behind this book is what caught my eye - evil defeats good. I wasn't disappointed. I was surprised by the number of different approaches the authors took. (I was expecting a lot of re-told fairy tales...)

A look at what makes bad guys bad

In much of contemporary fantasy, the bad guys seem to have no real motive other than "I'm BAD, bwahahaha!" These stories look at some familiar stories and situations from the point of view of the bad guys, and tell us something about why they do what they do. Tanya Huff's Dark Queen's take on quite a few traditional fairy tales is well worth a look, and Fiona Patton's necromancers come back, along with the slightly-twisted magical "Italy" they live in. We get to see the early years of a very famous villain, and, in the context of a four-color comic world, learn with a person obviously based on one of the most famous comic villains about why evil must be evil, and why evil must be.

Excellent read

The pace of this book is pretty good overall. There are a few amusing stories, but for the most part, these short stories have a dark, somber mood. That doesn't mean that the stuff in them aren't exciting! Sometimes, it's hard to figure out just who is the evil one. The points of view are diverse, showing us that not every evil is doomed to be thwarted.

Bad is Good

The book is a mix, obviously, with so many stories. "Horror Show", where the monster becomes real, I've seen a thousand of these. On the good side, "Death Mage" has both an unusual magic system and some very good writing. "All Things Being Relative" by Tanya Huff, which opens this collection is a howler. THIS, by God, is a Dark Queen! Her scribe is named Cornelius Dickcissel. I need say no more. Also contained herein is "To Speak With Angels" by Michelle West. Having read it, I will henceforth date my life by it. "This occurred before I read that story. This occured after." It concerns a saint who enters Hell, and to anyone with a Christian background, it should be very powerful indeed.