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There seems to be an awful lot of theme-anthologizing lately (where by "lately" I mean "this millenium"). And I get the impression that there's a certain bunch of people who are Into the Scene. In this particular anthology, twenty short stories by people I mostly haven't heard of, there's a little blurb about the author at the front of each story, and in many of these little blurbs we find out that this same author has previously published one or a dozen other stories in other anthologies, called things like Assassin Fantastic and Fantastic Companions and Crafty Cat Crimes.
Which probably means something.
The putative theme of this anthology is more tenuous than those others; these stories are supposedly in a new or emerging genre called "slipstream", which (according to the editor's intro) blends modern or postmodern elements with fantasy or magical realism, and which tries to alter the reader's perception of something. Not a really tight definition, and nothing particularly new, but the idea that an anthology needs a theme has never really appealed to me anyway.
This isn't really SF, or fantasy, of the first water. Lots of familiar themes and images, easy and unchallenging characterization, ordinary prose. There's lots here to amaze someone who's never really read this sort of thing before (Santa Claus as a noir PI, a Dr. Watson who's never met Sherlock Holmes but has an advenure with Holmes' American cousin, the role of elves in a post-Earth interstellar civilization, etc), but if you've been around the genres for awhile it'll maybe seem sort of ordinary. But it was fun to read, not awful, something to while away a cloudy afternoon with. There's better stuff in the world, sure, but what the heck. The ordinary can be a fine companion.
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