J.S. ElliotCritiques

A wonderful selection of short stories, each in its own style and coherent narrative. Each story is a well-rounded universe, minutely created and marvellously revealing its secrets and particularities.
Each story and author have their own charming or persuasive particulars and the collection is quite enjoyable.
I was glad to have had the opportunity to read it in advance of its formal publication and I am grateful to LibraryThing for the gift.

A couple of my favourite quotes are copied below.
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There was no word for helping others through death, so she murmured the word they used when offering food to spirit-kin.

“Sacrifice” - Unceasing Love

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There is a very subtle change in the language of the creeks.
For many months, they are quiet, their babbling reduced to murmurs and dampened whisperings. Then, as the downy quilt of winter recedes, a trickle of conversation resumes.
What is less noticeable a change, although just as significant, is the bubbling energy that pours new life into the monologue.

“Vernal Passage“ - Unceasing Love

I picked up this book because, I wanted to read something different, other than my normal romance fiction novels. I was pleasantly surprised how much a enjoyed these stories.
In my opinion, all the stories are written well and kept my interest, Normally sci-fi bores me .
If you're on the fence about read this, I 100% recommend reading this.
Happy reading :)

This anthology has many great stories and characters written by a variety of authors. My favorite was “THE AURELIANS’ CHRONICLE” by Michael A. Epanchin. Though I did like many of the stories, they were easy to read short stories all about the seasons written about different cultures and fantasies. I did enjoy reading the stories and would recommend this book. I received a free book and the views and opinions are my own.

Seasons Unceasing anthology’s short stories kept to the theme of seasons. It was an intriguing mixture of both fantasy and science fiction. Some of the stories made me wish they would lead to a novel. The authors i enjoyed the most were:
Brock Poulsen
A. B. Heron
Amanda Barrett
Robin Sebolino
C. P. Miller
Christopher R. Muscato
Kat Cooper
J. S. Elliot
Caitlin Donovan

A strong fantasy/sci-fi anthology dealing with seasons and/or the inevitability of time and change in nature.
Though being a mixed bag as nearly all short story collections, this contained some very strong stories which made up more than enough for the weaker ones and made the book a very remarkable & enjoyable read overall.

I especially liked The Shape of the Storm by Brock Poulsen;
Unceasing Love by C.P. Miller;
Survival by Odessa Silver;
The Touch of Winter by Caitlin Donovan;
Dancing in the Winter Rooms by David Tallerman;
Into the Breaking Season by Nicole L. Soper Gorden and
The Unsought Light by K.A. Wiggins.

I received this eARC via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program - Thanks, LT! - in exchange for an honest review.½

A lovely anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories united by the loose theme of seasons. Anthologies or short story collections are some of my absolute favorite things to read, and this one was a perfect example of the genre. From a world without color, to a giant clock that powers time itself, to a migration of magical butterflies and those who seek to protect them, you will experience a great variety of well written short fiction pieces in this book. I enjoyed every story.

This 2023 anthology contains 24 short stories, all different and surprising in the way they adhere to the mandatory theme of being related to the seasons. I enjoyed reading nearly all of them, 23 out of 24, so that is a good result and shows that a lot of work was done in writing the stories and in choosing them for the anthology. Some of these stories give you a very good start to what could become the setting for a much longer story (or several) and I was for them left wishing for a follow-up.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to discover those authors.

**disclaimer: I’m a member (inactive lol) of the Worldsmyth’s writing community, and BFF’s with one of its main moderators/editors/authors, Freya Bell.
The third time’s the charm, as they say, and Worldsmyth’s did an excellent job with their latest anthology. Brought together by the theme of seasons, the anthology collects stories that interpret this motif in expected and unexpected ways and showcases the range of talents and writing styles among their writing community. That being said, the first handful of stories had me a touch worried; I’m not going to name names, but there were a few weak efforts that didn’t catch my attention at all, and it felt like it took about half of the collection before the stories really started hitting the mark for me. Sometimes having a bigger collection (and this one is a fair sized chonk bigger than the previous anthologies) isn’t always better when you sacrifice quality. It did leave room for a bigger selection of stories though, and while I may not have liked all of them (science fiction will never be my thing), I was pleasantly surprised with the creativity behind some of the takes on the seasonal theme. One standout effort was C.P. Miller’s “Unceasing Love,” which gives us a vampire story that plays with the concept of reincarnation and soulmates as its driving theme (seasons of the heart through time, if you will). The story has vivid characters throughout each sequence in time, and its only downfall is that the limited length of the short story doesn’t give us nearly enough time to explore them in enough depth - can we have this as a novel, please?! I also absolutely loved the witchy vibes and solid magical world building of Kat Cooper’s “A Witch’s Future” (another story that I hope becomes part of a novel at some point); the classical nature mythology and (well-deserved) harsh ending of “Our Roots Run Deep” by J.S. Elliot; and Brock Poulsen’s “The Shape of the Storm” for its unexpected blend of deep sea pirates and magical abilities. Finishing on a high note with Freya Bell’s “Snowflakes,” which had me feeling all the fairy nostalgia for Fox’s Thumbelina (#iykyk) while also revelling in the well-written action adventure sequence, I can definitely say this is a strong effort by the Worldsmyth’s community. It may not have hit quite the same amount of perfect notes throughout that Moonlight and Darkness did for me (hello, we revel in our darkness too much not to place that one on top), but this was a well chosen theme that garnered some great stories!½