Muse and Reverie

By Charles de Lint
Tor, $25.99, 352 pages

Charles de Lint’s fifth collection of short stories that take place in and around his fictional American city of Newford, Muse and Reverie, succeeds in delivering the fantastical realism that de Lint is known for.  Muse and Reverie’s thirteen tales are all wonderful little windows into the seemingly more real world de Lint has created in Newford, despite the fact that his is populated not only by humans, but goblins, fairies, trolls, and magic.  From the opening story, Somewhere In My Mind There is a Painting Box, to the last one, The World In A Box, de Lint delivers, again and again, fascinating real people who find themselves existing in both our world and the world intimately familiar to us through folk and fairy tales.

More than just simply creating a fantastical world much like our own de Lint’s stories offer his characters redemption from their pasts and his readers catharsis for their own regrets in a language that is simple, yet compelling.   Fans of de Lint will have already picked this book up but readers new to his work or to fantasy will find in Muse and Reverie a wonderful introductory text.

Reviewed by Jonathon Howard