Different Worlds, Different Skins: Humanity's Encounters with Other Races

Different Worlds, Different Skins, edited by Will A. Sanborn, contains 36 stories about humans interacting with anthropomorphic beings. In some stories, the human-animal hybrids are genetic creations, in others they are aliens. Other stories take place in alternate universes where humanity evolved into sentience with other non-human races. Written by 25 different authors, the stories run the gamut from flash fiction to novella length and cover every genre of the field of fantastic literature: horror, fantasy, dark fantasy, and science fiction.For this reviewer, there are several stories that stand heads (and tails) above the rest that form the cream of the crop:Dance of the Fox by Kris Schnee takes place in the medieval orient where a trickster fox spirit tempts a village away from its work in the rice fields and the result is a tale that could have come down from the fabled oriental storytellers of old.Tim Susman's Conduct Unbecoming takes place in an alternate universe where humans fight the Civil War next to anthropomorphic Native Americans on both sides of the Mason Dixon line. The Battle of Fredericksburg is described in detail with characters worthy of any fan of the American Civil War.The Journey, by Lanny Fields takes place in an alternate universe where a young Marco Polo encounters people of the Far East and not all of them are human and one of them becomes a very important friend.Paul Lucas' Moonfur adds a breath of relief to the tired werewolf genre. In his medieval fantasy world, humanity lives on uneasy and sometimes deadly terms with anthropomorphic wolves, but one man finds a way to bridge the gap.The Gazing Ball, by Brian L. Miller is a touching story of a young girl who makes a friend on a faraway world and the tale spans decades as the two grow old together only able to communicate through a garden gazing ball.Chris Goodwin's Three Blind Mice is a dark, perverse, and disturbing fable of justice and guaranteed to give the reader a shudder.The crown of the anthology is Renee Carter Hall's, Susan's Ark: Where the Heart Is. This tale of a foster home for children affected by gene therapy gone terribly wrong has characters that will stay with you to the point the story ends way to soon and you are left wanting to know much more about the children who live at the Ark and the humans who take care of them.Do be aware there is occasional language in the stories and sexual situations, but the latter are always subdued or implied. Nonetheless, these 36 tales will take you to many exotic places with memorable, exotic characters and exotic adventures that will stay with you long after the stories are finished.And you might even find two stories in the mix written by me.