What a wonderful collection of stories with a fun premise! Some adventure, some sadness, some humour, and a few really touching moments.

This was a great collection of short stories on what turned out to be a great theme! Something for everyone here - highly recommended.

4/5 stars Trigger warnings: Gore, body horror, PTSD, kidnapping, chronic illness Separate ratings Build Me A Wonderland: 4/5 starsQuality Time: 3.5/5 starsMurmured Under The Moon: 3.8/5 starsThe Blue Fairy's Manifesto: 4.2/5 starsBread and Milk and Salt: 5/5 starsIronheart: 4.8/ starsJust Another Love Song: 3.8/5 starsSound and Fury: 3/5 starsThe Bookcase Expedition: 3/5 starsWork Shadow/Shadow Work: 4/5 starsSecond to the Left and Straight On: 4.5/5 starsThe Buried Giant: 5/5 starsThree Robots...

I was pleasantly surprised by this anthology and enjoyed all the stories (some more than others) apart from one. The theme of putting Robots against Fairies works very well and even more so because some of the authors pushed the boundaries between these two to the point that they altogether disappeared. All the various interpretations were also compelling, from a librarian in love with a living book to the nature of mourning and true horror.

IN SHORT:   Silicon vs. Supernatural Smashups! Sad, serious, spooky, & silly short stories.Only 3 tales here were below 3-star level for me. I'm not usually a fan of fantasy fairies, but when you mix 'em up with robots, things can get interesting :)Overall an entertaining fantasy/SciFi mashup, although I was disappointed there weren't more robot fae (or fae bots). Some of the funny tales were a bit over-the-top, but were balanced out by the more somber ones.RECOMMENDED? Yes. Read this, unless yo...

A perfect coffee break book for those who appreciate either robots or fairy tales. I could read 1, sometimes 2, short stories per break.My particular favourites were Build Me a Wonderland by Seanan McGuire, Murmured Under the Moon by Tim Pratt, and A Fall Counts Anywhere by Catherynne M Valente.I’m a McGuire fan girl, so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed her story. It reminded me of her last novel of the Incryptid series, featuring an amusement park as it does. Ms. McGuire seems to be a fan of the...

A brilliant anthology from some of the biggest names in speculative fiction at the moment. It's at times funny, often introspective and thought-provoking with a clever framing mechanism of each author talking about whether they're Team Fairy or Team Robot and why. Highly recommended.A few standouts for me:"Murmured Under the Moon" by Tim Pratt - This story features a heroic human librarian working for the Fae to keep their library (and to save the kingdom in the end). The books that would be pre...

The mathematically calculated rating is 3.52, but my heart says 4 stars because the anthology was AWESOME!Strong beginning and great variety of different stories! I love the concept of the anthology and that it gave an opportunity for many amazing authors create these amazing stories.My favorites stories are written by Seanan McGuire, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Madeline Ashby, Alyssa Wong and Catherynne M. Valente.Build Me a Wonderland by Seanan McGuire - 4 stars! Great concept: fairies & elf pretend t...

Magic versus technology. The old versus the new. Wings versus machines. The intricate and detailed worlds in each of these tales is full of fresh twists and turns on science fiction and fantasy. The mystical and the practical, the ancient and the new, robots and fairies join together in an anthology that will leave you questioning your allegiance. Each world is constructed with such precision and attention, I wanted to linger long after the story was finished. Although I am Team Fairy Forever, t...

Robots vs. FairiesI read selectively here, picking stories others here have liked, plus other favorite writers. Mixed bag, but the Pratt and McGuire stories are *wonderful*.TOC:http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?6... “Build Me a Wonderland” by Seanan McGuire. I can’t say much about this one without giving too much away, but it’s always a good clue to a good anthology, when the first story is a winner. This one, about a Disney World analog with an unexpected twist, is really, really good. 4+ sta...

My insane love for anthologies can be easily explained by the fact that I love the short story form, and by the fact that I love various accounts on a certain topic, in this case fairies. Robots aren't that interesting to me, but fairies are my obsession. In their true form, Fae are emotionless puppeteers, praying on humans' weakest spot - the ability to feel and to desire. They take our desires and corrupt them into unimaginable things, taking what's most precious to us and often offer us wicke...

Excellent! Easy, strong 4 stars. I didn't mind the team robot/team fairy gimmick, it seemed silly but in a tongue-in-cheek fun way. Only a couple of these didn't work for me, and I don't think I've had such luck with a short story collection since New Voices of Fantasy.

4.5 stars.this really impressed me! i really liked how many of the authors incorporated elements of both fairies and robots into their stories. my favorites were Murmuring Under the Moon by Tim Pratt (a human librarian at a fairy library has to go on a quest to save her fairy boss from an enchantment which endangers the human's girlfriend, a living book), Bread and Milk and Salt by Sarah Gailey (a fairy tries to ensnare a human boy for her own nefarious purposes but soon the hunter becomes the h...

Conclusion? Fairies are better.Let me explain. Not to offend our possible future robot overlords, but robots lack the gorgeous imagery or the delightful villainy of fairies. Come on, what's a story without some morally grey leads who delight in their evil nature? But it's not just about the fairies; it's about how my robot vs. fairy preferences reflect the type of stories I enjoy. I prefer my fantasy grounded in truth, grounded in the cores of humanity. I prefer Seanan McGuire's vision of fairie...

Build Me a Wonderland, by Seanan McGuire: ★★★★Quality Time, by Ken Liu: ★★★Murmured Under the Moon, by Tim Pratt: ★★The Blue Fairy’s Manifesto, by Annalee Newitz: ★★★Bread and Milk and Salt, by Sarah Gailey: ★★★★★Ironheart, by Jonathan Mayberry: ★★Just Another Love Song, by Kat Howard: ★★★.5Sound and Fury, by Mary Robinette Kowal: ★★★The Bookcase Expedition, by Jeffrey Ford: ★★.5Work Shadow/Shadow Work, by Madeline Ashby: ★★★.5Second to the Left, and Straight On, by Jim C. Hines: ★★★★The Buried

I've had this on my Kindlle for a while now, and after the sheer awesomeness of The Mythic Dream, I finally made time. While it's not the absolute perfection that The Mythic Dream ws, it's very close, and very good.Lots of the authors here rode the Robots vs Fairies line by incorporating both, but there's also plenty who've chosen their side - the variety of stories is a big part of the success of this book. There was really only one story I wouldn't read again, Jim C Hines' take on Peter Pan, a...

“We always knew this day would come. We tried to warn the others. It was obvious either the sharp rate of our technological advancement would lead to the robot singularity claiming lordship over all, or that the fairies would finally grow tired of our reckless destruction of the natural world and take it back from us. And so, we have prepared a guide to assist our fellow humans in embracing their inevitable overlords.”This anthology collects 18 stories with each author picking either the robots

ARC provided by Saga Press in exchange for an honest review. “We knew this day would come. We tried to warn the others. It was obvious either the sharp rate of our technological advancement would lead to the robot singularity claiming lordship over all, or that the fairies would finally grow tired of our reckless destruction of the natural world and take it back from us.” First off, this anthology has the best introduction I’ve ever read in maybe any book ever! It is actual perfection

As far as the title and cover goes, this is, without a doubt, the coolest book I've ever read. The content, however, is a mixed bag.These are eighteen stories that I read over the course of four days. Very few of them were good, a lot of them were incredibly confusing and a couple were just about lame. After each story there's an author's note describing whether they are Team Fairy or Team Robot. It's a tie.Yeah, Kaijus are basically several stories tall fairies, okay?BUILD ME A WONDERLAND: 3.5/...

When I first picked up Robots vs. Fairies, I almost expected the stories to be about literal wars between the two, so I was very surprised to find that it was actually a collection of alternating stories from authors who had chosen "team robot" or "team fairy". It was such a fun and unique idea, but I found that most of the stories were kinda "meh" for me.→ Build Me a Wonderland by Seanan McGuire - ★★★★★ ←The collection opened on such a strong note, as this was tied with one later story for my f...