So…I was tired last night. It seemed like a good idea to go to bed early and catch up on my sleep. I would read for just a few minutes first…

Big mistake!

When it came out not long ago, I grabbed a Kindle sample of John Joseph Adams’ anthology Epic: Legends of Fantasy. The first story is “Homecoming” by Robin Hobb, originally published in 2003. This was actually my second attempt to start the story which, oddly enough, opens with a detailed inventory of an artist’s household goods that didn’t strike me as exactly gripping. I was in a more patient mood this round and kept going. Very soon I was entirely caught up in what proved to be a novella. I got to the end of the sample, purchased the ebook, and kept going until I finally finished at midnight.

So much for getting extra sleep!

But it’s fun to be caught up and swept away by a story. Honestly, that doesn’t happen all that often anymore.

“Homecoming” is an adventure story of great trials and hardships, strange landscapes, and hard choices, but it’s the protagonist’s voice that makes it fascinating. It’s written as a series of journal entries so that we see the unfolding events entirely through the protagonist’s viewpoint, while we see her change and adapt to new circumstances.

If the rest of the stories in Epic: Legends of Fantasy are just as good, I’m going to be losing a lot of sleep.