Strange Brew

By: Caitlin Kittredge, Jim Butcher, P. N. Elrod, Karen Chance, Patricia Briggs, Faith Hunter, Charlaine Harris, Jenna Maclane, Rachel Caine

Narrated by: Christian Rummel, Therese Plummer, Jennifer Van Dyck, Dina Pearlman, Gayle Hendrix, Karen Chapman, Marc Vietor

Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Today's hottest urban fantasy authors come together in this delicious brew that crackles and boils over with tales of powerful witches and dark magic!

In Charlaine Harris' "Bacon", a beautiful vampire joins forces with a witch from an ancient line to find out who killed her beloved husband.

In "Seeing Eye", by Patricia Briggs, a blind witch helps sexy werewolf Tom Franklin find his missing brother - and helps him in more ways than either of them ever suspected.

And in Jim Butcher's "Last Call", wizard Harry Dresden takes on the darkest of dark powers - the ones who dare to mess with his favorite beer.

For anyone who's ever wondered what lies beyond the limits of reality, who's imagined the secret spaces where witches wield fearsome magic, come and drink deep. Let yourself fall under the spell of this bewitching collection!

©2009 St. Martin's (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Fun anthology!

Seeing Eye by Patricia Briggs 4.5
It’s the Tom and Moira origin story! I’ve read it before and I enjoyed it again. Tom, the werewolf seeks out the powerful blind witch to save his brother from an evil coven.

Death Warmed Over by Rachel Caine 4.5
Excellent PNR of a resurrection witch and a long fallen hero. If there had been sexy time it would have been five stars. The best short stories, like this one, are full stories.

Bacon by Charlaine Harris 4.5
I love Dahlia stories! This clever old vampire deserves her own series.

Vegas Odds by Karen Chance 4
Delicious action packed PNR with a war mage and a were.

Ginger: A Nocturne City Story by Caitlin Kittredge 3.5
A cautious witch stumbles into helping her badass werewolf cousin in police work.

Hecate’s Golden Eye by P.N. Elrod 3.5
A diamond caper and long con face two private detectives, one of whom is a vampire.

Signatures of the Dead by Faith Hunter 3
A witches and Jane Yellowrock hunt down a crazed group of vampires. The story was problematic in that halfway through it was mentioned vampires sleep in the day but by the end of the story that is not true. It’s important to stay plausible and consistent.

Last Call by Jim Butcher 2.5
Similar to the Maryann Forrester plot line in True Blood. That meaningless crazy is when I stopped watching that show.

Dark Sins by Jenna MacLaine 1.5
A vampiric witch comes into her power and everyone of her friends is ashamed of her. They believe themselves to be avenging forces of good but they hamper themselves. It was stupid.

Average 3.5 that I rounded up to four stars. This was a lovely audiobook to listen to while knitting.

get past the first story

get past the first story and you'll love it! The first door is great but the reader is not as good as she should be. after that the stories are all awesome!

Stories = 4, Narrators = 2

I own this book in paper, mostly because of my hero Jim Butcher, but I enjoy several of the other authors as well, and this collection has some good stories. I bought the audio book because I like to 're-read' things and have a long commute everyday. Most of the people selected to narrate these stories were just not pleasant to listen to, especially for the Jim Butcher selection, which really was a disappointment.

Good 'read' for supernatural fantasy lovers

I already liked Patricia Briggs, and now I have some other authors to check out. I wasn't disappointed in any of the stories, which is great for an anthology. The stories and charaterization were engaging and intelligent, well delivered and not unnecessarily pessimistic or arty (in the depressing pointless fiction sense). Well done.

No Sookie here....

I got this with the hopes there would be a short Sookie Stackhouse story. There isn't. It was pretty much a waste of a good credit. There are many stories but none of them were that great.

Great selection of authors.

All of the stories were very good, only one was not to my liking. I feel that the readers were well suited for the task. I look forward to my next selection of the same.

Narrators breathing heavily = HUGE DISTRACTION

Butcher rocks. Dresden is my jam. Period. He is why I listened. Certainly wish he’d get Marsters to do his shorts because this guy was annoying.

Then the following story, by Rachel Caine, was amazing. Something I’d love to read a series with. Sadly she only has three short stories to offer in the “series”.

Charlaine Harris’ tangentially related True Blood-ish story, Bacon, was pretty good. Although the narrator was far too chipper. Plus nasal is not sexy. And 1940s noir has its place, but this was not it.

Vegas Odds...Had to stop...I could not get past the wheezing and heavy breathing from the narrator. I’m asthmatic, so I understand breathiness is sometimes unavoidable, but dang... just suck on the oxygen and let someone else narrate.

I’m trying to get through the other stories, although it isn’t easy at times.

And I know that tastes differ.

If it weren’t for Harry Dresden, I’d have passed in it. Honestly.

Wonderful!!I! Great group of short stories.

The best Urban Fantasy writer around got together to deliver Strange Brew! While so me have better known character's like Faith Hunter who delivers a piece not from Jane Yellowrock POV, though Jane is in the piece, but from Molly's POV. Super piece. Same with Patricia Briggs and Jim Butcher solids stories in there world's with sometimes new PIG's or new turn. Other less known well known all turned very solid work making me want to look them up still how many writers can't I read

so-so

some of the stories were great, others were definitely lackluster. overall only a so-so book of short stories

Excellent collection

Made me want more of all these stories. But each story felt complete so i was not left frustrated.