Status Updates From Dragonfield and Other Stories

"He knew he was no god. He was not even, the gods help him, a hero. Despite his posture and his muscles, he was a fraud. Heroes and gods were never afraid and he was deadly afraid every day of his life. It was so absurd that he found himself laughing most of the time for, by holding himself upright and smiling his hero smile, by making other party to his monstrous fraud, could he keep most of the fears at bay."

Few of these have happy endings, but most of them are beautiful nonetheless.

Yolen’s writing style is beautiful, I’m getting a wonderful nostalgia hit of old-school fantasy.

"There was once a quarrier named Craig, who worked stone down in a pit. Stone before him and stone behind, he labored each day from dark to dark. He was a tall man and broad, a mountain working a mountain. The years of his pit work were printed in dust upon his face and grained in the backs of his hands."