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"Rondine Al Nido" asks questions about who we were, and if that has to be who we remain. It ends on a weak note, as endings thus far seem to be something that Watkins struggles with, but it's compelling in the middle.

My primary complaint with this story is the idea that a contemporary set fiction can be written in the same old epistolary conceit. The story is fascinating, I just don't believe that anyone still writes letters like that.

In Hebrew they were called Mishkenot Sha'ananim - the Dwellings of Delight - but initially they were preyed upon by bandits and their inhabitants were so undelighted they used to creep back into the city to sleep.

"Ghosts and Cowboys" is one of those stories that you're not sure how much of it's fiction, and how much of it's fact. I like those.

Laura Van Der Berg's "Antarctica" is probably the third best story in the book, in my opinion. It's long, but it carries its weight well, and uses an interesting plot to draw the reader along.

The victory was bitter sweet for the Ottomans, their weak Islamic realm saved by Christian soldiers. To show his gratitude and keep the West at bay, Sultan Abdulmecid was forced, in measures known as the Tanzimat -reform- to centralize his administration, decree absolute equality for all minorities regardless of religion, and allow the Europeans all manner of once-inconceivable liberties.

There's a problem with reading something that you know is riffing off something, but you haven't read the original. It sits you a step further away, aware of the fiction. This was a problem for me with Karen Russell's "Madame Bovary's Greyhound." The story is a hybrid between the victorian women's fiction, and Call of the Wild, about a return to nature, and a woman that not even a dog could love.

Stephen O'Connor's "Next to Nothing" has a hell of a gut check at the end, but it's too winding in getting to the punch. Also, I can't read it without picturing Patty and Selma from the Simpsons. That's a challenge for writers in the "unlikable and unnaturally close middle aged sisters" genre.

It was Ibrahim who had defeated the Saudis, ravaged Greece, conquered Jerusalem and Damascus and marched victoriously almost to the gates of Istanbul.

Nobody ever own a gun. You don't know that until you own one.

The man not getting soft, he just reach the age where the person in the mirror is an old man who don't look like him anymore, and he's just thirty-nine.

Joyce Carol Oates' "The Mastiff" is a piece that is very sound from a technical perspective. Something major happens in the story, which is always a plus in the books of myself and my fellows in the "Alice Munro says 'Fuck Amy Hemple'" school of short fiction readers, but in the end, it just doesn't quite make the leap from good execution to masterpiece.

Ten years after the Butcher's death, Caroline's courtiers were amazed by how many "persons one sees in the streets without noses."

I tell you, the Cold War isn't even over and I miss it already.

Jerusalem was in panic: the Families armed the Jerusalemites; a mob plundered Christian monasteries; the monks had to be imprisoned for their own safety. Outside the walls, General Damas asked Bonaparte for permission to attack the Holy City.

Ben Nugent's "God" has a great ending, but a body that reads like Lena Dunham's Van Wilder fanfic. And that's about all I have to say about that.

Dead people never stop talking.

Molly McNett's "La Pulchra Nota" puts lie to the old quote about happy and unhappy families. It tells the same story of the same unhappy family that gets reskinned ad resold far too often. The only thing setting it apart is the dedication to the period. McNett's writing lets the inherent tragedy of life in the 12th century shine through.

Inside Jerusalem the rebellion had replaced one tyranny with another. Jews were forbidden to wear white on the Sabbath or Muslim headgear or to have nails in their shoes; Christians suffered similar sartorial restrictions; and both had to make way for Muslims in the streets. Outrageous fines were collected with violence.

"The Sultan made the 'King of the Jews' an offer he could not refuse: either to perform the miracle of surviving a volley of arrows or to convert to Islam. He chose conversion."

Brendan Mathews' "This Is Not a Love Song" is neck and neck with "Night of the Satellite" for my favorite story in this collection so far. It's fragmented, but it grounds each fragment firmly in such a manner as to give a true feel for the narrator.

"A new level often required an entirely new strategy."

Three stories, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "The Judge's Will," O. A. Lindsey's "Evie M.," and Will Mackin's "Kattekoppen." Of the three, I think Judge's Will is the best story, Evie M. was the most enjoyable. Kattekoppen had a lot of research flaws that pulled me out. If a story in a modern setting calls DEVGRU "Seal Team Six," you know they didn't quite do their research.

"I would abandon the real world altogether until I found the egg."

Lauren Groff's "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners" takes some very stereotypical and cliche characters, and through strength of prose, forges an excellent story from the slag.

"You really think it's that simple? That you can just write a check for two hundred and forty billion dollars and fix all the world's problems?"

"A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me" by David Gates. This story tries to replicate the almost casual ease with which some stories, most notably those of Alice Munro, stretch vast amounts of time in short sections of prose. It's hit or miss in that regard, but it presents a story of friendship that leaves an impression.

"At a time of drastic social and cultural upheaval, when most of the world's population longed for an escape from reality, the OASIS provided it, in a form that was cheap, legal, safe, and not (medically proven to be) addictive."

There's something very hard to pin down about Joshua Ferris' "The Breeze." It's disjointed, segmented, in the inhuman manner of a contortionist, and it manages to navigate a sense of unworldliness, without having to lean on it too hard.

In contrast, the supernatural conceit of Nell Freudenberger's "Hover" destroys it. Taking a collection of already utterly unlikable characters and unmooring them from reality.

"It was like someone threatening to take away the sun, or charge a fee to look up at the sky."