A very good cross-genre collection of short stories about morally ambiguous rogues. I originally bought it in summer 2014 for the George RR Martin novella that caps the anthology. As in other anthologies of its sort(Warriors, Dangerous Women...) I ended up feeling that the story I bought it for was (almost) the least of the stories here. While I didn't enjoy the anthology quite as much as the aforementioned two ( I definitely missed Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb and Gabaldon's voices), there are a lot of really great stories here. At least a third of them I enjoyed enough to check out their authors other work, while the other 2 thirds were still highy enjoyable, if not always my cuppa joe.
The stories I enjoyed the most were: Joe Abercrombie's Tough Time All Over--the crime caper written in the literary equivalent of a single shot--amazingly written and funny.
What do you do by Gillian Flynn: cool story about a grifter/prostitute.
Bent Twig: a short story about two vigilante/thugs delivering their version of justice.
Bad Brass: by Bradley Denton: a hilarious (I literally laughed out loud) story about small time crooks, tubas, substitute teachers and interracial romance in small town Texas.
The Meaning of Love by Daniel Abraham: medieval (and vaguely Asian) urban fantasy: amazing world building for such a small story(perhaps it's set in a previously published milieu by the author which I'm unfamiliar with.)
Diamonds from Tequila: Great story about the movie business and murder in Mexico by Walter Jon Williams.
I definitely enjoyed this anthology a LOT and I do hope I get a chance to read more stuff by the above-mentioned authors!
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