If you’re somebody who thinks “old school” when you think “urban fantasy”, if you like more mythos and lyricism and things wondrous and strange in your fantasy novels than the sort of grim darkness you get in a lot of ’em these days, then David Sklar’s Shadow of the Antlered Bird is a Drollerie Press release you’ll want to read.
The plot’s about as basic as you can get. Tam is half-human, half-Sidhe, and wants nothing more than to get out from under his mother’s shadow and carve out a life for himself in the human world. But his mother won’t leave him alone, and so he employs a desperate act of magic to escape her–only to find that he must flee across the country to Seattle and enlist the aid of a mortal girl before he can accomplish what he desires. He is of course pursued, not only by his mother, but by a creature who seems to be able to change into anything while he’s hunting, including Tam himself.
I really quite liked this work overall. The language is rich and the story is just about as long as it needs to be, without a single detail that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. Check it out. Four stars.
