Book Review: "Unbound II" Ed. by Shawn Speakman

 A magical collection of seventeen original stories by an amazing list of contributors—including a Dune story by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson!

Like Unbound and Unfettered before it, Unbound II boasts a collection of SF&F writers allowed to submit the tales they've been wanting to write for a long time—without the constraints of theme. The result? A new anthology as powerful as the first. The stories gathered here are only bound by how enchanting and enthralling they are.

Enter an underworld of history and dark creatures with Kristen Britain. Return to the aftermath of Dune's Butlerian Jihad with Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson. Revisit the Broken Empire trilogy with Jorg Ancrath and Mark Lawrence. Go on the most enchanting and dangerous of knight quests with Anna Smith Spark. Discover how Gladys got her name in a new Ink & Sigil story by Kevin Hearne. Uncover the magical truths of the Frasier family with Tamora Pierce. These tales and the others that comprise Unbound II will leave you reading long into the night and early morning hours.

Featuring all-new stories by:

• Dyrk Ashton
• Kristen Britain
• Saara El-Arifi
• Kevin Hearne
• Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
• Mark Lawrence
• Peter Orullian
  
• Tamora Pierce
• Jordan Ross
  
• Ken Scholes
• Anna Smith Spark
• Shawn Speakman
• Jon Sprunk
• Anna Stephens
• Patrick Swenson
  
• Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Django Wexler

And an introduction by Shawn Speakman!

Following the award-winning success of the Unfettered anthology series, Unbound II offers the best manner to discover great new writers while reading authors you've followed for years—all of them master storytellers of the highest caliber.

Praise for Unfettered III:

"This powerhouse addition to the Unfettered series... boasts an incredible lineup of stories by pillars of the fantasy genre, many of whom contributed works set in the fictional worlds for which they are best known." - Publishers Weekly

-from NetGalley.com

I received this ARC from NetGalley.com at no cost and am providing an unbiased review.

Thisis the second book of short stories contributed by several authors in this series, following the success of the Unfettered series Shawn Speakman put out previously. I have been able to read each one Speakman has put out, as the collection of authors are usually some of my favorite writers, versus just some random anthology put out there.

I won't waste a lot of time by writing about each short story, just know that most were entertaining for me. As usual there is one or two that I just couldn't 'get into' but most were well written. I did enjoy Kevin Hearne's 'Ink & Sigil' short, and Django Wexler's addition as well. Overall content is pretty safe - not much in the way of bad language, or other adult situations.