What made these books work was the authors' characters all wandered in and out of the same taverns, encountered the same corruption, and once in awhile authors' borrowed one anothers characters for their story.
Thieves World is a world: " a city of outlaws and adventurers in a world of war and wizardry, peopled with colorful characters". But there had never been anthologies based on the same Fantasy World. There had always been anthologies - short stories or novellas written by authors from the same genre writing about the same Theme. The idea of a Shared World apparently started at one of the many scifi conventions that were popular in the 1980s. I read this book and its companions back in the 1980s. I did intend to read the whole Thieves World series this year, but if more of the older characters start vanishing to be replaced by charmless newer individuals I may drop before I get to book 12. On the plus side, Tempus wasn't in this book either, but I'm sure he and his loathsome crew will be back all too soon. I wonder if the original writers continue to feature in these volumes - my boy Hanse didn't feature in this volume at all, much to my disappointment.
I know some readers liked this, but I'm not keen the slightly chaotic feel of the early books was something that added to their appeal, and this attempt to impose structure on the stories feels as wrong as the square watermelons they grow in Japan.
After the sprawling, wonderful mess of the first few books, it seems someone decided the Thieves' World books needed an overarching storyline, so created the Beysip in an attempt to provide one. This volume really disappointed me - the fact that I don't have a favourite story for the first time in this series should say a lot. Mostly Jabal and the Stepsons are still wagering their tedious battle for the streets. The Beysip invaders, who showed up at the end of the last book, have now moved lock, stock and barrel into Sanctuary and are hanging around staring at the locals with their round fish eyes and.not doing much else, seemingly (apart from the odd execution of their own people).
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