This is such an interesting collection of stories all centered around the topic of djinn (aka genie) folklore. Some of these are retellings of ancient myths, others have multicultural influences, some are high fantasy and others are literary. Some stories are set in Africa, some in Arab counties, some in America, and even one on Mars. This is a great eclectic set that was very entertaining and thought provoking.

Like most anthologies, this one is a mixed bag, with some stories I loved and some that I found barely readable. It's a great theme; djinni are and underused fantastical/mythological element, and these stories run the gamut of SF from historical fantasy to magical realism to post-apocalyptic to sci-fi. All in all, a solid collection with a diverse table of contents and a nice range of stories. I doubt anyone will like all of them, but there's definitely something here for everyone, and if you're interested in djinni at all, this is a great sampler of different imaginings of them.

The stand-out stories for me were:

"The Congregation" by Kamila Shamsie

"Majnun" by Helene Wexler (seriously gutted me)

"A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds" by Amal El-Mohtar

"Bring Your Own Spoon" by Saad Hossein (probably my actual favorite story of the lot)

"The Spite House" by Kirsty Logan

There’s something entirely enticing about a themed short story collection, especially when the theme is one as intriguing as djinn (or jinn, or genies). Although I’m not overly familiar with most of the authors included here – bar Neil Gaiman, with an American Gods excerpt, Claire North, and KJ Parker – the range of approaches towards this shared theme would itself be worthy of the read. Luckily, you also get a bunch of really great stories!

My one complaint (let’s get it over with!) would be the limitations of the short story format: on more than one occasion I wanted the story to continue, or felt that it ended just a little too abruptly.

Otherwise, I loved the range here, from the very traditional through to myriad modern and even a sci-fi futurist twist on the old rub-a-lamp, get-three-wishes story. My favourite, Sami Shah’s Reap, was actually very dark, combining the Middle Eastern myths with the more familiar modern view we tend to be shown by the media of the region, i.e. spy drones and terrorist surveillance. Not necessarily two things you might have put together, which makes for quite a gripping tale.

Not all of the stories are set in ‘traditional’ locales, but most are which gives a lovely exoticness (from my chilly Northern European perspective!) to the proceedings. I also really enjoyed the stories told from the djinn’s point of view – and more so when it wasn’t always obvious from the get-go. Djinn are eternal tricksters, after all!

Word of warning: this is not for children! At least two of the stories feature sexual content I’d suggest was at least 15+.

Overall, while a lot of fun to read, I think I appreciated this even more for the insight into writing styles and ideas. Recommended for both readers and writers!

Great anthology. Engaging and ready for more. Love how many authors I knew and the new storylines involved. Can't wait for another anthology!?

There were quite a few stories that captured my interest. I liked that the stories were unique; you had stories that were set in olden times and ones that were more modern. The djinn in these stories were from different nationalities and settings, and it allowed them to be transformed in a way I had never imagined. However, not all of the stories were interesting to me. While there were some that left a lasting impression, quite a few just made me go "meh". Maybe my expectations were too high, but this anthology wasn't as amazing as I had expected. It did expose me to a wider range of authors, some whom I will definitely check out in the future. But other than providing me with a few interesting stories, I was just left feeling a bit disappointed.

Review by Penny Huffman, 3/14/2017

I need to start this review with a confession: I am not an aficionado of the short-story format. That being said, I’ve seen my share of well curated anthologies. A good collection, to my mind, is bound together not simply by a single characteristic but by a larger uniting theme.

Every piece in The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories—edited by Jared Shurin and Mahvesh Murad, and including stories by local favorite Neil Gaiman and 2016 CONvergence guest of honor Amal El-Mohtar—contains, in some way or another, a djinn. Within Islamic theology, the jinn exist as something apart from humanity, but not entirely supernatural. They are not zombies or werewolves, those creatures whose origins are tied exclusively to fiction. If Allah made humans from clay, then djinn were made from smokeless fire, complete with the free will that humankind finds so tricky to manage. Throughout literature, the nature, and spelling, of these figures has varied substantially. The Djinn Falls in Love intends to highlight the multiple ways of writing them as characters, and in this respect, it’s wildly successful. The djinn in these stories vary enormously—they’re alternatively mischievous genies, conflicted and humanlike jinni, and murderous, otherworldly djinni. However, the stories lack the cohesive, collective feel that distinguishes a thematically bound anthology from a bunch of short stories.

A counterargument can easily be made that this is, in fact, the purpose of the collection: to highly the flexibility and wide interpretations of an often-pigeonholed stock figure, the wish-granting genie from a magic lamp. It’s a persuasive argument and one I attempted to use on myself. So why didn’t I like it? To me, the book feels uneven and scattered as opposed to flexible. By the halfway point, I longed for a second round of edits from Shurin and Murad, ones that asked pointed questions about plot development or ruthlessly slashed out meandering prose.

No one wants to read a bad review, and believe me, I don’t like to write one either. I don’t mean to imply that the anthology isn’t worth a read; it certainly is, if only for the handful of highlights included in the 356-page collection. The helpless voyeurism of Sami Shad’s deeply creepy “REAP” is a stand-out, as is Kamila Shamsie’s “The Congregation,” a meditation on familial togetherness and separation. Helene Wecker, no stranger to the genre given her novel The Golem and the Jinni, makes a fair showing with “Majnun,” a story in which the djinn’s ethereal natures are neatly sidestepped for good, old-fashioned jilted-lover jealousy. Neil Gaiman’s piece, “Somewhere in America,” is reprinted section from American Gods, but for those unfamiliar with the novel, it’s certainly a treat.

The anthology is out in paperback on March 14, Pi Day, and much like the mathematical constant, it may well be beyond my ability to fully appreciate and admire as a whole. Given the range of stories contained within, I believe different stories will appeal to different readers, and I’d love to hear about your favorites in the comments below. Some of the pieces are highly conceptual and experimental while others are emphatically grounded in the mundane. Taken individually, they stand or fall on their own merits—but to me, none of the highs were worth the lows. If you’re looking for something unified, something that pulls together the mystery and majesty of the djinn into a single collection, I’m afraid there’s not much substance under all this smoke.

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories is an anthology of short fiction edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin. An editor and critic, Murad is also known for her fantastic weekly interview podcast on Tor.com, Midnight in Karachi; while, alongside his role as editor at now-defunct indie publishing house Jurassic London and other editing credits, Shurin edits the pop culture criticism blog Pornokitsch.

Through 22 stories, the anthology explores what the djinn mean to us—supernatural beings from Islamic mythology made from fire as we were from clay, and famed granters of wishes.

Often, the djinn represents escapism itself, such as in Jamal Mahjoub’s ‘Duende 2077‘, a gritty neo-noir crime thriller-styled story of a future Britain as an Islamic caliphate. The same is true in Neil Gaiman’s ‘Somewhere in America‘, a standalone extract from his novel American Gods, in which a queer Arab man finds release he hadn’t been looking for.

In Amal El-Mohtar’s searing ‘A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds‘, a lyrical exploration of the immigrant experience, the djinn grants the power not to escape a situation but to triumph over it. It also contains one of the best lines I’ve read in 2017, and made me shriek and flail when I read it.

Maria Dahvana Headley’s intoxicatingly beautiful ‘Black Powder‘ focuses on the power of the wish itself, cleverly weaving her story into classic Americana by marrying it with that other too-powerful artefact, the gun. In her story, the power of the djinn wreaks havok on the human world, and needs to be contained.

The most common thread explores the line between the mundane and the supernatural, as personified respectively by humans and djinn. Inhabiting this liminal space is Catherine King’s ‘Queen of Sheba‘, in which a Latina girl on the border between childhood and adolescence discovers her own magic in the midst of the most ordinary LA Christmas.

Juxtaposed with humanity, the state of being djinn embodies the status of outsider, as in JY Yang’s ‘Glass Lights‘, as well as depicting the atrocities that othering can make you prey to, in three stories I found absoutely chilling each in their own way: Kuzhali Manickavel’s ‘How We Remember You‘, Sophia Al-Maria’s ‘The Righteous Guide of Arabsat‘, and Kirsty Logan’s ‘The Spite House‘.

In a fourth story, ‘Reap‘ by Sami Shah, the one that most threatened to disturb my sleep, it is the power of the (this time decidedly monstrous) djinn that breaks down the comfortable separation between the subject and the other–that is, between the drone operators and the people in Afghanistan on whom they have been spying.

In ‘Hurrem and the Djinn‘ by Claire North, a Scheherazade-style tale of court machinations, it is power itself, though not necessarily that of a djinn, that makes Hurrem a target to the men who envy her. Djinn as a representation of the power that humans crave is also a theme in ‘Emperors of Jinn‘ by Usman Malik; and the responsibility that comes with that power is depicted movingly in Helene Wecker’s ‘Majnun‘, the story of a djinn who finds faith in a power greater than himself, but finds himself having to explain his conversion to his former lover.

Other stories in the anthology include James Smythe’s ‘The Sand in the Glass is Right‘, Kamila Shamsie’s ‘The Congregation‘, K.J. Parker’s ‘Message in a Bottle‘, Monica Byrne’s ‘Authenticity‘, Nada Adel Sobhi’s ‘Time is a Teacher‘, Saad Hossein’s ‘Bring Your Own Spoon‘, E.J. Swift’s ‘The Djinn Hunter’s Apprentice‘, Nnedi Okorafor’s ‘History‘, as well as the titular ‘The Djinn Falls in Love‘, a poem by Egyptian poet Hermes, printed in both the original Arabic and in translation, by Robin Moger.

Honestly, I could spend thousands of words gushing about the quality of the individual fiction in this anthology, as well as the larger picture they depict. Djinn ultimately are shown here as a reflection of humanity: the reach which, with the help of djinn, need not exceed our grasp, and the best and worst aspects of that. It’s utterly fitting that, down to the the sterling quality of each unique piece, this anthology is as fascinating and addictive as the smokeless fire of the djinn it depicts.

So many authors are the reason I picked this one up - Helene Wecker, Maria Dahvana Headley, Amal El-Mohtar, Usman T. Malik and Nnedi Okorafor just to name a few... I love a good djinn tale, and this anthology somehow surpassed my already high expectations. An anthology often contains a number of shorts that I'm just not in the mood for, or feel overwhelmed by... but this collection was close to perfect.

It sets the tone well by starting with a poem, The Djinn Falls in Love by Hermes, and translated by Robin Moger, giving the anthology its title.

The Congregation - Kamila Shamsie

This first short story was so beautiful - a young boy wakes for prayer, but somehow finds himself amongst praying jinn instead, either by waking entirely early, or somehow walking into their own world. He stands beside a boy about his age, who whispers things that keep him safe - then they all disappear, and Qasim is at a loss without jinn in his life as he got to experience for such a short amount of time, yet knows can't be ever matched.

He allows an exorcism to try to free him from their hold, but as the man says, what is one supposed to do about a boy who craves nothing else?

We have a sweet ending, see Qasim grow old, and finally find a love that finds meaning. This is a strong start to the anthology, and leads us onwards, well.

How we Remember You - Kuzhali Manickavel

Several people reminisce about someone now lost to them, and it's interesting how their shared experiences are remembered differently from person to person. It's quite an angry re-telling, showing the guilt that more wasn't done to save their friend while it was still possible.

A boy who has feathers growing from his back, can disappear and reappear, and has been witnessed flying, is locked in a room when he doesn't seem to be as magic as he once was. And he becomes the burden of guilt upon his former friends.

Hurrem and the Djinn - Claire North

Davuud has the hard task of investigating the sultan's favourite wife - and one can only guess at what the repercussions may be for this one. Told in the first person, this one is a little more of a 'Arabian Nights' tale as we hear of someone tell us the story as the story itself. At times the voice doesn't match the tone that well, and upon re-reading, this is possible one of the weaker shorts in the collection, yet still readable.

Glass Lights - J. Y. Yang

A young girl with djinn blood in her veins can still suffer from the same human ailments that anyone can - loneliness. Mena is different from the other girls at work, and though she can feel the strong human emotions of those around her, it doesn't make life any easier. The work heartthrob will still go for pretty Wendy, and Mena still won't be invited to lunch - or even if she is, she won't be able to attend a non-kosher restaurant.

A simple and quick story, that is elegant and sticks with you for how relatable it is. Incidentally, Yang has two novellas coming out with Tor this year - The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven and I could not be more excited to read them after this short story.

Authenticity - Monica Byrne

A story that involves sex deliberately in a way that's all about seeking experiences and thus, what makes us human - or how others may seek the human experience. There's often stories of Gods and others coming to humans for sex or otherwise, and this completes that. Unfortunately, due to my sexuality I wasn't able to understand this one (the drive, or the need, etc) and hence it left me a bit cold.

Majnun - Helene Wecker

Zahid was once consort to Aisha, the famous jinniyah of Morocco for over a century. Now he uses his special abilities to clear jinns from possessing young children, and that's why he is called the the bedside of a young boy who Aisha has taken up residence inside, just to get Zahid's attention.

This one is endlessly interesting, because it goes into detail of how a once favoured jinn has a religious experience, and has to re-asses his entire life, and how he knew he was once happy, but also never at peace. He discovers what he needs in his life along the way, and struggles hard to make it happen, even if he's had to leave his entire world behind and hurt his own kind for the now and future.

This is a beautiful piece of work, and I can't wait for Wecker's next novel to come out. 2018 is far too long away.

Black Powder - Maria Dahvana Headley

Jinns don't always live in lamps. This one, lives in a rifle once owned by a terrible man who made hundreds of lives hell by taking women and abandoning the resulting children all through the wilderness. A hundred and fifty years later, and its now in the hands of some punk kid who has no friends, and its easy to see why.

This story is good as it is another djinn story that has a totally different setting to most. It's mysterious and edgy and everything plays out like a movie in your mind, but it isn't exactly kind.

A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds - Amal El-Mohtar

Seven birds. Sparrow, crow, cormorant, swallow, hummingbird, owl, phoenix. Short and yet powerful, as we see these wonderful birds hunted by wizards and to say anything else about it would take away the magic. It's only five pages long and perhaps the shortest piece in the book, but utterly wonderful.

The Sand in the Glass is Right - James Smythe

The idea of how even with wishes, perhaps a life without them is far simpler and safer. It's one of those shorts that explores the idea of how you need to be careful when making a wish, or how you have to frame or think of it in order to somehow achieve what you really want - even if perhaps you don't know the answer yourself. We see a man try again and again to get his wish right, but the consequences each brings.

I would have preferred that this one have - well, not more structure, as I get the deal with the lack of grammar signifying pace and the runalong nature of it all, but I've never been a fan of the no speech marks thing.

Reap - Sami Shah

Initially for some reason I thought this was space exploration, but instead it was set in both New Mexico (in a shipping container where a team remotely control a drone) and keep an eye on things in Pakistan, analysing the heat signatures and other data that comes back. They've done this for so long that they know each and every person in the area, what their routines generally are, and have even given them nicknames.

This one is well done, as it's interesting from the beginning (or perhaps only to nerds like me who like analyst-type things like Anna-the-Analyst does), and slowly turns more and more interesting as the surveillance on the locals drips piece after piece of information into your lap, so you're working it out alongside the intelligence team. Masterfully done, and high five to Shah.

I really shouldn't have read this one before going to bed, though.

Queen of Sheba - Catherine Faris King

Set in 1953 it's Christmas and snow is falling, twelve-year-old Juanita is now old enough to sit with the adults, prepare the house for Christmas while the little ones sleep, and stay up for Midnight Mass and coffee. Part of her tasks is to iron the linens - an important job - but something strange catches her attention away just for a moment to long, leaving a burn mark to ruin her hard work.

Auntie Opal - who's not really an auntie at all - saves the day somehow, but how leaves far too many questions, and then an urgent call pulls her away before she can explain to Juanita.

What I love about this piece is how it toys with our expectations, to the point where it's even mentioned in the short and twisted this way and that. I loved this piece.

The Jinn Hunter's Apprentice - E. J. Swift

Suddenly, we're in space. And it's beyond excellent. A ship has at least one (possibly more) staff possessed by jinn, and Captain Bukhari is expecting Ajam to come help him. Instead, he receives his apprentice, Fahima and her ring-tailed lemur who immediately gets on Bukhari's bad side. It's not like he has much choice though, so he blinks over the reports and agrees to make appointments between her and his crew so they can be interviewed, and leaves her to it.

This is beyond excellent, to the point where I paused reading to look up where I'd seen Swift's name before and was glad to realise I have Osiris, the first book in her series, already waiting to be read on my eReader. I know what I'll be doing next very, very shortly. That's how good this piece was.

Message in a Bottle - K. J. Parker

A scholar has a hefty weight on his shoulders - look back upon forbidden texts to see if there's ever been a possible cure to two strains of awful plagues which are causing havoc wherever they reach. I do like seeing a bookish hero.

There was once a great man, who was either beyond evil or good (or, like most humans, probably a bit of both) who knew much about the plagues but possibly was the creator... but also possibly, knew of a cure. The trouble is knowing how to separate his lies from the truth, and perhaps it's impossible to really ever know that. Relying on a hunch when thousands of lives are in your hands certainly wouldn't be for the faint hearted.

I quite liked this one - it had an easy flow, and the characters are interesting enough to be able to ignore slight plot holes and the like.

Bring your Own Spoon - Saad Z. Hossain

Ahh, post apocalyptics worlds, my favourite. Hanu is scraping by. Though luck he has some comforts, but the little he has he's willing to share, which of course means that somehow, he'll get by as this is a story. The little details of the carded people, the health warnings, contamination and viruses, quickly give this short story such depth that I instantly want a full novel of this.

Although everything is doom and gloom, by Hanu's little stove it seems like such a cozy story. The djinn seems so casual and childlike - being bored is why they sleep so often, which is a nice touch. And a pirate never hurts, either.

Somewhere in America - Neil Gaiman

An except from his book American Gods, so a pass from me.

Duende 2077 - Jamal Mahjoub

A murder occurs where murder is taboo, so it just doesn't happen - a detective is there, though there's no resources as no murders happen. Futuristic perfection, complete with holograms... and yet also at a loss, as things from the past are strictly forbidden.

Duende 2077 was the messiah, who will return again. And that's how this short is left. I'm not entirely sure I 'got' the majority of it (or even half of it), but it kept me reading.

The Righteous Guide of Arabsat - Sophia Al-Maria

An interesting discussion on how a woman is damned if she do, damned if she don't. If a woman doesn't know anything about sex, she does her husband a disservice - if she knows too much, then all hell breaks loose. A man with several issues is matched with a woman, and their first night of married life doesn't all go to plan.

This one isn't a comfortable read. The way he picks her apart, the way he grew up, everything is so... not healthy.

The Spite House - Kirsty Logan

A piece in where though a djinn may have magic and be all powerful - perhaps they are just as much trapped by their god-like ability than anything else, and it's actually a curse.

I love stories that investigate this idea. Genie from Down Under was a dreadfully bad (so bad it was SO good) tv show here in Australia growing up, and it was one of those fatal 'don't say 'I wish' near them' because it'll never turn out the way you hoped. In this, a junk scavenger is delighted with haul she finally finds, only to be enticed in with the thoughts of more by granting first one, then two, then three wishes. Terrible wishes. She runs and hides, but the woman finds her and eventually, the life of the half-djinn is barely one worth living...

Emperors of Jinn - Usman T. Malik

Four children, related via their mothers' side, are thrown together during the holidays. They vaguely know of each other, they know that one of them likes to punch and that another likes nasty things, but that's about all. They're surrounded by riches and one gets the idea fairly early on that they've never had to care about the results of their actions.

All up, it's all pretty awful. As ever, Malik's writing is perfect.

History - Nnedi Okorafor

In this, History is the most famous singer of the world. Born to African-American parents who were on research tours at the time, History was born and raised in Nigeria, and it is there she began to sing and dance like in a way that everyone knew she'd be famous one day. She's taken to the oldest woman in the village, who also happens to be a sorceress, who teaches History the beginnings of everything she needs to know in order to both control her magic, and not cause any trouble with it.

It's about this time that History manages to capture a bush baby and there he remains, in her mirror, bringing her true good luck throughout her life and career. And I love the ending line - but to find it out, you'll just have to buy the anthology.

I should never have asked for this book. I do not like short stories and I find this impossible to read. I am sure it will be a bestseller.

I received this from NetGalley and I was so excited as I'd heard of quite a few of the authors in this book and I loved the idea of reading a collection of short stories based on the Djinn.

Because it's a collection of short stories, it's difficult to discuss too much as they were all so different in such brilliant ways. One thing that struck me though was that I constantly kept adoring each and every story. There were some that were weaker than other, but there wasn't a single story in this collection that I didn't enjoy and all the interpretations of Djinn were fantastic. They took place in diverse settings, with diverse characters and were just a delight to read. I had to stop myself from rushing through the book so that I could stop and savour each story.

I would definitely recommend this collection of short stories as they were all fantastic and have given me a bunch of new authors to look up!

I did not finish this book as I did not engage with this story at all.

Right off the bat let me admit that I'm not a huge fan of short stories... Typically, I prefer my characters and plot lines more complex than shorts allow. That said, a number of my favorite authors seem to publish shorts in collections like this one frequently, so I occasionally pick the books up to get my interim fix between novels. That's what happened with this one - I saw that there were stories by Neil Gaiman, Claire North AND Nnedi Okorafor in this one. That, coupled with the topic (which I haven't seen as a focal point of a full collection before), caught both my eye and my interest.

I often read short stories in mish-mash order. I usually check out the authors I know/follow first. So step one: look up the Neil Gaiman, since he's one of my all-time favorites. Well, the Gaiman story here is actually an excerpt from American Gods. Don't get me wrong, that's a fantastic book - but I've read it. So rereading this segment in here didn't add anything for me...

After that I looked up the Claire North. I have a love/hate relationship with her - Claire North is actually Catherine Webb, who is also Kate Griffin. I LOVE Kate Griffin, quite like Catherine Webb, and love the ideas of Claire North but generally hate their execution. So I was a little skittish about this one. I was surprised to find that it read like a Kate Griffin idea executed by Claire North - I'd have preferred it if it had been flip-flopped, since I prefer Kate Griffin's writing style, but it was still an improvement over my usual readings of Claire North's stories in that I actually finished it.

After this, I decided to save the Nnedi Okorafor for the end (where it was positioned in the table of contents) - I knew if it disappointed, I'd never reopen the book, so I started reading the rest more or less in order.

I was surprised that a number of the stories dealt with war and soldiers - I probably shouldn't be, djinn/genies have their origins in Middle Eastern mythology, and the contemporary (and, frequently, historical) geopolitical reality is that war and soldiers are ongoing phenomena in the Middle East. Still, I have never really been a fan of war as a genre - coupled with my general ambivalence about short stories, that wasn't exactly a recipe for success. So there were a handful of stories that lost me out of the gate - it's not that there was anything critically wrong with them, per se, just that they had two strikes against them in my personal taste book.

So far, the tally isn't looking great, is it? I poked through the rest of the stories and found a couple I quite liked (The Congregation,Queen of Sheba,The Jinn Hunter's Apprentice) , but I struggled through a bunch of them, reading a few pages and then moving on. Finally, the only story left was the Okorafor.

It was great! I just LOVE her storytelling style. She has a marvelous mastery of language, her characters (even in shots) are always amazing, and her plots are original and complicated and inspiring. Her stories are full of damage and redemption and magic, and this short was no exception. I am new to her writing, so have only read two books (Akata Witch, The Book of Phoenix) to date - I get the impression that this one references a character in one of her other works, and am eager to find out!

So all in all, the collection was - as most are - a mixed bag for me. Still, there were a few very bright spots, so if the topic intrigues you at all you should check it out.

Hi there, thank you for the opportunity to read this, but I ccan't quite get into it

Neil Gaiman's name caught my eye when I first learned about this book. It was great to reread a chapter of American Gods, but that's his only contribution to this excellent collection of stories. Still, I am not disappointed because the book is fantastic. A few of the tales would have gotten four stars from me, but most of them are unabashedly five-star material. Some are more classic (Hurrem and the Djinn by Claire North reads like a long-lost story from the Arabian Nights) while others use unusual settings for stories about Djinnis (E.J. Swift's The Jinn Hunter's Apprentice happens in Mars, and it is insanely good) but they all bring a twist that makes them completely original (some stories are told by the perspective of the Djinnis. One is set in the future, another one features time travel, one more is a western, another favorite is told as seen by US soldiers watching via a drone). Glass Lights, by J.Y. Yang nearly made me cry and Queen of Sheeba by Catherine Faris King was probably my favorite. I don't know much about Djinnis (or genies), but this book challenged my assumptions. It is really, really good.

I am a fan of short story collections; it allows me to find new authors and experience different writing styles. Unfortunately, that didn't happen with this book. There were a few stories that really moved me but the majority of stories did not. WS many of the stories just ended though I felt the content was not complete. Too often I wondered why I read the story and realized it had no emotional impact on me. For some good ideas lingered on with unfinished potential but too often the author didn't seem to know where they were going with the stories.
Though I did enjoy about two or three stories, over all I was disappointed.

Interesting collection of stories on a really wonderful theme: djinns. Loved the range of styles and stories in the collection. Note: Some of the stories are previously published (the Neil Gaiman story is an excerpt from American Gods, for example), while some are newly published.

Wonderfully immersive and original stories.

This collection was unlike most books I have read in recent years. Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin collected wonderful stories from all over the world showcasting the different types of Djinns (or Jinns, or Genies or whatever you would like to call them); this diversity of authors made for a really ecclectic and amazing collection. The stories told are unique and still relatable; every author brings something different to the table and every story is a surprise. While I enjoyed some stories more than others, every single one of the stories was a great addition to the overall collection.

I especially loved reading about the different myths relating to djinns and how that influenced how they were portrayed. To be perfectly honest, when I hear the word "djinn" I automatically think of Aladdin - the djinns in these stories were very different to that. Some djinns were nasty, some were misunderstood, some were really lovely and some were maybe no djinns at all.

What I loved most were the stories set in the future - the worlds these authors created were without fail totally different from what I usually encounter in distopian or sci-fi stories and I really appreciated that. It made me think about what we take for granted in literature and how that can be challenged and be made original again. I am so used to seeing Western authors use the genre to criticize their societies, that I never stopped to think about the fact that authors from all over the world can use dystopian literature to tell their stories and their critiques and that these stories will vastly differ from my usual fair.

Overall, I can whole-heartedly recommend this collection! It made me think, it made me feel, and it showed me lots of authors I never heard about but want to read more from.

___
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Rebellion in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!

This book has 21 stories on the subject of Djinns. With one or two exceptions these appear to be new stories. The djinns are mainly an Islamic concept and the spelling varies almost as much as the characteristics. They can be quite "devilish", they can grant wishes, they live for exceptionally long periods, they are magical and these terms really only scratch the surface of these beings that are created by godly fire. It's a subject that has always intrigued me so I was looking forward to reading this anthology.

These stories vary widely in era, approach and general setting. There are ones that have a far older feel and ones that are either modern or even sci fi based. Some of the content is violent (djinns can be seen as devils or devilish at least). Some content is sexual. Some are short and some are longer. If you have an interest in the subject there should be something for you here.

I guess the majority of these tales I did enjoy at least to some degree. The nature of such an anthology is that not all the stories will appeal to every reader. For me there were probably four standout stories. Neil Gaiman's story I enjoyed but, as it is from American Gods, I had read it before. It simply reminds me of what an excellent author he is.

I did enjoy the dark mischief of The Spite House by Kirsty Logan about djinns who are no longer that and do not grant wishes… or do they? It was well written and enjoyable.

There were two others which stood out for me. I found Black Powder by Maria Dahvana Headley extremely atmospheric and very well written. This really was one of those stories that effortlessly creates pictures with words. With a real feel of the Wild West and trappers this was also faintly contemporary and mysterious as well as edgy. Great story.

The other stand out tale also created a vivid picture with words for me. Reap by Sami Shah was a clever story. It is set in the USA with a section operating drones. However the real story occurs in Afghanistan as observed by the drone operators. I found it very atmospheric and crisply written. This is one that will stay with me, along with Black Powder, for some time to come.

I think there will always be highs and less attractive stories in such an anthology. Equally what those highs are will vary from reader to reader. However I thoroughly enjoyed reading most of the stories and even the less appealing ones were largely ok for me. This would be a good read for lovers of fantasy and certainly for anyone with an interest in tales about djinns.

There were two or three short stories that were very well executed in this collection, but majority of them did not quite make the mark. The one most anticipated - by Neil Gaiman - is one I've already read before, so this might have contributed to the slight feeling of disappointment. I did, however, discover new authors.