Member Reviews
I was so excited about this book because I wanted to return to Spinning Silver and Uprooted. I was not disappointed. This book has sparked an interest to visit her other books to see the worlds more in depth.
I received this from Net Galley for review.
I love Naomi Novak's writing and while I'm not familiar with all of her series, I've covered a few, so I was very excited when this came up.
This gives a good smattering of her different POV's worlds, some connected to previous works, some are completely independent stories. And while anthologies aren't usually my thing as I have a hard time stopping and starting and tend to like more narrative works. I did enjoy this.
My favorite was a rendition of Pride & Prejudice where Elizabeth Bennet is a Dragon Rider in the army. I'd read the entire book of this with no problem. It was also fun to see a snippet of Post Deadly Education where Orion the golden boy of the Scholomance is tromping the halls for Mal's happily at night.
If you have never picked up any of her works this might be a nice place to start, if you are familiar you may see a few characters you already know well and some you don't.
Buried Deep and Other Stories is one of those rare anthologies that works across the board!
Fans of Novik's work will quickly find footing within these short whimsical tales. The writing feels akin to sitting around a campfire being told tales from a past time. They are dark and thoughtful with ties to many of the authors previous works. I think if readers weren't familiar with the authors previous world these might feel a tad obscure but knowing the roots of many of these offerings made for a collection that felt bigger than the sums of it's parts.
A delightful collection of fantastical stories by a consummate writer. Novik writes a broad range of places and moods, from ancient Greek myths to her Scholomance world, but you needn't have read her other works to get invested in these short stories; instead, she uses these universes to explore themes of ethics and morals and self-determination.
Buried Deep and Other Stories is a collection of short stories, taking place in some of our beloved Novik lands. From familiar places in Temeraire to monster-hiding in school halls, we get fun little side stories to add to our favorite settings, along with some new and intriguing worlds. Spanning genres, Novik keeps us entranced as we skip through mythology and science fiction. Each story moves along quickly, keeping us waiting for the next one.
Final rating: 3 stars
Read if you like: fantasy, mythology, short stories
I loved this! Each short story was so immersive and full of life! I adored the Buried deep short story especially. Naomi Novik's signature fairytale-esque story telling style really shown with these stories. They were delightful, intriguing and meaningful, and I loved every one of them.
Thank publisher and net Galley for this advanced copy
I enjoy short stories....there is a puzzle of sorts ..working out where the magic is....I mean this literally and figuratively.
This book came across as a dip into the authors past and future works
It helped that I'd read her first dragon book...but nothing else.
This expanded my like of her writing
I enjoyed it immensely
I'll be getting more Miss Novik
R
I enjoyed this collection of short stories quite a bit. There is a large variety of different stories from short stories connected to past books/series Naomi Novik has written, reimaging stories from popular work by other authors, and unique stand alone stories. I really enjoyed the variety of different stories that were showcased in this book.
My favorite stories:
After Hours, which is about a girl who attends the school from the Scholomance trilogy, set after the events of the trilogy.
Buried Deep, which is about the sister of a minotaur.
Spinning Silver, which is a short story version of her novel with the same name.
Seven, which is about a woman who is good at pottery. This story was so good and I would love a full novel version that continues past the end of this short story. I would prefer a more conclusive ending to this story.
Seven Years from Home, which I found to be a bit more sci fi than fantasy, and I usually don't enjoy sci fi but I really enjoyed this story. I would also love it if this story became a whole novel or even series, I found the world and the characters to be very interesting.
My least favorite stories:
Commonplace, which is a short Sherlock Holmes story about Irene Adler
Dragons & Decorum, which is a Pride and Prejudice reimaging with dragons.
I think I just personally don't enjoy retellings or reimagings of existing work, but I didn't think these short stories were bad, just my least favorite stories in this book.
Thank you to netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was lucky enough to receive a digital copy of this book from NetGalley to read and review.
If you have been missing tales from the Scholomance or the world of Temeraire this collection of short stories can definitely scratch that itch.
Naomi Novik's captivating story telling resonates through this whole collection of short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to revisit beloved series like Temeraire and the Scholomance but was equally invested in each new story.
I wasn't expecting to be brought on a journey with pirates or be able to read a Pride and Prejudice and dragon mashup (which I would gladly read an entire novel of) but Novik brings you along on these journeys!
There is something about Naomi Novik's writing that I find captivating. She has a way of bringing her stories to life. Buried Deep and Other Stories, is a group of thirteen short stories. They are all vastly different in theme and setting. Each revisits a piece of Novik's previous work with one exception. The final story is a glimpse at the world of the author's upcoming series. I found all of the stories, included in this compilation, to be entertaining, creative, and satisfyingly complete. While I haven't read all of Naomi Novik's previous works, that did not limit my ability to enjoy the stories based on those books.
Thank you NetGalley and DelRey for the advanced reader copy.
What a wonderful collection of short stories deeper delves and wandering stories in much loved worlds. This would be good for any fans of Naomi Novik who want to devour more of her work. I really enjoyed revisiting the scholomance world, getting to see Orion again. The opening story is absolutely captivating. I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who enjoys any of her work or her wandering storylines and thoughts.
Thank you to NetGalley, Naomi Novik, and the publishers for allowing me access to the e-Arc.
3.5/5
As someone who loved Novik's Scholomance series, I went into this book with high hopes. However, a lot of the short stories failed to hit that same sweet spot that I was expecting, and so the book at times fell flat, in my opinion. Now, this is not to say I didn't enjoy any of the short stories, some of them were incredibly good and I loved them, but some felt lacking in execution and felt like they needed more space to flesh out the ideas.
Overall, for anyone who is a fan of Novik would probably get enjoyment out of this collection
This was truly fun and had me wanting more from almost every story within. I enjoy Novik’s writing style and she was able to capture some language and prose that I would more likely think to see in an older piece. I especially loved the few that teetered more on the edge of thriller; maybe thriller fantasy needs to be a genre.
naomi novik can do no wrong, its true! i throughly missed her writing and being enthralled by her worlds- this was no different. i def recommend if you’re looking to get that fix after missing her full length books lately!
While I haven’t yet read Naomi’s other books, the Scholomance trilogy remains one of my favorite trilogies that I have read. With this in mind, this short collection of stories featuring what happens after, I couldn’t help but be excited to read!
Each short is prefaced with notes and anecdotes from Naomi along with inspiration of other stories and myths.
Obviously the one I enjoyed the most were those of the Scholomance universe, but the glimpse of her other works and her upcoming works was refreshing and fantastical. Novik does not hold back in creating new perspectives and building/enhancing universes we know and don’t know. Her writing is so insane but in a good way and really is just the perfect form of escapism
Thank you Netgalley for this eArC!!
This was a thorough delight, and I recommend it to other Novik fans. Most of the stories were previously published in anthologies, but they were brand new to me. I’m reminded of collections of short stories from Ted Chiang or Kelly Link in which every tale is a perfect little gem. I enjoyed them all, but here are my favorites:
Scholomance:
After Hours
Temeraire:
Vici
Dragons & Decorum
Eastern fairy tales:
Spinning Silver
Unconnected to existing books:
Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake
Seven
Thank you to NetGalley, Naomi Novik, and the publishers for allowing me access to the e-Arc.
3.75 stars
There were several stories that I really enjoyed reading. I thought this was a fun concept and a great way to get a feel for the author's writing style. This made me want to pick up one of the author's series. But there were some that I just didn’t love as much. They were just hard to get into. Overall, I did enjoy it! I would recommend this to anyone wanting to give this a try.
Interesting collection of stories that have their own personality and showcase her different styles. Some play off series she has already written and some are new stories she wrote for anthologies over the years. If you enjoy Novik's writing and want more about her many universes this is the book for you. I went into this not having read all her works and able to follow the stories!
Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for the opportunity to read this collection!
I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t love this one. I have loved all of the Scholomance series and Spinning Silver, but just couldn’t get into this. Naomi is so exceptional at world building and without that these lacked some substance. They were just glimpses and didn’t have enough build to seem like full stories.
An incredible short story collection that adds more dimension to Novik’s scholmance series without feeling boring or needlessly derivative. I think that can be hard to do with these kinds of collections so giving credit here