One of the best things about Anthologies is you get a wide variety of stories from different genres by amazing authors who have different writing styles, so it has something for each one of us. I haven’t read a lot of anthologies but the ones I have always have given me some amazing short stories and lessons the fictional world can teach. Writers of the Future Vol 36 is no different.

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For an anthology to have 36 volumes in print is enough testimony in itself of how good this series is.

Focusing on fantasy and sci-fi, this volume has stories from space, gods and witches, basically a fantasy lover dream compiled in 450 pages of ink and paper.

Before I get to talking about some of my favorite stories, let’s take a moment to give credit where it’s due, with the curators. To bring a volume rich with powerful stories, interviews, and essays with breathtaking illustrations isn’t an easy task. The sincerity with which the team worked shows.

The anthology starts strong with the first two stories talking about sacrifices but leaves you with the question, is it a sacrifice if the one making it wanted it?

Yellow & Pink and Borrowed Glory were particularly emotional and heart-wrenching. They were both different in every way possible but touched on the theme of finding and losing love. Yellow & pink talks about this man who lives centuries in the same decade again and again, playing with time only because he wants to prevent his wife’s death, and Borrowed Glory is about a woman who has lived her life doing what needs to be done but never found true love unless a magical lady gives her two days filled with glory, but two can never be enough to live a lifetime of romance, can it?

Some of my personal favorites were Foundations, Borrowed Glory, Catching My Death, Yellow & Pink, Trading Ghost, and As Able as the Air.

The world-building in some of the fantasy worlds was truly amazing, it astonishes me how authors have this amazing talent of writing a captivating world that draws readers into the fantasy world within sentences. Writing a story is tough but writing one with limited words is tougher, short stories deserve more appreciation for that alone.

Next up are the illustrations which were so beautiful. Each piece of art created for the stories sets the right tone and gives you a visualization of the world that won’t leave your mind anytime soon. There isn’t a way for me to pick a favorite.

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Anthologies are important as a reader because they give you the option to test writers, read a piece of their work, and make a decision for yourself whose work you would like to follow more without committing to an actual full-fledged book. It’s also a great medium to test your comfort for a genre. If you are confused about picking up fantasy or sci-fi, there are stories here to convince you how amazing these stories can be.

There are stories about space where you have wars across planets, aliens studying humans and talking about their audacity to believe they invent or discover everything, witches, magical families and girls given to knights and medieval world-building that can take you to the classical zones.

There are also essays on collaboration and how they work for authors, an interview talking about the art of story-telling or how can one get their big breaks.

To wrap all of it up in a few sentences, if you like fantasy and sci-fi, this should be your next read. If you are more into non-fiction and love reading about author experiences, Writers of the Future got you covered too. If you love stories that have beautiful illustrations, this volume has tonnes of them. I 10/10 recommend for this anthology for its impressive writing, amazing stories, and pretty illustrations that make this series worth it on all fronts.   

Cover Rating: 9.0/10

Book Rating: 8.8/10

Get your book on Amazon || Author’s site || Galaxy Press

Review by Akansha