Buried Deep and Other Stories
by Naomi Novik
2024

I’ve enjoyed Novik’s writing for years (decades?) at this point, so it comes as something of a shock to realize that this anthology increased my opinion of her as a writer. How was that even possible? Did I not already know that she was a fabulous writer? But this books has such an incredible breadth of stories, each with their own world-building and characters and tone. Some of the stories I liked more than others, but all of them impressed me.

There are thirteen short stories and/or novellas in this collection, and I’m not going to specifically review them all, but just call out a few:

“After Hours” was a wonderful return to the Scholomance, after the events of that trilogy, with the introduction of another whole culture of magic, because the world is full of different cultures, and so too would be an international school.

“Spinning Silver” is the original story that later grew into the novel, and thus has a lot of duplication, but also some fascinating differences such that I’m torn between which I like more.

“Seven Years From Home” is a stand-alone story in an entirely new universe, a science-fiction universe that almost takes as its premise that anything sufficiently understood is science rather than magic, and addresses politics and war profiteering. It’s almost comforting in its cold ruthlessness and dissection of the hypocrisy that can saturate a seemingly benign culture.

“The Long Way Round” is a story that’s not precisely a stand-alone one, but is a test piece for a new universe that Novik is working on, something that may well grow into a new novel or even a new series, developing a world and characters with a magic system, and political lines, and social structures. And this is the first view of it, and it is fascinating.