The Very Best of Charles De Lint

This book was loaned to me by the man who bought me Some Guys’ Pizza and fathered my ally, Lord Reptile. The pages are big and have a lot of words on them. There are a lot of pages too. But when a doctor who is not your doctor or your professor makes it a point to lend you one of his books, you have to read it and return it within a reasonable amount of time; as if I were exempt from the book borrowing code of never returning anything to anyone until you’ve paid your fines. After a month of wonder, I tuckered down on The Very Best of Charles De Lint.

Short stories often give you a fair amount to remember and chew on once you put down the volume. So I tried to read just one of De Lint’s stories every night and I felt a lot of things. I felt the hot power of my imagination and an itch to dream. I felt a renewed weight in the value of things I do that have no value to anyone else.

From every angle, De Lint illuminates the magic in the mundane. Everyone is a character in a bigger story. Often those who neglect their status in our world, make up for it in worlds we can’t see. Heroes don’t have to kill orcs and challenge evil sorcerers. De Lint’s heroes are artists, musicians, and magical creatures of consensual reality. His mythical fiction/urban fantasy takes us away from the violent and into the pre-existing magic we often forget about.