REGENCY SPRITE by Dave Freer

Okay! So, this story could start out like a bad joke that goes like this: A drunken guy walks out of bar. He needs to release the pressure that has been building up in his bladder. He doesn’t make it very far out of the bar before he starts to hear something from the alley. He can’t really tell if it’s the strong drink talking or what.

I’m bad at the jokes. Anyway, I had a hard time following this story. It had some strange point of view shifts alternating between first person drunk and first person sprite.

The sprite is in trouble and to her rescue, a drunk who almost take a leak on her. After much convincing, he helps her out from under a can. See, a cat had chased her and then everything went crazy-go-nuts.

I think, because I’m not sure, that the plot of the story is about this sprite how was chasing her lover into the human world. She just happens to bump into a human (who ends up being a very special human) who helps her. Being a good chap, he wants to take very good care of her. She needs to splint her arm and rest her wings. So, he takes her to the only person that he trusts.

This person, the medic, the person that he trusts, she turns out to be not so nice. She has cast some bad magic on him and his house. The sprite undoes all her bad magic. Then, enter a real bad guy with a sword.

This story started out good and then got strange. I was in for a nice urban tale about sprites and magic (which this is). However, it was just not my cup of tea.

It might be your flavor though, so don’t let me keep you from reading it. Also, there are some other really great stories in this collection. Here’s two: THE FLOOD WAS FIXED by Eric Flint and WINDS OF CHANGE by Linda A. B. Davis.

Freer, Dave. “Regency Sprite.” Something Magic This Way Comes. Ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Sarah A. Hoyt. New York: DAW, 2008.