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Within the over-arching theme of the Hero Lost there is a wide range of stories and styles, something for everyone, and each well-crafted.

From social commentary about unquestioned customs (Ellen Jacobson’s The Silvering) to touching romance with magical twists (Elizabeth Seckman’s Mind Body Soul), the reader is in for either thought-provoking experience or a chance to slip away from the real world and enter one of enticing fantasy. In other stories, there are poignant moments about family bonds (Sarah Foster’s The Last Dragon), there are heroic moments when we are reassured about the power of good or love or the life force that drives us.

While this speculative collection has its share of knights and dragons, they aren’t the ordinary “black v white knight� or “slay that critter� kind of stories. One that I really liked was Renee Cheung’s Memoirs of a Forgotten Knight. It was a dragon slayer story with amazing twists and turns that take place over centuries.

The stylistic variety lends texture to this anthology. There are two stories that carried me away with their literary talent. Jen Chandler’s The Mysteries of Death and Life was a lyrical account about the angel of death who longs for the very thing he metes out daily and is denied it. You’ll have to read it if you want to know how this one ends.

If you enjoy mega doses of myth and legend accompanied by the joy of richly developed language, you’ll love Roland Yeoman’s Sometimes They Come Back. I hated to leave this one.

At the other end of writing style is that of Yvonne Ventresca with the clean bones of the contemporary story, The Art of Remaining Bitter. In this tale, you enter dystrophia-land that makes you pause and postulate, “What if?�

With variety, there is always a chance the reader will enjoy some stories more than others, and in this anthology that is, of course, the case. However, on a star scale of 1-5, I had a 4.5-star experience.