Stephen Donaldson - Reave the Just and other tales

I'm less familiar with these than with the Daughter of Regals stories, but like those others, the tales collected here are less satisfying than those in Donaldson's full-lengths. Although his ability to tell a story is undimmed in this shorter form, I think that Donaldson is a writer who really needs room to sprawl just a little - otherwise, the extravagance of his characters' conflicts and choices just don't ring true and the resolutions veer dangerously close to triteness. All up, the stories in Reave the Just are more in the way of being idly entertaining than truly spectacular (the best is "The Killing Stroke", though it has its share of windy philosophising).