If you want to compare almost with Ursula K. LeGuin!

Most of the stories in this story band have animals in titles including monkeys, foxes, cats (4x), horses, chokes, fish, bees, wolves, ponies and dogs, and are about how animals representative of people some expressions, such as people and animals together change, what it feels like to be afraid of animals or want to be an animal. About half of them have a lasting impression on me fortunately the tended the longer stories, which is why surely good bands 2/3 this story were a treat for me.
Most of the stories have a fantastic element, a few (The Horse Raiders, Dia Chjermans Tale, The Man Who Bridged the Mist) playing in real SF or fantasy secondary worlds, but the genre faithful assigns Johnson clearly the requirements of the particular story at , Sometimes the fantastic element is just in a single strong image, for example in the eponymous River of Bees, a swaying, humming electricity from bees, which the protagonist dazed-infatuated follows to its mouth.

Among the most outstanding stories of bands belong to me:

The regional or the mythical Japan fantasy novella Fox Magic, in a vixen creates an illusory world to seduce a human lover, and himself in their entangled the interplay between illusion and reality is described with a mixture of melancholy and humor; especially the magic seems real and believable, especially in their pitfalls.

Bitey Cat, a story about a little girl who gets in an absolutely intolerable family situation by means of a nasty, vicious cat. Actually, no fantasy story; for me it has become so really felt that she drew me a few little tears when reading in the middle of Berlin Central Station.

The Horse Raiders, a SF novel, which technologically defaulted nomads on an alien planet and its relationship with the animals that help them survive, rotates. Quiet and a little chillingly told, even though (or probably just because) what the main character happens, is quite traumatic. Empathy in a fictional alien culture succeeds Johnson so good that you want to compare them smooth with Ursula K. LeGuin and should.

Best liked represent me The Man Who Bridged the Mist almost a short novel about progress and love and about how both radical intervention in the life of communities and individuals. Although it comes to the irretrievable loss of certain lifestyles that history is fortunately not the least bit hostile technology, on the contrary. But what is more amazing: The Man Who Bridged the Mist is full of characters who act responsibly, lovingly and forgiving. To do so without slipping into kitsch and complacency, is truly an outstanding achievement. One of the few stories that faith in mankind upright with good arguments, because it shows credible characters who act out their strengths and out yourself and forgive others their weaknesses.

Very briefly, on 2nd place is for me the last story of the band, The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park, where it is important that the dog learn to speak all of a sudden, what the relationship sustained to their masters and mistresses tarnishes. The slanted idea is implemented absolutely sober and sobering, and the story is at all a joke rather sad and slightly disturbing than funny.

Despite three or four weak Stories an insanely good book. Incidentally, I strongly suspect that at least in the development of the last two stories of Donna Haraway's feminist bands Trickster myths were involved