Monthly Archives: May 2011

Announcing Seven Days of Online Fiction

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I’ve held for a while that the online sources for short fiction are providing quality fantasy and science fiction, and in many of a quality at least as high as, if not higher than, the traditional print sources.  Apparently I’m not alone in this view.  Karen Burnham, at the Locus Roundtable posted a list of the works which have received more two or more award nominations this year.  While (not surprisingly) none of the novels on the list were published online, the short fiction of all lengths is a different matter.  Two of the four novellas, all three novelettes, and two of the three short stories on the list were published online.

There are multiple sources of online fiction.  In fact the online landscape can change suddenly.  New websites arrive and disappear quickly.  If you’re not paying attention, you could miss something.  I thought this would be a good time to survey some of the sources of short fiction on the web.

There are several reasons behind the timing on this.  One, I’m not going to start any novels for a couple of weeks.  I’ve got some anthologies I need to read (not to mention the new issue of Black Gate, which arrived yesterday), and since I’ll be reading short fiction, it won’t be a huge deal to mix up the sources of my reading.  I haven’t kept up with the online fiction markets the way I should over the last year.  Since it will be to my benefit to broaden my online reading, I thought I’d share with you what I found in the hopes that you might find it useful as well.

So, what exactly are the ground rules going to be?

First, I’m going to look at one source of online fiction a day for the next seven days.  Or rather I’m going to post one look a day.  I’ll probably need to get a little ahead since I may be on the road before the end of the seven days.  The first post will go up later today, and if all goes according to plan,  the next will go up tomorrow, the third on Monday, and so on.  We’ll see if I can pull this off. 

Second, since this blog emphasizes fantasy and historical adventure more than science fiction, there won’t be much science fiction, if any.

Third, I’ll choose which sites I visit by a complex system of analysis involving mood, time available, fatigue level, and the phase of the Moon.  In other words, it will be pretty random.  While I’ve got some in mind, and have already looked at the first one, which I’ll post later today, I’m not aware of all the sites out there.  If there’s a site you want me to look at, please feel free to let me know.

Fourth, because my time is somewhat limited, I’ll restrict myself to the current “issue” of the sites I visit, and not consider anything in the archives.  This will remove the temptation to go read the award nominees I’ve haven’t gotten to yet.  Furthermore, I don’t promise to blog about more than a single story per site.  Time is a factor here, after all.  While I might, if time allows or the stories are short enough, examine more than one per site, I only promise to look at one.  I may go back later and blog about the other stories.  Also, I will try to avoid discussing any stories that are parts of series simply for the reason I don’t have time to go back and read the preceding stories. 

Fifth, I will restrict myself to sites that are free.  That way everyone who reads these posts can access the stories if they wish.

This should be a lot of fun.  Of course I thought that a few months ago when I got on my son’s ripstick and ended up pulling a groin muscle.  But I really don’t think this will be that bad.  If it’s not a total disaster, I’ll try the same thing with the print magazines in a month or two (assuming I can find seven print magazines that publish fantasy).

Blogging Kull: The Curse of the Golden Skull

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Kull:  Exile of Atlantis
Del Rey
trade paper, 317 p., $17

Once again, a story so brief it’s almost a vignette.  And like the last one we looked at, “The Altar and the Scorpion,” Kull doesn’t actually appear in it, although he is mentioned.  Only this time not with respect, but hatred and venom.

The story opens with the sorcerer Rotath of Lemuria dying from a fatal wound.  He had been struck down by Kull after having been betrayed by the unnamed king of Lemuria, a man he had thought he had controlled.  At least until he turned to Kull for aid.

As he dies, Rotath, who Howard shows to be a vile, evil creature, curses all men, whether alive or dead.  Here is one of those passages that is frustrating by what it doesn’t tell.

One of the most effective techniques an author can have is that of hinting.  Here’s what I mean.  Howard lists the deities Rotath curses mankind by.  They include ” Vramma ad Jaggta-noga and Kamma and Kulthas …the fane of the Black Gods, the tracks of the Serpent Ones, the talons of the Ape Lords, and the iron bound books of Shuma Gorath.”  That’s a pretty exhaustive list, and it doesn’t include the major deities of Valusia that were listed in the paragraph previous to the one in which these appear.

Now we’ve encountered the Serpent Ones in “The Shadow Kingdom“, but who is Jaggta-noga?  And what’s in the books of Shuma Gorath that would require the books to be bound in iron?  See what I mean?  Hints and questions implying a deeper, richer background than what is actually shown, making the reader want to know more.  It’s little touches like this that make Howard the writer he was.

As he’s dying Rotath places a curse on his own bones.  Then he passes into eternal torment.

Howard does something at this point I don’t recall him doing anywhere else.  He injects an interlude, entitled “Emerald Interlude”, in which millenia pass.  It was atypical of Howard to do something like this in the middle of a narrative. The mountaintop on which Rotath dies eventually sinks into the sea to become a swamp infested island.

What this accomplishes is to tie Kull’s era with contemporary history.  Howard had linked Kull’s time with ancient history through the character of Karon the ferryman in an untitled draft.  But that was ancient mythology.  In this case, the connection is with the modern world. 

An archaeologist is exploring the ruins when he comes across Rotath’s remains in a decaying shrine.  The skeleton hasn’t crumbled to dust because part of his dying curse was to turn his bones to gold.  As he picks up the golden skull, an adder hidden within strikes him and he dies.

A grisly, and unfortunately predictable little horror story and by no means one of Howard’s best.  It’s not even included in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, although it probably should be.  Still the writing is effective, the prose setting a mood of impending doom.  It’s different and certainly not a cornerstone of the Kull canon, but an interesting addition nonetheless.

Something to Read

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Between being in the middle of final exams and taking care of my wife while she recovers from surgery, I haven’t had time to post much.  For those of you who have dropped in looking for new content, the best I can do today is refer you to the two latest posts at Home of Heroics:

Steve Moody’s reflections on the popularity of antiheroes:

http://www.roguebladesentertainment.com/2011/05/heroes-and-antiheroes/
and Sean T. M. Stiennon’s examination of heroics in martial arts movies:

http://www.roguebladesentertainment.com/2011/05/ip-man-the-manly-soul-expressed-in-fisticuffs/

More on Ebook Prices

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My wife had surgery yesterday morning.  She’s home now and doing fine, but I have been and will be a little distracted.  Also it doesn’t help that I’m in the middle of final exams.  Point being, posts for the next few days, when there are any, will tend to be short and sweet.

So for your education and edification, let me refer you to the following post about ebook prices by Nik Fletcher, at the end of which he makes a couple of good suggestions.  And thanks to Passive Guy at The Passive Voice for making me aware of this post.

When Honor is a Career Liability

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Among Thieves
Douglas Hulick
Roc, 417 p., $7.99

This is a first novel, but it doesn’t read like a first novel.  It’s polished, complex, fast-moving, and keeps you off balance.  In other words, it’s a great deal of fun.  If you like Scott Lynch or Stephen Brust, this one is probably your cup of tea.

To briefly explain the setup.  Ildrecca is an ancient city, seat of an ancient empire.  An empire with a very old emperor.  A number of centuries ago, the Angels split the soul of the Emperor Dorminikos into three parts.  Each of the three parts was then reincarnated as the emperors Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien.  When one dies, the next in the cycle assumes the throne.  That way there is always one aspect of the original in power at any time.  Sort of a sovereignty-by-time-share.

This arrangement has worked for centuries and allowed for a (mostly) unbroken sequence of rule, with only a few interruptions when someone has attempted kill off the present incarnation and take over before the next incarnation can be identified.  There’s only one problem.  Each incarnation is starting to show signs of insanity, and each incarnation is showing those signs earlier in his life than his predecessors.

In this world there’s a very developed criminal society called the Kin.  Drothe is one of the Kin, and acts as a Nose for his boss Nicco.  A Nose is someone who is basically an information conduit both from the street to his boss and from his boss to the street.  Nicco is an Upright Man, which is sort of like a mafia don in this world.  There are also Dark Princes, who are like boss-of-bosses and can often do magic, which in this book is called glimmer.

In addition to working for Nicco, Drothe has a lucrative side business going as well, one in which he sells relics of the Emperor’s previous incarnations.  The book opens when someone has sold one of Drothe’s relics instead of delivering it to Drothe.  In attempting to recover it, Drothe finds himself drawn into a many-layered conspiracy involving an ancient journal from the early days of the Empire.  A journal any number of people seem to be willing to do any number of unpleasant things to get, including but not limited to:  torture, killings, arson, starting a war among the Kin, betrayal.  A journal that will allow the person who has it to defeat the Dark Princes and become the Dark King.

It doesn’t help that someone drags Drothe’s younger sister Christiana into the mess.  Drothe strives to keep their relationship a secret.  She married into the nobility, and is now widowed.  Having an older brother who’s of the Kin is something of a liability at Court.  Christiana has even gone so far as to attempt to assassinate Drothe to maintain her status.  But that’s all in the past…

The plot here is complex.  Very little is as it appears on the surface.  If you read this book, and you should, be prepared to have your perceptions yanked around a bit.  That was one of the enjoyable things about the stoory.  There were plenty of surprises.  They all made sense, and they were all logical.

Among Thieves has been compared to the work of Scott Lynch, and it’s easy to see why.  If you like Lynch, you will probably like this one as well.  But this is not a Lynch knockoff.  The setting is different, the characters are different, and the overall theme and tone of the book is different.  Whereas Scott Lynch weaves long plots that you savor even as the action explodes, with lots of flashbacks thrown in to allow you to catch your breath, Hulick moves the plot along at an even more breakneck pace.  There are some flashbacks, but not nearly as many as in Lynch’s work. They’re brief and serve primarily to give you background information you need to understand some of the significance of what’s happening.  Revelations come fast and furious, especially towards the end, when events barrel to a climax.

It’s been a while since I read Lynch, but I don’t recall him dealing with themes such as honor and betrayal and the costs inherent in each to the extent that Hulick does.  Yes, those themes do appear in Lynch, but everything in Among Thieves ultimately revolves around levels of loyalty and commitment and betrayal and what to do when obligations come into conflict with each other.  And the toll each of those things takes on a person.  Ultimately Drothe is an honorable man, something one of the Dark Princes comments on at a pivotal point in the novel. Being an honorable man among thieves means that no good deed goes unpunished.

Hulick is a fencer.  He writes from what he knows, and it’s evident to anyone who has ever spent much time with a blade in his/her hand.  His fight scenes, and there are a number of times when characters cross swords, ring with authenticity.  Most of the sword fights aren’t quick; instead, they can go on for pages and contain a level of detail that I haven’t seen much of in my reading in a while.  Whereas many authors would give a summary of the trusts, parries, and lunges in a fight, Hulick gives the reader a blow by blow description, including all the things that affect a fight such besides the swords.  And the fights certainly aren’t boring.  Hulick is an author who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to combat with a blade.  This allows him to pull the reader into the fight on a visceral level.

Drothe isn’t the best swordsman on the street; he gets his butt kicked plenty of times.  But he keeps on  fighting against his situation.  He’s a morally complex character, one who cares about the innocents around him, the rest of the Kin, what he can do to protect them.  Yet he’s also not without his flaws.  He’s not above killing solely for revenge or to torture in order to gain information.

Drothe isn’t the only three dimensional character.  Most of the others are as well.  Certainly the apothecary and his wife, who are Drothe’s tenants are well developed and interesting people, and I wish they had been given a greater role in the story, especially Cosima.  So are most of the major characters in the Kin and Drothe’s friends, such as Bronze Degan, a member of an elite fighting corps.  Like the plot, as the books goes on, the characters get deeper and more complex.  Probably the most complex is the friendship Drothe has with Degan, which becomes one of the pivotal relationships in the novel.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the plot or the interactions and relationships between all the characters.  To tell more would be to deprive you of the pleasure of discovering those depths for yourself.  Hulick leaves enough loose ends and enough questions unanswered, such as just who was Drothe’s stepfather, that there’s plenty of room for a sequel.  Don’t let that put you off from reading the book.  All of the major questions central to the conflict in the book are answered.

This is an impressive debut by a writer who, if he can maintain this level and continue to grow, and I hope and believe that he can, will be a major player in the fantasy field.  An Upright Man in the genre, if you will.

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David Gemmell Legend Award Finalists Announced

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This year’s slate of finalists for the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel 2010 have been announced:

  •  Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan (Tor/Orbit)
  • The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel (Gollancz)
  • The War of the Dwarves by Marcus Heitz (Orbit)
  • The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (Orbit)
  • The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (Tor/Gollancz)
  • The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett (Voyager)

Named after the late David Gemmell, the award aims to recognize excellence in the fantasy field.  The main page of the award is here.

Also announced are the finalists for the Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer/Debut and the finalists for the Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Book Jacket/Artist.

The nominees for the Morningstar Award are:

  • Spellwright by Charlton Blake (Tor)
  • Warrior Priest by Darius Hinks (The Black Library)
  • The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by M. K. Jemison (Orbit)
  • Shadow Prowler by Alexy Pehov (Tor)
  • Tymon’s Flight by Mary Victoria (Harper Collins Australia)

The finalists for the Ravenheart Award are:

  • Olof Erla Einarsdottir – Power & Majesty
  • Todd Lockwood – The Ragged Man
  • Cliff Neilsen – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
  • John Sullivan – Shadow King
  • Frank Victoria – Tymon’s Flight

A complete list of all nominees for the Gemmell, Morningstar, and Ravenheart Awards can be found here, here, and here, respectively.

Congratulations to all nominees, especially the finalists.

Long Looks at Short Fiction: The Forest Boy by Martha Wells

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It’s been a while since I’ve done one of the Long Looks at Short Fiction posts.  Far too long a while.  A few weeks ago I reviewed The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells and griped a little bit about having to wait on the order of a year before the sequel is published.I really enjoyed the world Wells created and have wanted to see more of it since before I finished the last page and closed the book.  Fortunately, I have.  On her webpage, Martha Wells has made available a selection of novel excepts and short stories.  You should really check some of them out.  One of them is entitled “The Forest Boy“, and it’s a prequel to The Cloud Roads.  In that book we learned that the protagonist, Moon, had been orphaned as a young boy.  Because of his ability to shape shift, he was never able to settle down and find a home, instead continually being forced to leave because of the fear his other form caused the people around him.

In “The Forest Boy” we get to see an episode from Moon’s early life, one of the attempts he made to find a home and acceptance, and how jealousy drove him from it.

Instead of making Moon the viewpoint character, Wells has chosen instead to tell the story from the point of view of Tren.  Tren is one of six foster children adopted by Kaleb and his wife Ari.  The settlement where they live is along a trading route called the Long Road, and the children are primarily those abandoned along the road.

Tren and his foster sister Lua are searching the settlement’s midden when they discover Moon caught in a trap.  They get Kaleb, who frees Moon, takes him home, and oversees his recovery.  Moon is accepted into the family without question.

During the course of his recovery, Moon and Lua become quite close.  Since Tren had assumed he and Lua would one day be married, Lua’s growing relationship with Moon naturally causes problems.

That’s all I’ll say about the plot.  The story is a character driven one, not an action tale, although there is one fight scene near the end that was well done.  The choice to use Tren rather than Moon as the viewpoint character was a wise one.  If the story had been told by Moon, it would have simply rehashed things told in The Cloud Roads.  Instead, by focusing on a character who isn’t seen in the novel, and probably won’t ever be again, Wells breaks new ground by giving us a detailed look at the impact Moon has on the lives of the people he encounters.

Adolescence can be a turbulent time in the life of a person, and Wells shows in a few thousand words just how difficult and unsettling such a time is.  Tren’s feelings are complex, and even as he knows many of his feelings are unfounded and irrational, that doesn’t stop him from having them.  Or of despising the jealousy he feels even as it grows.  The ultimate lesson Tren learns, that things aren’t always what they seem, and that the people we envy often envy us for the things in our lives we take for granted, is a bitter lesson.  It’s one of life’s most powerful lessons, though.

Not only is Tren a fully developed character, but so is Lua, even though her character is revealed indirectly, through her words and actions, and not her thoughts.  Kaleb and Ari are shown to be loving, caring parents, even though they don’t get much stage time.

Finally, I found the descriptions of the round-trees and the brief mentions of the forest fauna lent an air of exoticism to the story reminiscent of the best ecology building of James H. Schmitz or Alan Dean Foster.  With only a few lines, I was transported to another world, different yet at the same time familiar enough that I could relate to it.

I still haven’t figured out if this series is ultimately going to turn out to be fantasy or science fiction, and at this point, I really don’t care.  I see elements of both, but that could be my training as a scientist imposing an order that may not be there.  It’s a fascinating world no matter how the stories are classified.  I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.

Blogging Kull: The Altar and the Scorpion

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Kull:  Exile of Atlantis
Del Rey
trade paper, 317 p., $17

This is another of the brief tale, although unlike the previous one, “The Striking of the Gong,” Kull isn’t featured in this one but merely mentioned. This is a minor story in the Kull canon, and upon close examination it’s easy to see why. 

Howard opens the story with an unnamed youth bowing before an altar of a scorpion and imploring the scorpion to save him and the girl he loves, also never given a name, from the evil priest Guron.  Guron isn’t a priest of the Scorpion God but rather the  Black Shadow.  Guron and his priests are sacking the city, something else that doesn’t have a name.  Guron plans to sacrifice the pair on an altar to the Black Shadow.  From what Howard tells us, the cult of the Black Shadow practices human sacrifice. 

The city is somewhere within the kingdom of Valusia.  Kull is leading his army to rescue the city, but he won’t be able to arrive in time to rescue the youth and his lover.  The young man is imploring the Scorpion God on the basis of a promise the deity made generations ago when the young man’s ancestor Gonra died defeating a horde of barbarians intent on plundering the temple of the scorpion.  As a reward for his faithfulness, the Scorpion God promised through his priests that he would aid all of Gonra’s descendants. 

As the young man finishes his prayer, his lover bursts into the room, pursued by Guron.  Guron is a giant of a man, tall and strong.  He is able to bind both the young man and the girl single handedly, in spite of their struggles.  He also gloats that even if he is defeated by Kull, he will have his revenge on the line of Gonra.  He also mocks the Scorpion God as a deity almost no one worships any more.

As he is about to carry the pair off, Guron screams, drops his captives, and falls to the floor.  Dead.  The girl says a scorpion “crawled across my bare bosom, without harming me, and when Guron seized me, it stung him!”  The young man tells her a scorpion hasn’t been seen in the city in generations, so this must be the Scorpion God’s deliverance.

The two crawl to the altar, still bound, and worship the Scorpion God.

Two things stuck out to me when I read this story, and I suspect it has to do with having spent a number of my growing up years less than an hour from Cross Plains.

The first is the prayer the youth prays to the Scorpion God.  It’s long and bombastic, and basically reminds the deity of his obligations and points out to him how dire the present circumstances are.  Most people would simply dismiss this as a form of infodump.  I think there’s a little more to it than that. 

While he wasn’t what you would call a regular church-goer in his adult years, Bob Howard was certainly familiar with what went on inside the walls of at least some of the local houses of worship.  His mother was a regular attender of services until her health began to prevent her from going.  His father also attended, at least sporadically.  One of his parents was a Methodist and the other a Baptist.  I want to say his mother was the Methodist, but I don’t recall for certain.  I’ve got that information written down somewhere, but I’m not sure where.  And it really doesn’t matter.

My point is the prayer here is similar to a number of prayers that Bob would have heard growing up.  I’ve certainly heard enough like it over the years, although never to a scorpion.  I suspect Howard was imitating the style of prayer with which he was most familiar. 

Scorpion common to the Cross Plains area

The other thing is that scorpions are a common hazard in that part of Texas, so they would be something Howard would not only be familiar with, but probably had a healthy respect for.  The tales of people shaking out their boots before putting them on have a lot of truth to them.  And I know from first hand experience that scorpions can crawl on you and never sting.  So Howard having the scorpion crawl across the girl’s breasts without it stinging her is completely believable and quite probably based on Howard’s personal experiences.

That having been said, it’s easy to see the influence of his small town Texas environs on Robert E. Howard when he was composing this story.  It’s not one of the best Kull tales.  The fact that the two main characters are never given names, nor is the city in which the story is set named, is rather unusual for Howard.  He typically gives names to most of the characters, major or minor, in his works.  Still, if you know where to look, you can see Howard incorporating the familiar and transforming it into something strange and exotic.

Gene Wolfe’s 80th Birthday Blog

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The name Gene Wolfe should be familiar to most of you reading this blog.  Author of numerous works of science fiction, fantasy, and unclassifiable combinations of both, Gene Wolfe is a giant in the field.  Mr. Wolfe’s 80th birthday is this Saturday, May 7th.  If you click here, you will be taken to a blog in which you can leave a birthday message.  Drop him a line and wish him many happy returns.  And feel free to pass this link on.

Realms of Fantasy: A Review of the April 2011 Issue

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Realms of Fantasy,  April 2011 Issue
81 p., $6.99

I don’t know if this issue was late or if the distributor at the local chain box store simply drug its feet, but I just saw this issue a couple of days ago.  I know it wasn’t in the store a week prior to that. 

It doesn’t really matter, either.  The important thing is that the issue is there.  After last year’s cancellation of the magazine, it’s good to see it back on the stands. The usual slew of columns are basically intact:  book reviews, movie reviews, a special in-depth look at the Addams Family on Broadway.  Theodora Goss devotes her Folkroots column to vampires, something we’ve examined a time or two here in the last few weeks. The Artist Gallery, always one of the high points of the magazine, looks at Brom this month. 

Which brings me to a negative point.  The cover stock used by the new publisher is of a lower quality than what was used in the past.  I was halfway through reading the issue when I noticed that the ink was coming off on my fingers.  Now I prefer my reading material to melt in my mind, not in my hands.  I understand the need to economize and that the new publisher, Damnation Books, is in business to make a profit.  But at seven bucks a pop, it wouldn’t hurt to invest in the cover a little  more.

All that aside, the fiction is the backbone of the magazine, even though it tries to cover every aspect of the fantasy field.  So the question is, how does the fiction in this issue hold up?

Since this issue is a special dark fantasy issue, I was doubtful there would be much pure sword and sorcery to be found.  I was right in that assumption, but that’s okay.  Realms of Fantasy has never been strong on S&S, and seeing how the editor is the same, I don’t really expect that to change.  There are five pieces of fiction of varying length, by names both new and familiar to me.  I’ll take them in order. 

“A Witch’s Heart” by Randy Henderson:  This is a feminist deconstruction of Hansel and Gretel.  Instead of trying to eat both children, the witch convinces Gretel to become her apprentice (although that word isn’t used), telling her that women have power and all men, including her father and her brother, are jealous of that power and so try to oppress women.  This type of thing is nothing new; we’ve seen this sort of approach a number of times before, most notably in the Datlow and Windling fairy tale anthologies that began in the 90s.   Although the story is well written, it really doesn’t break any new ground.  I suspect if you like this kind of thing, you’ll like the story; if you don’t, you won’t.  That said, the story was well written enough that I would probably read something else by this author.

“The Sacrifice” by Michelle M. Welch:  One of the longer stories in the magazine, this one concerns two law clerks and a mysterious woman, alleged victim of a crime, who rises to become a feared military leader.  The emphasis here is on the changing relationship between the clerks and the role the woman plays in that change, with little to no focus on the several battles that take place.  It also looks at sacrifice and the cost of achieving your goals.

“Little Vampires” by Lisa Goldstein:  A layered and complex take on family, commitment, sacrifice, and vampires, this is one of the shortest items in the fiction, but powerful and moving nonetheless.  There are stories within stories in this one, and Goldstein’s handling of them shows why she’s one of the more critically acclaimed authors of the past few decades.  And that bit with the candles was truly creepy.

“By Shackle and Lash” by Euan Harvey:  A disgraced soldier is demoted to assistant gaoler and given the task of emptying the slop buckets of the prisoners.  It turns out there’s a cell that isn’t always there, and its occupant has been imprisoned a really long time.  Those to whom she chooses to appear are changed.  The author implies the story takes place in the far future, when oceans are mostly gone and the population has moved into the sea bottoms because the formerly occupied land areas are no longer inhabitable.  This, along with “The Sacrifice”, is one of the two longest tales in the issue, and my favorite.  It is the closest to sword and sorcery that’s to be found here.

“The Strange Case of Madeleine H. Marsh (Age 14 1/2)” by Von Carr:  A tongue-in-cheek look at what happens when a young teenage girl discovers the C’thulhu Mythos has manifested in the basement when her parents are away on an extended trip.  I really enjoyed the humor in this one, and what kept it from being my favorite of the issue is the apparent breakdown of chronology at the end.  The girl’s friends come over one evening and from what I could tell, Madeleine starts calling exterminators after they leave, which would be fairly late at night.  Other than the author not making the timeline clear, this was a superior piece of fiction.  Humor is hard to do well, and Carr, a writer new to me, does it well.

And that’s it for the fiction.  Nothing really outstanding, but all of the stories were well written with four out of five stories enjoyable to a greater or lesser degree.  At least for me.  Your mileage may vary.  In all, a solid issue with a decent variety of dark fantasy.  The stories varied in their level of darkness, in my opinion, with only the humor piece being questionable as far as whether it should be considered dark fantasy.  There should be something here for most readers, although I’m hoping the sword and sorcery content increases in the future.  Oh, and that they go to a different cover stock.

Whether Realms of Fantasy will succeed in this incarnation remains to be seen.  I hope it does, but given the price is now $6.99, they can’t afford to have too many mediocre stories.  The June issue will be the 100th issue, with 100 pages.  I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with that one.